Dutch Uncle E-Book

Peter Pavia

• Herausgeber: Hard Case Crime
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Three days out of prison and trying to stay on the right side of the law, Harry Healy doesn't really want to get involved with Manfred Pfiser's drug deals. But he needs the money - so he agrees to make one simple delivery.

Leseprobe

Vicki was in the Jacuzzi with Mimi, in the water up to her neck, holding the Chihuahua’s head just above the churning surface.

The lawn chair where a towel or a bathrobe should’ve been hanging was empty.

Leo said, “Are you naked under there?”

“Get in and find out for yourself,” Vicki said.

Mimi had been appealing to Leo with her eyes. Just her luck her mistress would be the one person in the world who thought this was a cute idea, a Chihuahua in the hot tub.

The sliding glass door was locked. Leo tapped the Jag’s ignition key against the pane, a clinking that brought Beaumond’s eyes, yellow and dilated, out from behind the curtain. The dining room table was cluttered with boxes of baking soda, a roll of sandwich-sized baggies, and a jar of unlabeled powder.

Beaumond and Fernandez had gotten hold of two triplebeam scales, strategically angled near their places at the table. Dumped on the Business section of the Sunday Herald, the kilo sparkled under the glow from a hanging lamp.

“How’d you make out?” Fernandez wanted to know. He was puffing the tobacco part of the Newport.

“Not too good,” Leo said, grabbing his lighter and sparking a Marlboro. “I’m supposed to meet El Negrito in a little while.”

“What’re you gonna tell him?” Beaumond asked. He was using a yellow sandbox shovel to blend baking soda and cocaine. He dumped a heaping tablespoon of the jarred powder into the batch.

“I’m gonna deny everything.”

Fernandez said, “You think that’ll work?”

“What choice do I have?” Leo said. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m too young to die...”

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DutchUNCLE

byPeter Pavia

A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK

(HCC-012)

First Hard Case Crime edition: July 2005

Published by

Titan BooksA division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd144 Southwark StreetLondonSE1 OUP

in collaboration with Winterfall LLC

Copyright © 2005 by Peter Pavia

Cover painting copyright © 2005 by R. B. Farrell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Print edition ISBN 978-0-85768-312-0

E-book ISBN 978-0-85768-384-7

Design direction by Max Phillips www.maxphillips.net

The name “Hard Case Crime” and the Hard Case Crime logo are trademarks of Winterfall LLC. Hard Case Crime Books are selected and edited by Charles Ardai.

Visit us on the web at www.HardCaseCrime.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Miami Beach, 1996

Chapter One

Strolling Ocean Drive on his third day of parole, Harry Healy ran into Leo, whose last name he didn’t learn the weekend they threw Leo into his cell, at a sidewalk café sipping espresso.

Harry started out just Drunk and Disorderly, but when he landed a left on the chin of arresting officer Kenneth Simms, a pack of O’Learys fell on him and dealt him the beating of his life. They knocked out two teeth and fractured the fourth rib on his left side, and one cop bent his arm so sharply behind his back it separated from his shoulder, still popping out from time to time so that Harry had to realign it himself. That didn’t bother him too much, and neither did the rib after the first eight weeks or so, but he was still pissed about the teeth, holes where an incisor and a bicuspid used to be, making him look exactly like the ex-con he now was.

Leo was Drunk and Disorderly too, and he spent the weekend getting orderly while his father’s attorneys tracked down the connections who got him undone.

Leo was twenty-five or thirty. He had a wiry build that was going soft, a superstar jock who got hurt and had his shot at baseball glory ruined. To hear him tell it, anyway. Leo knew a lot of baseball, good memory for stats, and kept Harry entertained talking about great stars Harry had never heard of. He was an okay guy to spend a weekend in jail with.

Harry squinted into the sun. He asked Leo for a Marlboro.

Leo said, “Why don’t you sit down?”

“Because I don’t have any money I wanna spend here, and I hate those faggy little cups of coffee, and I ain’t all that fond of broiling on the concrete, either.”

Leo looked at him from behind his sunglasses and his mouth got tight. He waved his Marlboro and shrugged one shoulder. He said, “Hang out, man.”

A brunette sashayed past the table. She was carrying a portfolio and switching her hips, wearing patterned hose over a g-string. Or, possibly, no panties at all. Peering at life through lenses tinted brown.

In the sun-bleached afternoon, Harry missed his shades, the spanking new Ray Bans that were among his personal effects when he went inside, but weren’t when they let him go.

Harry made his hand into a visor. He followed the brunette with his eyes. “She’s probably a model,” he said.

“You think so? What tipped you off?”

“Look at how tall she is and look at her clothes. And her face, well, you can’t see it now, but she was beautiful.”