Private Dick Casefile 01 - Lily White Rose Red Read Free Page B

and set it on her shoulders. She put her hand over one of mine with a grip of iron. “I suspect that you won’t let me down, Mr. Randall.

    Lily White, Rose Red: Grey Randall, Private Dick Casefile #1
    13

    But before you let anyone know that you’re working for me, get yourself a new tie.”
    “What’s wrong with my tie, other than your footprint on it?” I looked down at it. Dark blue with red and yellow stripes. It was just a regular tie.
    “It’s hideous. A handsome man like you can do so much better.” Then she turned and walked out.
    “Hideous?” I muttered, staring at my tie.
    “ Hideous , darling!” Her voice floated back from the hallway, followed by a throaty laugh.
    I went to the window and waited for her to emerge from the building. A middle-aged colored man was standing by a big shiny limousine, and he held the door open for her when she came out. A Lincoln two-tone, midnight blue, 1948. I would have loved to drive that car. He handed her into the back seat and circled the car to get in the driver’s side. I watched it start to roll and turn at the corner.
    She was lying. Miss Lily McIntyre was lying to me, from start to finish, but somehow I could tell this was the start of something big for me.
    All I had to do now was find out what the fuck it was I was really supposed to be finding out.
    I sat down and entertained myself by trying to read my name backwards on the frosted glass in the door: evitceteD etavirP lladnaR
    yerG. Yerg! What was I thinking? I had to get to work. I had a case to solve.

    COPS don’t exactly love private dicks. If a dick cracks a case that they couldn’t solve, it makes them look bad. Dicks can do things the cops can’t, at least not that the fuzz can be caught doing. For instance, we can lean on a suspect a little harder or bribe them to go canary. If I’m on a case, I can work it full time without having to stop and hand out a ticket for jaywalking.

    14

    CATT FORD

    On the other hand, cops swing a lot of weight that I don’t have. I can’t force a witness to see me if they refuse. A cop can get a warrant to get face to face, even if they can’t make a witness sing.
    So it’s pretty safe to say that the cops weren’t going to be overjoyed to give me the bird’s-eye lowdown on this caper. Still, I was on good terms with a few city employees. Everyone in Vegas had known of Captain Billy Woods of the downtown precinct since he’d come to Vegas two years ago, but I didn’t know him personally. I had a guarded relationship with his second in command, Lt. Tom Steele, and a not-quite-so-guarded friendship with my old pal Reggie Harding.
    It always helps to have an inside man, and it helps to know where he goes to tie the feedbag on. Reggie liked this little diner over on 3rd, Nancy’s Diner. I’d never set foot in there before, but that was where I headed now to get the scoop on the case.
    Even if Reggie wasn’t working on it, cops are terrible gossips, and he’d know all about it. Besides, neither of the other two would have given me the time of day. Woods would probably have said something about ongoing investigations, and Steele liked to pretend that private dicks didn’t exist. Which was fine by me; I just wished I could pretend he didn’t.
    I parked my heap across the way from the diner and waited till I saw Reggie go in and take a booth. I had a sneaking suspicion that he might make a bolt for it when he saw me, especially if word got around that Miss McIntyre had hired herself a dick.
    I waited till he was shoveling it in before I opened the door to the joint slow and careful, so as not to jostle the bell. I slid into the seat opposite him before he even knew I was there. He started to stand up, but I hooked his feet out from under him, and he dropped back onto the vinyl-covered bench with a thud.
    “Anyone would think you weren’t happy to see me, Reg.”
    “Fuck off, Randall!”
    “Can I help you?”
    I looked up to see a fortyish waitress