Bright Futures: A Lew Fonesca Mystery (Lew Fonesca Novels) Read Online Free PDF

trusted was Ames.
    Ames and I had met four years ago when I tried to stop him from having a shoot-out on Lido Beach with his ex-partner, who had gathered every dime in their company and run off to Sarasota to change his name and spend his way into what passed for society on the Gulf Coast. Ames had done some jail time, but not much, since I had testified that the partner had shot first.
    “Steady, partner,” Ames said, grabbing my arm and easing me back when I tried to rise again.
    “What happened?” I said.
    “Don’t know.”
    “How long was I out?”
    “Four hours,” Ames said. “Besides those cuts on your face, you have yourself a concussion.”
    The room tilted at a slight angle and then tilted back the other way. I closed my eyes.
    “Augustine?” I said.
    I passed out again.
    When I next opened my eyes, Detective Ettiene Viviase of the Sarasota Police Department was standing next to Ames.
    “You all right?” he asked.
    He was a burly man of about fifty who pretended to be world weary. We had experienced a number of close encounters of the third kind.
    “Fine and dandy,” I said.
    Augustine would have known I was quoting Earl Holliman in
The Rainmaker
.
    “You were serving papers?” he asked.
    I didn’t answer.
    “Lewis is confused,” said Ames. “Trauma.”
    Viviase nodded and said, “What’s it all about?”
    “How is Augustine?” I asked.
    “He’ll live,” said Viviase. “Maybe they can save his sight. He had a .177 caliber pellet lodged in his right eye.”
    “A pellet? Someone shot Augustine with Ralphie’s Red Ryder you’ll-shoot-your-eye-out BB gun?” I asked.
    “And came close to shooting his eye out. Something like that,” said Viviase. “Any idea who shot at you?”
    “Me? What makes you think they were shooting at me?” I said. “They could have been shooting at Augustine, or maybe it was just kids shooting at a car.”
    “Ronnie Gerall,” Viviase said.
    I closed my eyes and started to lean back, and then I remembered. I touched the top of my head. The hair was definitely thinner with each passing crime. Ames reached back into his pocket and came up with my Cubs cap. He handed it to me. I clutched it like a teddy bear.
    “You had Gerall’s name and the words Greg and Winn in your notebook.”
    He held up my notebook and handed it to Ames.
    “Think it might have something to do with your getting shot at?”
    “No.”
    “Doc says you can go when you’re up to it,” said Ames.
    “In a minute,” said Viviase, eyes fixed on me. “Are you getting involved with the Philip Horvecki murder?”
    “I promised a friend I’d drop in and see Gerall, talk to him.”
    “Need I remind you that you don’t have a private investigator’s license?”
    “I tell people that all the time. I’m just doing a friend a favor,” I said.
    “The Gerall kid did it,” said Viviase. “Caught inside the victim’s house kneeling by the corpse. Kid had motive. Kid’s a hothead. Only thing the kid said when he was arrested was, and I quote, ‘I’m glad the son-of-a-bitch is dead.’ Who’s the friend who asked you to stop in and see Gerall?”
    I hesitated. Viviase’s daughter Elisabeth had told Greg and Winn about me. A few more questions and I’d have to lie or tell her father that she was the one who got me involved.
    “I’d like to talk to Augustine,” I said.
    “Jeff Augustine, onetime actor, minor arrests in California, looks tough, maybe. I know he’s working for D. Elliot Corkle. It’s not clear in what capacity, and he is too narcotized to explain or talk to you. You happen to know what he does for Corkle?”
    “I think he’s a kind of companion,” I said.
    “We talked to Corkle,” Viviase said.
    “What did Corkle tell you?” I asked Viviase, making another effort to get up. Ames reached for my arm.
    “Lie down, partner,” he said.
    I did. The thin pillow felt just right behind my head, and I wanted to go to sleep. I was sure I had been given something to