Last Ditch Read Free Page A

gotten her
out of a nasty
situation involving some dangerous tree huggers who thought they could
save the
planet by blowing things up.
    "Gonna
be
a schoolteacher," he said.
    "Great."
    "I
think
it's what's keepin' the old man alive. He ain't been outta the house in
years,
but he says we're goin' to the ceremony. His doctors are shittin'
bricks. Say
it'll kill him."
    "How
is
the old man? He still lucid?"
    Frankie
smiled.
"Depends on who he's talkin to. Caroline comes around, they have a hell
of
a time, laughin' and carryin' on. His doctors try to talk to him, all
of a
sudden he thinks he's friggin' Cleopatra."
    Another
four
minutes of mindless small talk and Rebecca finally picked up the vibe.
Frankie
was old school. Nothing personal, but Frankie Ortiz didn't do business
in front
of women. She shot me a pitying look and got to her feet "If you
gentlemen
will excuse me, I best go inside before I get the vapors."
    Frankie
rose
and shook her hand in thanks. He stayed on his feet until she closed
the French
doors behind her and then sat back down.
    "Nice
girl, Leo. You're a lucky guy."
    "Thanks,
Frankie. You just stop by to shoot the breeze, or did you have
something a
little more substantial you wanted to discuss?"
    I
think he was
surprised at how polite I was. Usually he likes to dance around a bit,
at which
point I usually get impatient and impolite, and then the whole thing
goes to
shit Today he got right to it.
    "Got
a
call from a guy we know in Vegas," he said. "A macher ."
He said it right, with the back-of-the-throat noise.
"You know what a macher is,
Leo?"
    A macher was a maker. A big shot A guy who
could make things happen. I knew the breed well. My old man had been a macher .
    "Yeah,
I
know what it means," I said.
    "So
the
guy says to me, he says, 'Hey Frankie, didn't you tell me about some
private
dickhead guy named Waterson or something who helped you and Tim out
that one
time wid the kid?' "
    Frankie
looked
up at me to see if I was paying attention. I was.
    "So
I says
to him, 'Yeah, that's right, why?' And he says, there's a couple of
dweezels
been losing big lately out at the south end of the strip, tellin' the
workin'
girls the dough they're pissin' away is no problem 'cause there's more
where
that came from. Say they're headed up north to pop a Seattle
private dick named Waterville
or some such shit. My friend says he thought maybe we'd like to know.
From what
he hears, these bozos been tellin the honeys that they crewed for this
same
party a while back. He asks me if we know anything about what's goin'
on."
Frankie made a face. "And I ask him, 'Hey . . . what the fuck are you
callin' us for? The friggin' newspaper knows more about the shit goin'
on
around here these days than Tim and I do;, we're strictly legit Only
staff
Tim's got anymore are the nurses in charge of wiping his wrinkled ass,
for
Christ sake. We're not exactly still in business, if you know what I'm
talkin
about' "He sounded almost wistful. Almost.
    "You
trust
this Vegas guy?" I asked.
    He
tilted his
head and pursed his lips. "I don't trust anybody, Leo," he said.
"But I was you, I'd watch my ass."

    "AND
THAT,
OF course, explains why you were wearing a bulletproof vest," Paula
Stillman prodded. It was a smart move. Most citizens don't jog in a
Kevlar vest
or carry a nine-millimeter automatic, with two extra clips taped to
their chests.
Tends to chafe. Stillman knew she could count on the defense to bring
it up, so
she did it herself. Hennessey would sure as hell try to show that my
state of
paranoia was somehow responsible for the gunplay rather than the two
professional shooters the judge had hired to put me out of my misery.
    *      *      *
    ABOUT
TWO
MINUTES after Frankie said his good-byes, I'd called the cops.
Balderama and Wales
had sympathized and offered twenty-four-hour police protection, but I
knew what
that meant Two weeks down the road, they'd need the manpower for
something
else, offer us the services of a retired school