Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing Read Online Free PDF

streets for a while.’
    ‘And just who’s this “we”?’ said Spinner in a lofty tone. ‘ I’m not licensed to take on an armed man and neither are you.’ Spinner was barely five feet tall. ‘You could be dead before I get to you. I could lose you in traffic. Anything could go wrong. That’s why you really shouldn’t do this. What if you get in the car and he pulls a knife?’
    ‘He’s a basher, not a slicer,’ she said, trying to laugh over the chill she felt. ‘He doesn’t use a knife.’
    ‘ Yet ,’ said Spinner. ‘But like you say, it’s not my business.’
    Gemma was trying not to remember a time on the street years back when a man struck out at her with a knife and how terrifying it was despite her uniform and handy service pistol.
    ‘Once you get in a car with a stranger,’ Spinner was saying ‘you’ve lost control of the situation. I don’t have to tell you that. It’s crazy.’
    ‘I’ll have Mike,’ she said.
    ‘What’s he supposed to do? Wave goodbye? Once you get into that vehicle you could have the SAS surrounding the area and still get into trouble.’
    ‘Speaking of Mike,’ she asked, wanting to change the subject ‘What do you think of him?’
    ‘I’ll call you,’ he said, signing off, not wanting to say too much over the radio. Gemma rehoused her receiver.
    Mike Moody, the new operative she’d hired not long ago, until recently an agent with the Australian Federal Police and broodily good-looking, seemed to be shaping up well. His reports, although never a match for Spinner’s clear and succinct contemporaneous notes, were intelligent and well observed. Mike had worked on computer crime and was up to date with the latest in electronic surveillance and counter-surveillance. As a rule, Gemma was very wary about employing ex-police, knowing from her own experience of eleven years in the job how slack they could be, golfing instead of sitting in hot cars all day, watching some small-time fraudster’s house. But Mike had been personally recommended. Just like the crims, Gemma thought with a smile. Everyone wants personal introductions these days. It’s the only way in anywhere—and that goes for any milieu, she knew. Her phone rang.
    ‘Mike’s good.’ Spinner’s voice brought her back to the present, picking up where their radio conversation had left off. And alerted her. After working with him for years, Gemma had a sixth sense for what Spinner was thinking.
    ‘I can hear a qualification in your voice,’ she said. ‘Spit it out.’
    ‘Maybe I’m too suspicious,’ said Spinner, ‘but I can’t help wondering why an ex-federal cop with his experience would want to do this sort of work.’
    Spinner’s words mirrored her own thoughts exactly. She’d asked Mike Moody this very question during the initial interview.
    ‘Why did he leave the job?’ Spinner asked.
    ‘Personal reasons. His marriage was in trouble.’
    ‘So it helps a marriage to leave your job?’ Spinner’s voice was dry with disbelief.
    ‘Apparently,’ said Gemma, ‘the missus wasn’t happy about being married to a mere federal agent. She felt he should be grander by now—at least an inspector or a chief.’
    ‘She’s going to be even less happy married to a sneaky private eye. Did you check him out good?’ said Spinner whose grasp of grammar had been curtailed by becoming apprenticed as a jockey when he was under fifteen.
    ‘Of course I did,’ returned Gemma, a trifle peeved. ‘I checked him out real good. I know his ex-boss in Canberra.’
    Working on the road as a surveillance operative is a very special calling, she knew, and although Spinner was a natural and she was blessed to have him, she was realistic enough to know that only a few people were really suited to it. Mike Moody, despite his good references and solid work so far, still had to prove himself. He’d done some routine jobs with insurance frauds for her but Spinner was still the man for anything delicate.