Damaged Goods Read Online Free PDF

going to miss her. They’d been together long enough to know each other’s most obnoxious habits, yet neither—at least, he hoped neither—had become bored, much less turned off.
    The door opened abruptly and Betty, wrapped in a towel, stood in front of him. He put his arms on her shoulders, looked into her eyes, wanted to tell her to come back soon, not to go at all. But there was no point to it, nothing to be gained. She had to go; it was what he’d do in her place. Besides, on some level he knew that he, with his last relative some fifteen years dead, was actually jealous.
    “You get in trouble out there,” he finally said, “you let me know. I’ll be on the next plane.”
    Her broad mouth widened into an impish grin. “ You, Stanley? In Tinseltown?”
    “Hey.” He put a finger to her lips. “The kid knows how to adjust. I’ll just grab a pair of Day-Glo, spandex bicycle shorts and be on my way.”
    Moodrow was in the shower, trying to keep his bandaged head above the water, when Betty knocked on the door ten minutes later.
    “You decent?” she called.
    “Never!”
    “Praise the Lord.” She pushed the door open, stepped inside. “Leonora called.”
    Leonora Higgins, a former FBI agent who’d left the bureau to become an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, was an old friend of Moodrow’s. Not that he was in the habit of associating with FBI agents. Like most career cops, Moodrow both disliked and distrusted the Bureau. But he and Leonora Higgins had once shared a great adventure, an adventure that’d ended with her shooting him.
    “She been elected mayor yet?” It was a standing joke among the three of them. Leonora had political ambitions and wasn’t afraid to admit it.
    “She’s coming over, Stanley.”
    “Now?” Moodrow stepped out of the shower, accepted a towel from Betty, began to dry himself. “I think we should spend the night by ourselves.”
    Betty, after checking to make sure the lid was down, sat on the edge of the toilet. She liked to watch her lover perform small, mundane tasks, to observe the daily rituals. Except for a few brief weeks, they’d never lived together, but at the same time, they were rarely apart for more than a day. Neither of them could have explained the why of it; neither cared to. Both had been through enough failures to accept whatever worked.
    “Leonora has a job for you.”
    “A job that couldn’t wait until tomorrow afternoon?”
    “What could I say, Stanley? You know the drill. She was in the neighborhood, she has to be in court all day tomorrow, it won’t take more than half an hour. I couldn’t refuse to give her thirty minutes. Besides, you need the money.”
    “The money?” Moodrow snorted. “Betty, if this job isn’t pro bono, I’ll kiss your ass in Macy’s showroom window at high noon on Christmas Eve.”
    Betty got up, checked her reflection in the mirror. “Damn, Stanley,” she said as she turned back to him, “for that kind of thrill, I’ll pay you myself.”

FOUR
    A NY RESIDUAL ANNOYANCE MOODROW might have been nursing vanished the minute he opened the door. Leonora Higgins was absolutely resplendent in a gold double-breasted jacket with jet-black panels on either side, a black skirt that fell to mid calf, and a scoop-necked silk blouse. Understated gold earrings complemented the amber beads worked into her long jheri curls, while a string of polished black stones—onyx, Moodrow guessed—gleamed quietly against her deep brown throat. If she hadn’t been carrying a briefcase, Moodrow would have taken her for an uptown matron come to the slums in search of a cheap thrill.
    “Very nice, Leonora,” Moodrow said as she passed. “But you better dump the curls if you wanna be District Attorney. Unless you plan to campaign by scaring the ethnics. Which strategy would be a big mistake.”
    All three understood the comment. It was impossible to win borough-wide office in Manhattan with the support of a single block of voters.