The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Eight Read Free

Pete.  The darker part of my organization was gone, wiped out to the last cheap handgun.
    I growled in annoyance and continued my stealthy work, ready to hunt down what remained of the clean side of my operation.
     
    My first target on the clean side of my operation, Greg, was doing just fine.  He was, of all things, engaged to Ying Tien.  The gym, however, the one I had spent so much time on, was bankrupt.  In a couple of weeks, the estate of Mr. Oldman, my moneyman, would be auctioning off my gym equipment.  Mr. Oldman, my moneyman, wasn’t worth salvaging.  His health had deteriorated and he now spent about half his time in the hospital.  The Tiens were losing ground monetarily again due to Grandma Tien’s inability to run a kitchen.  I repressed the urge to arrange for her to have a fatal accident.  I gave up on Absoth.  He had quickly slid back into alcoholism without my help.  Dick, the mailman, did fine.  My control on him still held and he still followed my advice, meaning his life had turned around.
    I visited Dick first, but my disguise no longer mattered.  He knew I was Carol Hancock, Arm and serial killer, but we made due.  I offered him a job as my operations manager in Houston, with a substantial raise.  He took the job, so I tagged him.  He had earned both by not screwing up his life after my capture.  I assigned him the task of buying my own gym equipment at auction and getting the damned shit shipped to Houston.
    Then I went and visited the Tiens, after an intense search of the area around the China Garden to make doubly sure the police, FBI and the Hunters didn’t have eyes on them.  The Tiens occupied a special place on the clean side of my operations, because I had used them as fraudulent references, and because I had once killed a Chimera on their front doorstep.  I exercised more caution here than with the others – Keaton’s faux-Hancock spree from Dallas to Youngstown and every medium sized town or larger in-between had stirred up the Feds more than I had ever experienced in my tenure as an Arm.  Connecting the Tiens to me wasn’t impossible.
    “Mr. Tien,” I said, sitting down at his table in the back of the empty restaurant where he did the daily books.  The warm mid-afternoon sun shone through the thin spots in the faded velvet drapes.  “So glad to see you.”
    He about died on the spot, not having noticed my entrance.  I was good at stealth these days.  “Ma’am.  What can I do for you?”  His hands shook so much the pen he had been holding went flying into the air.  I snagged the pen as it went by.
    “Someday, I’m going to be coming back to Chicago to live,” I said.  “I’d like your family to still be here, safe and sound, when I get back.  Is Ying around?  I’d like to talk to her and Greg.”
    “I, I can call.  They are engaged, yes?”
    I nodded , and he went and called.  In the meantime, Joey drifted by, a big smile on his face.  Thirteen now, and his voice had changed.  I remained his hero, more so because I was an Arm.  He wanted, of all things, an autograph.  He promised to keep my identity a secret.  I wouldn’t tell him the stories he really wanted to hear, though.
    Mr. Tien came back and saw the money I had slipped into his ledger.  “Do you know anyone in Houston?” I said.  I had weighed my options back and forth for hours.  Should I start over in Houston, or should I breech my own security, connect myself to Chicago and use what I had put together here?  I could make the argument both ways, but good people were hard to find, especially for legitimate business purposes.
    I studied Mr. Tien’s face.  He could have made a phone call to the police, but hadn’t.  Business with me was lucrative; and since I hadn’t involved the Tiens in any of the darker aspects of my dealings, my business was mostly legal save for the part about who they dealt with.  Also, he had seen my fight with the Chimera in his parking lot.  A