Dirty Harry 08 - Hatchet Men Read Online Free PDF Page B

exercise class.
    “Hello, Harry,” she said, slipping her fingers under the lapels of his brown tweed jacket. “Working late as always, I see.”
    Harry nodded with a grin. “You too,” he said, making a point of staring at her outfit with appreciation.
    Suni looked down at herself with a certain pride. “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” she said throatily. She flipped open the bottom of her coat to let her whole right leg appear, showing Harry that she had on nothing but the leotard, sheer, almost sparkling pantyhose, and the thick leg warmers. A second later, she flipped the coat flap back in place. “You got a search warrant, copper?” she quipped.
    “Probable cause,” Harry murmured. “That’s all I need.”
    Suni laughed and gave him a quick kiss. “You got it,” she declared. “Come on.” Harry followed her hopping shape up the porch steps a little more slowly. She stopped at the door and waited a second for him. “Eaten?” she asked as she twisted the knob and pushed the heavy door in.
    Harry had to think about it. His life was full of chili dogs and B.L.T. cheeseburgers caught at all hours. “No,” he finally decided. “You get the mail, I’ll get the door,” he said, reaching into his pocket.
    Suni had a duplicate mailbox key for Harry’s apartment. He made a point of giving her one after the bomb incident as a kind of souvenir. At first, she was reticent to approach the box, but then Harry reminded her that “lightning never strikes twice in the same place.”
    “Besides,” he added once she had put the copy key in the lock the second time, “now everybody’ll know that they’ll only kill a little girl if they try it again.” She chased him around her apartment after that little verbal trick. Now, almost a decade later, she pushed the key in without fear.
    “Amazing,” she mused, pulling his crinkled letters out. “After all this time, you’re still getting the same stuff.”
    Harry took the two envelopes she handed him as he held the plain inside door open with his body, and she retrieved her own stuff. “I’m not much for letter writing,” he grumbled, looking at the letters’ return addresses as she brushed past him. One was an annual pleading for his PAL dues and the other was an urgent request for money from the Handgun Control Organization in Washington.
    Harry believed in every man’s right to bear arms, but he had personally killed so many of those arm bearers that the anti-handgun agency would get a hard-earned tener from Harry. Fuck the big-game hunters, Harry thought. Deers had rights too, as far as he was concerned.
    “You want to go out to eat?” Suni asked, slipping the key into her apartment door lock.
    “I don’t know,” Harry musingly answered, still looking at his two pieces of junk mail as if they were the latest issue of Playboy. “I’ll think about it.”
    “You want to come in?” Suni asked in a softer, more personal tone. Harry stopped at the stairway and looked over at her. She stood, naturally provocative, a bit behind her open door. It was a blaringly open invitation.
    For a second, Harry was drawn to it like a paper clip to a magnet. Then his famous self-control took over. “Then we’ll never get to eat,” he told her with a smile. “And if you say, ‘Depends on what you’re hungry for,’ I’ll take you across my knee.”
    Suni frowned mockingly at the first part of his declaration, then cheered up at the second. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she promised. “I hope you’re not tired.”
    “Just want to change,” Harry assured her. “I’ll be right down.”
    “I’ll meet you halfway,” Suni compromised. “I’ve got some leftover takeout in the fridge. You got some beer?”
    “Sure.”
    “Tell you what, then. I’ll warm the food and bring it up . . .” She paused momentarily, looking at the floor with a grin. Finally she could no longer contain herself. “Then I’ll do the same for you,” she said with a knowing