Cul-de-Sac Read Online Free PDF

estate broker who if he didn’t have more money than God it was close.
    “When I think of the paperwork I used to do for you,” Eddie said, meaning back when they were detectives.
    “You carried me,” Camel agreed.
    “Not that you weren’t a stand-up guy.”
    “We just operated differently.”
    “That’s the gospel.”
    Eddie for example was smart about money. Retired after he got thirty in, he invested in this bar-restaurant while the building was still under construction. Eddie also kept close to his kids, he had grandchildren who adored him. Camel always said he could’ve learned a lot of what you call those life skills from Eddie Neffering.
    Back when they worked together as detectives, if some citizen cursed Eddie he never took it personally, a supervisor reamed him out and Eddie didn’t let it fester … unlike Camel who filed for future reference every slight against him.
    He used to wake up mad at the world. He hated lies and liars with a depth of emotion usually reached only by religion and Camel still accepted as an article of faith that people are liars on the most fundamental levels … they lie for profit and self-protection, they lie recreationally and out of habit, people lie because they’re bored with the truth. Camel had a talent, or a burden depending on how you looked at it … he could not be lied to. Once known in police circles as the Human Lie Detector he became semifamous because he could spot a lie the way you recognize your mother’s face. The problem with Camel’s talent, he couldn’t turn it off. Most of us, there are times we prefer certain lies over the alternatives:
Stop worrying about it, nobody noticed … I came straight home, honest … I never loved anybody like I love you, baby
. And in these cases, even when we do suspect we’re being lied to, we can offer a benediction: the benefit of the doubt.
All right darlin’ I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt
. That blessing wasn’t available to Camel. To him all lies, petty or grand, little white ones and big black-hearted ones … they were obvious, hateful, undeniable. After his marriage and career were undermined Camel tried to go numb to lies but that effort turned out to be like a dog trying to abandon the sense of smell. Tell Teddy Camel a lie and he knew it inevitably, instinctively … he could smell it on you.
    Eddie got called down to the end of the bar where a group of young men, red ties and suspenders, were arguing about sports and needed a verdict.
    It surprised Camel a guy like Eddie, old school, could get along so well with the modern young men and women who came into The Ground Floor. His customers listened carefully to his opinions, you could tell they had a lot of respect for the guy.
    Maybe it was his size, couple inches over six feet, couple twenties over two hundred. Camel knew him back when he had hair. In compensation for what he’d lost on top, Eddie had grown a huge walrus-type, red-going-gray mustache that made him look like a jolly pirate. Most of his customers tended toward wispy, in their twenties and thirties, power wanna-be’s, success-oriented … maybe they thought of Eddie as an older brother or a big uncle, an ex-cop who could protect them if it came to that.
    During the past few weeks several of the women who worked in the building had complained to Eddie that a guy was bothering them in the parking garage, making lurid remarks and miming masturbation. Eddie was taking down all the information and establishing a pattern, when the guy hit and what level of the garage he frequented and the type of woman he picked on … Eddie figuring he and Camel could set up stakeouts and catch this pervert.
    When Neffering returned, Camel asked if there was any news on the weenie wagger.
    But instead of answering him Eddie raised his chin and signaled with his eyebrows that someone standing behind Camel wanted his attention.
    When Camel swiveled around on the barstool and saw who