Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 01 - TRIAL - a Legal Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page A

twenty-dollar bills in his wallet, he edged his old Ford Fairlane wagon into the thick traffic of the 610 Loop, then a mile later bore off on the Southwest Freeway in an easterly direction. Soaring glass facades of office buildings ricocheted light from a setting sun. Close to the Wesleyan exit, Dan Ho remembered that he had to pick up laundry and dry cleaning. With a quick glance into the rearview mirror, he flicked his directional signal, stepped on the gas and veered from the middle lane toward the exit ramp. This should not have been difficult. In his experience, Texans were courteous and forgiving drivers.
    But the car to the right of him seemed to accelerate rather than slow to give him room. He felt a mild jolt, as if his rear bumper had grazed the other driver's front bumper.
    It was not possible to stop. Cars were surging right and left. Dan Ho powered down the exit ramp. A minute later he swung the wagon off the road into the parking lot of a mini-mall, pulling up in front of the Wesleyan Terrace Laundry & Dry Cleaners. It was after eight o'clock and all the other shops but Crown Books had closed until morning. Except for a wino propped in a loose sitting position against an optician's facade, smiling at something that only a drunk could smile about, the parking lot was empty of people.
    Through the plate-glass window of the dry cleaners Dan Ho Trunh saw the half-turned back of an Indian woman in a green and gold sari. She was stacking cardboard boxes.
    Then he became aware that another car had pulled up parallel in the parking lot, and a woman in that car was in a rage and was shouting at him. She was cursing. He had no idea why. He rolled down his window.
    "Hey, you! Speak Murkin?"
    "What's the problem?" Dan Ho said quietly.
    The woman snarled, "Don't get smartass with me, you yellow motherfucker, you scumbag slant-eyed sleazeball!"
    He shook his head and said, "Lady, you're not only nasty, you're crazy."
    "Who the fuck do you think you're talking to?"
    Sighing, Dan Ho Trunh turned away, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet, which contained his laundry ticket. From the car parked a few feet to his left, he heard a shriek. He looked up wearily and beheld a small black circle, the barrel of a pistol.
    He felt a terrible pain. He went down backward on the seat, spurting bright blood on the dashboard.
    ===OO=OOO=OO===
    The name of the smiling wino propped against the optician's shop in the mini-mall was James Thurgood Dandy — known back in his native Beeville, Texas, of course, as Jim Dandy. As the station wagon and then the second car pulled into the parking lot, Jim Dandy had clambered to his feet, yawned a couple of times, then felt an uncomfortable pressure in his groin which told him that his bladder was full. He turned against the side of the building and urinated. When he reached to zip up his fly, he heard a woman's scream followed by a sharp crack that could only be a gunshot.
    Instinctively he ducked, cowering against the building, his fly still gaping. He turned his head toward the street. "Kitty Marie," he whimpered, "don't kill me. Whatever I done I didn't mean to. Please, Kitty Marie!"
    But Kitty Marie was far away in Beeville, and no one killed Jim Dandy.
    Finally he zipped up his fly and walked slowly over to the station wagon. The front window was wide open. He peered inside. Someone in that car looked awfully dead.
    On the seat, the man's outstretched right hand clutched an open leather wallet. A laundry ticket protruded from it and a fat sheaf of wrinkled green was exposed in the billfold part. Jim Dandy reached into the car and took the wallet from the clawed hand. "Hot damn," he whispered.
    He heard a sound, a gasp. From where, from whom, he didn't know. It might have come from the man he thought was dead. Clutching the wallet, he turned and ran.
    ===OO=OOO=OO===
    An hour later, Hector Quintana, a homeless man, rolled his Safeway shopping cart down a concrete walkway, past the tennis