A Passing Curse (2011) Read Online Free PDF

he weren’t quite sure of it himself and then added for clarity, “Bucharest.”
    “And you are what?” Ajax asked. “Your rank.”
    “Aide to Ambassador Harrington?” the man said, again as if he were not sure of it himself, but now as if the original reason for calling had been lost to him.
    “Harrington can’t make the important calls, young man?”
    “Too busy working on the problem, sir,” the young man said, regaining his composure. “He wanted me to call as soon as I could. He wanted me to convey to you, to tell you it’s going to be tough, but he thinks he can swing it.”
    “Swing it?” Ajax did not like the newfound ease in the man’s voice. “Is Miss Webber safe? Is Miss Webber being looked after? All her needs?”
    “Basically, yes. She’s safe, but still in the hospital, and, as you know, under arrest for murder. But don’t worry. Everything possible is being done. The situation is being monitored with the highest priority.”
    “Miss Webber is very important to me. She is not to be harmed. Do you understand?”
    “Yes, sir. We’re working on it.” Harbinger sounded a bit more respectful, now. “Her safety and health are of the highest concerns.”
    Ajax said slowly, “Heads will roll, young man.”
    “Yes, sir.” The answer was quick, this time, and respectful. The voice, now, of a believer. “I understand that very well, the implications, sir.”
    “Tell Harrington I want him to personally see Miss Webber out of the country. No aides. No delegating responsibility. Harrington, I hold responsible. He will know what that means, I hope.”
    Downtown at Parker Center, Reese and his six detectives checked Bulow’s sketch against thousands of area sex offenders’ mug shots but came up with nothing. He sent copies to area police agencies. He faxed the sketch farther north to San Francisco, Portland, even Seattle.
    The next day he hit the streets and got lucky.
    Because of all the blood taken and the ridiculous notion that the suspect might be a vampire, he’d already checked every vampire shop in Los Angeles, a five day job. In the dark city of angels there were fifty-three, beginning with Andover’s Vampire Literary Store and ending with Vampire Rags - Stag or Drag?
    Now, with a sketch to work with, he made a hit in a shop selling certified tufts of Bela Lugosi’s hair. The clerk matched the sketch to a man who had purchased red contact lenses and a pound Transylvanian dirt, guaranteed, the clerk added, by the Romanian government. Better yet, the man had actually used a credit card, which bore the name of Richard Augustus Lamb.
    The computer showed Lamb had no prior arrests, no wants, no warrants. No driver’s license. Further checks on further data bases, including the indexes to both the LA and New York Times, national morgue and Social Security records, revealed plenty of Richard Lambs about, living and dead, but the only one with the middle name of Augustus had died of Hong Kong flu in 1983. Not surprisingly, his social security number also matched the credit card. A trick he’d seen before - copy a dead man’s birth certificate and steal the identity. Why go to all that trouble to buy thirty bucks worth of dirt and tinted glass?
    He ran the sketch and name in the LA Times. The next day he got three hundred and fifteen calls. The computer flagged one hundred and fifteen callers as verified hot-tip junkies. The rest, among them a man from Chula Vista who said the killer could certainly be his ex-lover who spent his nights reading gun magazines and practicing his quick-draw, and an old lady in Santa Marina who claimed the sketch resembled her paperboy Homer Wermels, would have to be triaged in order of plausibility and re-checked.
    For Richard Augustus Lamb, the credit card company listed the address of a mail service on Fifth Street, the Nickel, heart of LA’s skid row. He posted two members of his six-man team to watch the mail service around the clock. Thirteen girls dead and