Book 06 - Red Iron Nights Read Online Free PDF Page B

other. I
wondered if he hurt much. Prison wouldn’t do wonders for
arthritis.
    Barking Dog wasn’t in a hurry. He ambled, savoring his
freedom. I’d hang out in the rain myself, enjoying it, if
I’d been locked up. But I wasn’t terribly empathic at
the moment. I muttered and sputtered and grumbled. Such
thoughtlessness! Keeping a crack investigator out in the rain.
    Wasn’t his fault, though, was it? I started plotting
vengeance on the Dead Man.
    Always an interesting mental exercise, that. What sanctions can
you exercise against somebody who’s been murdered?
Aren’t many options left.
    Even us masters of the game get sloppy. It’s easy when you
don’t feel threatened. I didn’t feel threatened.
Barking Dog wasn’t the kind of street bruno I run into
ordinarily, somebody big as a house and half as smart and just as
easy to shove around. Barking Dog was damned near a little old man.
Little old men don’t get violent. Or, if they do, they pay
some big, stupid bruno to do it for them.
    I strutted around a corner and—oooph! Right in the
breadbasket. Lucky for me, Barking Dog was damned near a little old
man and little old men don’t get violent.
    I folded up, tried to prance away from his follow-up. Wonder of
wonders, I made it. He was, after all, damned near a little old
man. I gagged and hacked and got my breath back. Meantime, Barking
Dog added things up and decided he hadn’t gotten enough oomph
on his punch and his best move now was to apply heels and toes
vigorously to the cobblestones.
    Not unwise tactics, considering the mood I was in all of a
sudden.
    I got me trundling after him. Lucky me, I’d been working
out so I was in good enough shape to come back quickly. Before long
I was keeping up, then I started gaining ground. Barking Dog looked
back only once. He saved his energy for streaking away.
    Me, I started taking corners more carefully.
    It didn’t take me long to catch up, grab him by the
shoulder, block his futile blows, and force him to sit on
somebody’s steps. “What the hell was that for?” I
demanded.
    He looked at me like I was a fool. Maybe he was right. I
hadn’t exercised a lot of wisdom so far. He didn’t
answer me.
    It didn’t look like he was planning to make a break, so I
sat me down beside him, far enough off so he couldn’t cream
me with a backhand. “That hurt, guy. How come?”
    That look again. “What you take me for, bruno?”
    Oh. That hurt more than the whack in the gut. I’m an
experienced investigator, not a street thug. “A crazy old
man, ain’t got sense enough to get in out of the
rain.”
    “I’m one with nature. You going to get to
it?”
    “To what?”
    “The threats. The arm-twisting.”
    Ha! My turn to do the looking.
    “You don’t fool me with that dumb look. Somebody
sent you to keep me from telling the truth.”
    Craftily I asked, “What truth would that be?”
    Craftier, he told me, “If they didn’t tell you, they
don’t want you to know. Wouldn’t want to get you in as
deep as I am.”
    Crazy. And I was sitting there talking to him. In the rain.
Downwind. They hadn’t given him a scrubbing before they
turned him loose. “No threats. I don’t care what you
do.”
    He didn’t understand. “Hows come you’re
dogging me?”
    “To see where you go.” Get him with a new technique.
Tell the truth. Confuse him all to hell.
    It worked. He was puzzled. “Why?”
    “Damned if I know. Guy paid my partner, who took the job
without consulting me. Naturally, he’s housebound. So
I’m the one out here drowning.”
    He believed me, probably because I wasn’t twisting limbs.
“Who’d want to know that?” He seemed lost.
“Nobody takes me serious. Hardly nobody, anyway.”
    I checked to see if we were drawing a crowd. Barking Dog had one
voice level, loud. Like he’d been yelling so long, that was
all he could do. Too, I wondered what they’d fed him in jail.
He had breath like a buzzard. Not to mention he wasn’t
appetizing visually,