Cash Burn Read Free Page B

stepped past Tom into the hallway. The man’s smell drifted up to him. Some kind of cologne tried to mask it and didn’t quite succeed. It was a smell like you’d expect to find under a rock where bugs crawled around.
    Tom locked him outside.
    The room was typical of furnished apartments like these, bare except for a cheap coffee table and a brown plaid sofa that sagged in the middle. Beyond it was a kitchen, a refrigerator green as the wall at Fenway. The rank smell of unwashed dishes filtered through the room.
    Tom wandered into the kitchen. No drug paraphernalia. He wouldn’t expect any with this guy. The dishes in the sink hadn’t piled up beyond counter level yet, but they were close. A coffee cup sat on the counter with a line inside that marked where the coffee had been when he’d set it there, a quarter-inch above the black liquid now pooled in the cup.
    On the small bathroom counter, Flip’s toiletries were scattered—a disposable razor, Barbasol shave cream, and a bar of soap worn down to a nub. A bottle of Old Spice was the one nod to vanity.
    The bedroom was nothing to get excited about. A scarred bureau with drawers hanging on at odd angles. No sheets on the bed, just a couple of blankets on top of the bare mattress.
    Tom returned to the door and joined Flip in the hallway. “Tell me about this job.”
    “Working in a soda warehouse. Moving cases around. It’s not bad.”
    “Yeah?”
    “I guess you want the guy’s name and number.”
    “You guess right.”
    Flip went inside and came back with a business card. Tom pulled out his notepad and copied down the name and number of the warehouse manager.
    “Does he know about your record?” He returned the card to Flip.
    “He knows I got one. Knows I got released from Lancaster last month. That’s enough, isn’t it?”
    “Yeah, that’s enough.”
    Flip kept his hands behind his back.
    “Who you been hanging around with, Flip?”
    Those black eyes held steady, didn’t move off Tom’s face. “Everybody I know’s in prison. Who’m I going to hang around with?” There was no flinching on Flip’s face, no turning of the eyes. “I’ve been keeping to myself. Not going to bars, not hanging around with any known felons. I’ve been staying in town. What else is there?”
    “Let me see those hands.”
    Flip’s eyes betrayed him for an instant. It was like something flew across his brows to narrow his eyes and then was gone, and the face relaxed again. He brought his hands around, palms up.
    “Turn them over.”
    Flip smiled, his lips not parting. It was an animal smile. He turned them over.
    The skin on the knuckles was broken and bruised, the injuries a few days old. A laceration an inch long ran across the middle knuckle on his right hand. “I scraped them moving some cases of soda.”
    “Cases of soda.”
    “Sure.” Flip dropped his hands.
    Tom saw no marks on Flip’s face. Nothing but the battered knuckles. “All right, we’re going to take some pictures. Keep those hands out.” Tom pulled his camera out of his pocket and snapped two shots of the hands. It was mostly for show, but there was no harm putting Flip on notice. He slipped the camera back into his pocket. “You know I’ll check the hospitals. I’ll find out what really happened.”
    Those eyes didn’t flicker. “There’s nothing to find out. I just told you. Moving cases of soda. Nothing else to it, Officer.”
    The eyes held too steady. This guy had been lying all his life. Just like the rest of them. They were all as good at it as they were at survival inside.
    “Okay, Flip. I’ll see what I can find out from our database over the past few days. When I find a guy you put in a hospital, or if this job turns out to be bogus, you’re going right back inside.” He turned away.
    Having his back turned to Flip flared up every nerve ending. But no blow hammered into his back or neck. Flip only said, “I don’t get many visitors, Officer. You come back real