Blood Hunt Read Online Free PDF Page B

was waiting for him. He got into the passenger seat.
    “I heard,” said Eddie.
    “He’s been scared off,” Reeve declared. “I know he has.”
    “You could leave a business card or something, ask him to get back to you.” Eddie started the engine.
    “I did that last time. He didn’t get back to me. He never let me past the front door.”
    “Well—old folks, they do get suspicious. Lot of muggings around.”
    James Reeve turned as best he could in the seat, so he was facing Eddie Cantona. “Eddie, do I look like a mugger?”
    Eddie smiled and shook his head, pressing the accelerator. “But then you don’t look like the Good Humor man either.”
    The painter watched them go, waved even, though they’d already forgotten about him. Then, still grinning, he wiped his hands as he walked to his van. He reached into the passenger side and took out a cell phone, holding it to his face. He stopped smiling only when the connection was made.
    “They were just here,” he said.
    That afternoon, Eddie dropped his employer off downtown, on the corner of Eighth and E. James Reeve had some work to do at the public library. He sometimes typed his notes into the laptop there, too—it was better than his motel room, a hundred times better. Surrounded by busy people, people with projects and ideas, people with goals, he found his own work, his own goal, became more focused.
    Plus, the library was only four blocks from Gaslamp, which meant he could get a beer afterwards. Eddie had a couple of things to do, but said he might be in their regular haunt by six. If he still hadn’t arrived by the time James felt like going home, the bar would call him a cab. It was an eight-dollar ride, including tip.
    The story was slowing down, he decided. Here he was in San Diego, which should have been the heart of it, and he wasn’t getting anywhere. He had Preece and the pesticide research, but that was years back. He had a rape, also ancient history. He had stories from two retired investigators. He had Korngold… but Korngold was dead.
    He had Agrippa and the bank accounts. Maybe if he went back to England, concentrated on that particular corner of the puzzle, talked to Josh Vincent again; the union man’s story was almost enough in itself. But he’d already pitched that at Giles Gulliver, who’d pooh-poohed it, saying the Guardian had run a similar story the year before. He’d checked, and the Guardian hadn’t been following the same tack at all—but there’d been no persuading Giles, the stubborn old bastard.
    So there was little enough for him to add to his files. He had other names, and had tried telephone calls, but no one wanted to meet him, or even talk on the phone. This was a shame, as he’d had his little recorder beside him, the microphone attached to the telephone earpiece. All his recordings showed so far was evasiveness on a grand scale, which didn’t mean anything. Americans were wary of callers at the best of times. Blame all the cold-callers out there, interrupting lunch or dinner or a postprandial snooze to drum up money for everything from the Republican Party to Tupperware parties. He’d even had someone call him in his motel room, trying to sell him language courses. Language courses! Maybe they tried every room in every motel. Barrel-scraping was what it was.
    Barrel-scraping.
    He sighed, turned off the laptop, folded it away, and decided he could use a beer, Mason jar or no Mason jar. As he pushed through the library’s main door the heat hit him again. It was very pleasant; almost too pleasant. You could go crazy in a place like this, with only slight fluctuations in temperature all year. Almost no rain, and the streets clean, and everyone so polite to you; it could get to you.
    He found himself in the dimly lit air-conditioned bar, sliding onto what had become his favorite stool. The barmaid was new and wore cutoff denims and a tight white T-shirt. Her hair was tied back with a red bandanna, another one