Cash Burn Read Free Page A

eyebrows, and in this heat he thought of shaving that off too.
    This unannounced visit to Flip’s place was overdue. He had it on his schedule every week, but with all his high-control parolees, he always seemed to be playing catch-up.
    Tom moved off the sidewalk into the alley behind Flip’s apartment building. He scowled at the graffiti scrawled everywhere—black, red, blue. The name Trixter in yellow block letters was outlined in red to make it look three-dimensional. Above, way out of reach, someone must have leaned out from the roof to paint the huge initials RF . Lower on the wall, less artistic initials were drawn in white over others partially crossed out with black paint.
    He walked past blue cubic trash bins reeking of baked garbage, a door meshed by iron grating, the entrance to an underground parking lot with a black-barred gate closed against intruders.
    Here was the back door to Flip’s building. A keyhole and a handle only, no knob. He gripped the handle and yanked it. Solid.
    Above the doorway, burglar bars covered the second-floor windows. A smile crept across his face. Bars on the windows with Flip inside. It was like a zoo with predator and prey locked in together.
    On the sidewalk at the end of the alley, Tom sidestepped a pair of Goths in long black coats despite the heat. Their faces were pale behind black hair. Transylvanians. Next came three women side by side, sunglass styles branding them as tourists, purses dangling from their fingers. Ready to shop. He passed a tattoo parlor and glanced inside. The artist—spiked hair, arms inked up—sat with his feet propped on the counter in front of images of tat options pasted on the wall. The man reached forward to flick his cigarette against the edge of an ashtray, and their eyes met before the wall passed between them.
    Tom rounded another corner and found handbills pasted the length of a wall like wallpaper insanely repeating the same announcements over and over until you couldn’t help but understand and remember that Kayse Evans was going to be playing at the Gig on August 28 and 29.
    Five doors down, he came to the front of Flip’s building. In contrast to all the security in back, the door here swung open like the place was a drugstore during business hours. He stepped inside.
    No elevator. The climb was going to murder his knees. Calling Flip down would save the wear on his joints, but that would be cutting corners. Tom needed to take a look at this new apartment.
    He leaned on the banister, trying to take as much weight off his knees as he could, but every step grated. Soon he’d have to have the surgeries done. He couldn’t delay it much longer.
    Down the hallway, he passed six doors and came to 312 and raised his knuckles and rapped. The door opened.
    Flip held on to the edge of the door as if he wanted to slam it closed. Recognition of Tom Cole crept onto his face, and a sideways kind of grin replaced the glower.
    Flip was wide enough that Tom couldn’t see past him. The man was shaped like a nose tackle; if you wanted to move him, you’d have a big job. He stood with his feet spaced, letting his black eyes bore under black brows, buzz-cut black hair, the nose a prizefighter’s, squashed onto his face like putty. A scar from an old cut creased his right eyebrow and continued diagonally upward to the corner of his forehead, lifting that brow just enough to give him the look of a perpetually interested observer.
    “Officer Cole,” Flip said, and his grin exuded so much menace that Tom shifted his back muscles to make sure the holster hadn’t suddenly vanished from his belt. “I guess you want to come in.” He wore a wife-beater T-shirt, the kind Marlon Brando wore seducing Blanche. Tom could see the rockiness of his muscled arms and shoulders, the chest like a wall.
    Flip backed away and motioned inside. The gracious host.
    “Step on outside, Flip. You’re going to wait out here.”
    Flip hunched over for an instant, shrugged, and