Chump Change Read Online Free PDF

time of day, finding “the Boys” didn’t present much of a problem. They were right where they always were. Working up the beginnings of their daily mega buzz. By midnight, they’d be wrecked and wretched, stumbling toward whatever flop they’d set up the night before, hoping for a few hours’ shut-eye before hitting the reset button. Whoever said that our society has a leisure class at both ends of the social spectrum was all over it. The minute my eyes began to adjust to the dim lights, I could make out the silhouette of Nearly Normal Norman towering over the snooker table. I heard Red Lopez laugh that goofy laugh of his as I started along the bar. Mick the bartender gave me a friendly nod as I sauntered by.
    These were the remnants of my old man’s political machine. The last of those who hadn’t died in prison or blown their brains out in some sleazy hotel room in the days immediately following his death, when the empire began to crumble, and the chips, as they say, had begun to fall where they may.
    During his four decades on the Seattle City Council, my dad, Big Bill Waterman, had parlayed a God-given propensity for graft, corruption, favoritism, nepotism, tax evasion, and money laundering into a considerable fortune, which he left to me, with the stipulation that I not see the bulk of it until I reached the ripe old age of forty-five.
    That’s how I ended up being a PI. Trying to bridge the gap until the pile rolled in, which it did a year or so back. Nowadays, I take on cases that interest me and occasionally do favors for friends, but generally don’t work up much of a sweat at the detective business anymore.
    My name went up from some dark corner of the bar and was greeted with wild hosannas. I’d like to imagine that my sparkling wit and charming personality elicited such a reaction, but truth be told, the fact that my presence was generally accompanied by a couple of free drinks might well have had something to do with it.
    Billy Bob Fung got to his feet and wobbled off into the darkness so I could sit next to George, the de facto leader of this little band of bunglers. George Paris had been one of the bankers assigned to handling my old man’s money. Just far enough down the ladder to avoid prosecution, George had been summarily fired by the bank, jettisoned by his fashionable wife, and thrown into the windswept streets like yesterday’s newspaper. Twenty years of sharing an apartment with a telephone pole had left him a wizened wiseacre, with an acidic intelligence nearly as sharp as his tongue.
    On George’s left, Ralph Batista had his head down on the table, taking a short siesta. Ralph had, at one time, been an official for the Port of Seattle. When my old man’s machine came apart, Ralph had done a deuce in County for his part in my father’s people-smuggling operation and, upon release, had thrown himself into a life of alcoholic debauchery with uncompromising zeal. These days he had a functional IQ of about sixty. If it weren’t for George looking out for him, he’d be dead as a herring by now.
    “Hey, big fella,” George said as I sat down. He squinted and looked me over and grinned. “What happened to the beezer, kid?” he asked.
    I’d lost the mile of tape, but my nose still looked a lot like an eggplant.
    “Shaving accident,” I said.
    The other denizens of the damp began appearing from the shadows. Heavy Duty Judy, Red Lopez, Bernardo, Farty Artie, Norman, Large Marge, Willy the Wimp, so named for his propensity for soiling himself in times of even moderate stress, Tommy and his new squeeze, a woman named Nancy, some little guy I’d seen in here before, couldn’ta weighed more than ninety pounds, and a few bottom-feeders who were new faces to me. They crowded around and tenderized me like a veal cutlet, pounding me on the back, throwing arms around my shoulders, and drooling in my ears.
    “Where’s Harold?” I asked above the din. Harold Green had been a vital part of my