Gray Night

Gray Night Read Free Page B

Book: Gray Night Read Free
Author: Gregory Colt
Tags: thriller, Action, female protagonist, Pulp, private investigator, dark, fbi, NYC
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last year,” he said.
     Marion Clark had become a dangerous man. To me anyway. Maybe to himself as well, but he didn’t have to tell me. What was he getting at?
     “You telling me not to make you regret it?” I asked.
     “Maybe a little, but no. What I mean is it isn’t just you versus them. You got others to think about. So do I. I can appreciate you stalling and not wanting to be any more involved. Maybe that used to be best, but things are changing. My point is you got something you can do about this you do it, son. You understand?” he said.
     He had gotten it all right without knowing a thing about the situation. Yeah, Marion Clark was a dangerous man. A man that would see the right thing done even if it meant crossing the FBI and the man with the thickest file on Bailey’s desk to do it. Good for him.
     “Yes sir.”

Chapter Three
     Two hours later I turned onto a side street in lower Manhattan and into an entirely different world. After a mile of big, beautiful buildings in steel and glass, one right turn rolled back the clock a few decades. Nick’s office was in a short line of much older brick and mortar buildings that clashed with the wealth not a thousand yards behind. The street was nearly devoid of businesses, and the few that remained were under the constant bombardment of people after the properties, who all seemed to be in need of new parking garages.
     I pulled my ‘70 Chevelle to the curb outside his office building and went inside without bothering to lock the car. I didn’t have to here. For one, the driver’s side door didn’t lock; also, nobody would touch a car parked outside Nick’s place. Nick Roarke had worked here for years before I came back and had quite a reputation. He stayed involved in the neighborhood, volunteered, and took on pro bono work. It led to the decent folks standing by him and having more backbone. And the other folks, well, they gave him a wide berth. A couple of city blocks wide.
     I opened the double glass doors, went into the lobby, and stopped to check the mail. I grabbed the stack inside and flipped through them on my way upstairs. Water bill, electric bill, phone bill, rent notice, and all the bulk rate ads the box could hold.
     The building had an elevator but no one ever used it. The girls who worked the phone banks on the second floor said Abner, the old doorman, told them once that it fell and the previous owners couldn’t afford to fix it. Sometimes one of the new girls would get dared to push the buttons and everyone would freak out listening to the old metal casket rise to take them back down below. It was a hazard and one day it was going to—I heard a shuffling noise coming from the fourth floor hall above me before I reached the top of the stairs.
     Somebody was there waiting. I set the mail on the stairs and drew my gun, a custom built 10mm. Maybe they were here for Nick. Maybe for me. There were no other offices or storage, or anything else up here. No other reason to be on the fourth floor. And there’s no way they didn’t hear me coming up. Paranoid? Maybe. But time and again I’ve found paranoia to be just good sense. Which I’m sure says all kinds of things about my life.
     I ran mental calculations as fast as I could, reconstructing the hallway from memory. About how far down did the sound originate; which doors were open and which were locked? There was no reason to delay unless someone had set a trap, but the only other option was turning around, and I really didn’t like the idea of someone on the stairs above and behind me.
     I knelt down and braced my shoulder against the thick wooden pillar where the stairs met the hallway. I moved fast, rolling my shoulder around the corner, and taking aim down the hallway. In my line of fire were the widest eyes I’d ever seen. They belonged to a boy, maybe fourteen or fifteen, dressed in athletic shorts, a wife-beater and jacket, sitting with his back against the wall outside

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