Blues in the Night Read Free Page A

in the morning. Well, he figured he’d know soon enough. Wylie’s company Lexus sedan had just emerged with screeching tires to follow after the Mustang.
    He pried himself free of his car, a stocky guy wearing two-inch heels that almost brought him to six feet. He was wrapped in a Zegna suit worth a couple thou, cut to emphasize his shoulders and hide a thickening waist. His nut-brown face had once been slick-handsome, but it was starting to sag at the jowls.
    That morning while shaving he was thinking it just might be Botox-and-tuck time. Youth must be served, after all.
    He circled the front building at a jaunty clip, strolled past the pool where two wrinkled old duffers were puffing through their morning laps. No hot babes in bikinis that early, if ever. The Florian was not exactly a Girls Gone Wild operation. It was a well-run apartment hotel with some permanent guests who enjoyed its full-service facilities and close proximity to the stores and restaurants on Sunset Boulevard and transients – mainly theater actors, artists and musicians from the Other Coast – who prized its vaguely Bohemian atmosphere, the harmless eccentricities of its friendly staff and the fact that each ‘suite’ included kitchenettes for them to cook their own food.
    Paulie, in his Sam Goldwyn-like way, had concluded that he wouldn’t have been caught dead living there.
    He took the rear stairwell at a brisk pace, paused before a door on the third floor and knocked. ‘Me,’ he said.
    He heard the lock sliding away.
    When the door opened, he stepped in to find Mace, dressed in clothes that looked like he’d slept in them, his feet bare. Holding a coffee mug. It had been nine years since he’d last seen the man. Dave Mason looked harder now. Tougher. A little weather-beaten, but that figured, him living in swampland.
    Lacotta opened his arms. ‘C’mere, you son of a bitch,’ he said, grinning.
    Mace put his coffee mug on a table and accepted the inevitable bear hug.
    When Lacotta was through physically bonding, he took a backward step and gave Mace a head-to-toe. ‘You’re looking money, amigo.’
    The tan. The hug. Now ‘money’ and ‘amigo’. Jesus Christ! Mace bit his tongue and said, ‘You too, Paulie. Really living la vida El Lay, huh?’
    Lacotta beamed proudly, as if Mace had paid him a high compliment. ‘You know it, dude.’ He turned to the windows. ‘My girl been behaving herself?’ he asked.
    â€˜So far.’
    Lacotta scanned the room. He moved to the nearest bed and tested the mattress with a finger poke. ‘We’ve seen worse, huh?’
    Mace supposed that was true. He took his mug over to the stove for a refill. ‘Coffee?’ he asked.
    â€˜Hell, no,’ Lacotta said, wincing. ‘That caffeine shit stains the teeth. Sours the stomach. Coffee’ll kill you quicker’n cancer.’
    Mace toasted him with his mug and took a sip.
    â€˜How’s my boy Wylie doin’?’ Lacotta asked.
    â€˜Out tailing the subject.’
    â€˜They were leaving when I got here. What I want to know is what you think of him.’
    â€˜The snake on his neck makes close shadow work a little tricky. People tend to remember things like that. You know, start to wonder, wasn’t there a guy with a snake walking behind me this morning?’
    â€˜The fucking kid’s body looked like the Sunday funnies. We got most of it lasered off, but the doc said he couldn’t do anything with the snake. Something about the ink. He offered to turn it into a birthmark, like the Russian guy, what’s-his-name, had on his head. Wylie’s not exactly up with that. What do you think?’
    â€˜I think you’re losing it if you’re coming to me for cosmetic advice.’
    Lacotta ducked his head in a nod of agreement. ‘What else about him?’
    â€˜If the subject decides to go for a stroll, he’ll be