Dark Reservations Read Online Free PDF

priest nor your lawyer. I was hired to get you elected. If you had anything to do with it, I don’t care. But if you, by some wild chance now, do get elected and the feds come knocking at the governor’s mansion someday, perhaps it would be in your best interest to start planting a few seeds of marital discord. It might help you later. I get paid either way; just give me the word.”
    â€œLet me make one thing perfectly clear. I love—loved—Arlen, and I want to know what happened to him, just like everyone else. And if you don’t believe me, then maybe you need to consider joining Percy’s camp.”
    â€œDon’t think I haven’t.” Chris struggled to his feet. “And remember what I said. Marital problems make you sympathetic.”
    S EPTEMBER 24
    F RIDAY , 2:59 P.M.
    B ANK OF A LBUQUERQUE T OWER , A LBUQUERQUE , N EW M EXICO
    Joe parked in a no parking zone. He tossed his placard on the dash. The laminated card read FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY — FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT VEHICLE . He hurried into the building.
    Inside, he scanned the tenant directory posted on the wall.
    THE HAMILTON GROUP … 17th Floor.
    He checked the time. He was late.
    S EPTEMBER 24
    F RIDAY , 4:37 P.M.
    M ICKEY ’ S B AR & G RILL , A LBUQUERQUE , N EW M EXICO
    On the drive over, Joe had received a call from Bluehorse. The Gallup newspaper had printed a story about Edgerton’s vehicle being found bullet-riddled.
    With his finger, Joe wrote the words shit happens in the condensation on his mug of beer. He appraised his work. Andy Warhol had nothing on him. Pop art at its finest.
    â€œWanna talk about it?” Mickey Sheehan said as he sorted through the quarters in the bar’s register, forever on the lookout for rare coins.
    â€œNot right now. I’m finding my muse.”
    â€œAsk her if she’s got a sister.”
    â€œYou need a bingo partner?”
    â€œOne of my waitresses quit.”
    Mickey started on the nickels. Joe watched. Back in August, Joe had been sitting on the same stool when Mickey yelled, “I’ll be damned. No P. ” He repeated that a few times, slapping the mahogany bar top and laughing. He later told Joe that all the dimes minted in Philadelphia after 1980 had a P, designating the city. In 1982, the mint accidentally omitted the P from a small batch. Mickey’s dime would fetch a couple thousand dollars, though he’d never sell it. “I got a spot for it right next to my 1955 doubled-die penny.” Joe had no idea what a 1955 doubled-die penny was, but he appreciated Mickey’s enthusiasm, especially when he gave the bar a round of drinks on the house.
    Mickey finished his coin hunt and limped to the other end of the counter to check on the only other customers at the bar, two men in suits and ties who huddled together and talked in whispers, as though they were discussing trade secrets. Maybe they were.
    Mickey’s Bar & Grill had the feel of an old-time saloon. The walls were of wood panel and exposed brick, and the thick oak tables and chairs were covered with liberally applied coats of varnish. The place smelled of smoked ribs and frothy ale. War photographs decorated the walls. Mickey had served in Vietnam with the Screaming Eagles. He once told Joe how he’d earned his Purple Heart. “During the war—and don’t believe that conflict bullshit; it was a goddamn war—I was at Firebase Ripcord when the shit hit the fan. We was getting pounded by mortars. I jump in a foxhole and feel a sting on my right calf. I reach down to rub it, thinking I got nicked by a flying stone or something, and the son of a bitch is gone.” He looked Joe in the eye. “Now my foot powder lasts twice as long.” He’d winked then, but Joe had been too involved in the story to laugh or smile, or whatever the old war vet had expected.
    Joe liked Mickey and he liked the bar. It relaxed him. He sipped his beer and