Big Money (Austin Carr Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page B

soft brown eyes of a German Shepherd. Calm, relaxed, just inside the threshold of his home in Gravesend, Brooklyn, Mr. Handsome extends his paw for me. “Come on in.”
    He practically lifts me inside with his giant mitt. Tony’s got on an extra , extra large gray golf shirt and navy sweats, but there’s no missing the muscle beneath the loose cloth. This guy snatched me off the porch like I was a newspaper.
    “Any trouble finding the place?” he asks.
    His hand weighs on my shoulders like a backpack loaded for the assault on Everest. “No problem,” I say. “And I really appreciate you’re seeing me. I’m a little embarrassed coming for dinner.”
    Tony’s body hardens like fast-drying glue. “Embarrassed?” His brown eyes narrow into a glare that fills my blood with worry. Jesus. Is this what they call the prison stare? “What?” he says. “You got a problem coming to Gravesend?”
    Yik es. “Hell, no. I mean embarrassed about putting you out. Making your wife cook for me. I would have been happy to take you and the missus—”
    “Oh.”
    “—out to dinner.”
    Using his hand like a puppeteer, Tony twists both our heads to greet a dark haired young woman striding our way. She’s wearing a black skirt and a furry, sleeveless sweater with yellow and black horizontal stripes.
    “Is this Vic’s friend Austin?” she says.
    Tony saying, “My wife Gina.”
    Gina’s a knockout. Long midnight hair, maybe ten or twelve inches past her shoulders. Huge, oval, yellow flaked brown eyes. An ear-to-ear smile whose sincerity feels generated by an even bigger heart. The smile and the striped sweater remind me of honey bees and summer days. Sweet stuff, this Gina.
    She offers her hand. “Austin.”
    I give her the full-boat Carr grin when her fingers brush mine. I feel dizzy, spinning in a field of perfumed July flowers. Hey, wake up, Carr. Time to snap out of Gina’s spell here before I erect myself a tower of trouble.
    “Can I get you a drink?” she says.
    “Know how to make a Slippery Nipple?”
     
     
    “But Carmela’s doing okay?” Tony says. “That prick Ragsdale was a serious loser.”
    “Was?”
    “Slip of the tongue. I took him to the ’splaining department is all, told him what might happen if he ever showed up again at Vic’s place.”
    I nod. “Great. Thanks. No, Carmela’s doing fine. It’s this other thing with Bluefish why I called.”
    Tony and I sip after dinner sambuca in the Farascio’s playroom, a tennis court sized basement with two bowling lanes, a pool table, a card table, a mini-theater with a big screen TV and recliners for eight, a juke box, a soda fountain and enough cushioned perimeter seating for the Rutgers marching band.
    “But you said at dinner Bluefish promised to keep his end of bargain,” Tony says. “I don’t see the problem.”
    “Neither I nor Luis trust him.”
    Tony’s teeth crunch one of the three coffee beans floating in the sambuca. “I don’t personally know this guy Bluefish, but I heard of him. I don’t see him getting where he is in this world without keeping his word.”
    “Even with people he’s about to kill?”
    Tony grins. “You got a point there, pal.”
    Gina calls from the top of stairs. “Telephone, Tony.”
    I can’t see her, but I definitely remember what the touch of her hand did to my heart beat, the circulation in my extremities.
    Tony stands. “Let me check out a few things,” he says. “I’ll get back to you.”
    “Thanks, Tony. I’d appreciate any help you can give me with this Bluefish character.”
    “Don’t thank me yet, sunshine. Let’s see if I can help.”
     
     

 
    TEN
     
    Mama Bones saying, “You should-a called me first.”
    I wedge the phone between my ear and shoulder, freeing my hands to sign a stack of company checks Carmela’s presented me and wrenching my back. We’re busy at Shore today, the guys scoring big by calling up and working Walter’s accounts with enthusiasm and purpose. The big