Touch of the White Tiger Read Free Page A

used my lapel phone because I didn’t want to wake up Lin using the omnisystem. I popped the receiver in my ear.
    “Riccuccio Marco,” I said softly, and his number began to ring. With a tightening in my gut, I waited for him to answer, entwined wrists resting on my frowning forehead.
    “Yeah?” Marco answered in a groggy voice after five rings.
    “Okay,” I said, barely able to get the word past my heart, which pounded in my throat.
    “Angel?”
    “Yes.”
    “Okay what?”
    “Okay,” I repeated impatiently. “I’ll do it.”
    There was a long pause. He said, more alert, warmly, “Okay.”
    “But only as an experiment.”
    “How will I know you aren’t going to go out behind my back?”
    “I’ll put away my Glock,” I magnanimously offered. “I never leave home without it, at least not when I’m on a job. I rarely use it and have never killed anyone, but it’s like insurance. You know that if you don’t have it, you’ll need it. No Glock, no retribution jobs.”
    “Can you resist the urge to retrieve it in a pinch?”
    “I’ll put it in my bank safety deposit box. You can be my witness. In fact, I insist. I want to make sure I get full credit for this charade. I’ll take a vacation for one week, but I want something concrete in return.”
    “What?”
    “If I go seven days without taking on a retribution job, you have to have sex with me.”
    “Ah, such a price to pay,” he said, teasing.
    “I mean it. I have to have some motivation here.”
    He let out a sexy chuckle. “Okay. It’s a deal. You really want to do this?”
    “Sure,” I said lightly. “It’ll be a cinch.”
    Boy, was I ever wrong.

Chapter 2
    Mirandized
     
    S ix days, twenty-two hours and twenty-three minutes into my agreement with Marco, my lapel phone rang. Waking from a deep sleep, I slammed my hand on the bedside table, feeling for the noise. At the same time I managed to blink open one eye and saw 3:12 a.m. reflected on the ceiling.
    “Who on earth…?” I muttered as I grabbed the tiny round phone. Plugging the receiver in my ear, I groused, “What?”
    “Angel?” came a gruff and vaguely familiar voice.
    “Who is this?”
    “Roy.”
    I went instantly alert. Roy Leibman was one of Chicago’s best retributionists. I couldn’t imagine why he was calling me at this hour. I propped myself up on one elbow.
    “What is it, Roy?”
    “I need help,” he whispered.
    The hair on my neck sprang up. Roy had never asked for help from me before. He was fifty-five and I was twenty-eight. He’d been my mentor. He shouldn’t need help. That’s not how our relationship worked. “Where are you, Roy?”
    “At the Cloisters. Can you come?”
    I glanced up at the red numbers reflected on the ceiling. It was now 3:13 a.m. I was an hour and thirty-five minutes away from seven days of abstinence from my work. If I answered Roy’s call for help, I’d have to start all over again. Since I was self-employed, I could take off as much time as I needed. And I’d enjoyed hanging out with Lin. We’d done everything from making sand castles on the beach to moonwalking in the Virtual Dome. But I couldn’t afford to be unemployed forever. More importantly, how could I not help a colleague in need? Besides, what Marco didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him—or me—would it?
    “I’m on my way, Roy.”
    “How fast can you get here?”
    “I’ll take a chopper cab. Ten minutes, tops.”
    Chopper cabs were expensive as all get out, and I splurged on them maybe once a year. But Roy needed me and I was determined to be there for him. Fortunately, there was a cab stand on the roof of the Music Box theater, which was just a few blocks north on Southport.
    I dressed fast, wishing I had more than a knife and a whip to attach to my utility belt, woke Lola and talked her into moving from her bed downstairs to mine in case Lin woke up. Then I ran the ten-block distance like athletes used to when humans still dominated the Olympics. When I