Fury Read Free

ear. The guy made a surprisingly fast move to duck and turn, but Corso moved with him, increasing the pressure on the pen until it threatened to burst his eardrum, lifting him up onto his tiptoes, as if he were climbing a ladder.
    “Easy now…easy now,” the big guy chanted in a strained tenor.
    Corso recognized the voice. Pulled the pen back and spun the guy around. The guy rubbed behind his ear. Scowled. “What the hell’s with the Apache routine, Frank?” he asked. “You could seriously piss a guy off with that kind of shit.”
    “Apache, my ass. I should be asking you what’s with the lurking routine?”
    The big guy patted the hair at the back of his head. His face was red. “I’m a professional lurker, Frank. Remember? I’m a detective. Lurkers Are Us.”
    Corso slipped his shoes onto his feet, shouldered his way past the guy, and headed back to the car. The guy followed Corso into the rain.
    “You don’t generate much paperwork, Frank,” he said to Corso’s back. “You don’t exactly leave a guy a lot of choices when it comes to finding you.”
    “Might lead some guys to figure I don’t want to be found,” Corso said. He stuck his head inside the car.
    “Took me damn near two hours yammering on the phone,” the guy complained as he ambled through the downpour.
    “Come over here and make your big ass useful,” Corso said.
    The big man crossed the parking lot to Corso’s side. Both men stood six-four, but that was where the similarities ended. Corso had a loose-jointed, raw-boned quality about him. Leo Waterman was big all over. Fingers twice the size of Corso’s. One of those guys you could hit with a shovel, only to have him rise from the ground, smiling at you, with blood on his teeth. That was Leo’s edge, what made him a good private investigator. By the time you figured out he was about three times as smart as you’d imagined, it was too late. You were screwed. Worse yet, if you had a problem with it, Leo doubled as his own complaint department.
    Corso straightened up. Heaved a sigh. Looked the big man in the eye.
    “How you been, Leo?” Corso asked.
    “Hangin’ in there, Frank.”
    Corso clapped him on the shoulder. “Good to see you again. How’s Rebecca?”
    “Dating a gynecologist.”
    “Sorry to hear that, Leo. You guys were together a long time.”
    Leo looked off into the distance. “Yeah,” he said. “Almost twenty years. She says I’m not ‘emotionally available.’”
    “What’s that mean?”
    “Damned if I know,” Leo said. “I’ve been trying to work up a picture of it for the past four months so’s I could fake it.”
    “Sorry to hear it,” Corso said again.
    Leo made a face. “Not only am I back to eating my own cooking, but I’m so horny the crack of dawn better be careful around me,” he said.
    “A gynecologist, huh?”
    “He’s thirty,” Leo said. “Named Brendan.”
    “I remember when thirty sounded so old,” Corso mused.
    “Yeah, me too,” Leo said miserably.
    They stood for a moment, sharing a silent grimace with the rain.
    “Grab ahold here,” Corso said.
    Leo stepped around the corner of the car. A Rolls marine battery. Two hundred or so pounds of lead and acid with a plastic handle at each end.
    Together the two men carried the battery down the ramp to the dock. Set it down while Corso unlocked the chain-link gate to C dock and then lugged it all the way out to the end. By the time they set the load down, Corso was heeled so far over on one side his knuckles threatened to drag on the dock and his hand felt as if it was being cut in two. Leo didn’t seem to notice either Corso’s discomfort or the weight of the load. Corso reckoned how if he were Brendan the gynecologist, he’d make it a point to stay a long way from Leo.
    Leo looked the boat over. Whistled. “Yours, huh?” he asked.
    Corso allowed how it surely was.
    “This true-crime writing shit must really pay,” Leo said. “Maybe I oughta pen my memoirs.” He walked