Dreams of a Hero Read Online Free PDF

wouldn’t get his own knuckles bruised. Probably afraid of catching something, if what he says when he’s in here is true.” Strauss knocked back the rest of his coffee. “He lets the son do the bruising, along with one of his pals. Gets his kicks from looking at it, I guess. Watches the queer baiting during the daylight.” Strauss fiddled with his cup. “And the queer beating after dark.”
    “If that was in one of Roger’s books, there’d be some sharp-eyed detective wondering why the son hadn’t been put at the scene as well. No offence meant and all that, but you get my drift?” Miles tried his most charming smile. He didn’t doubt what he’d been told; he just liked a solid line of logic to follow.
    Obviously employing his usual ability to read his partner’s mind, Roger added, “Miles reads all my manuscripts, and if there’s the slightest loose end not tightly weaved into the storyline he never lets me forget it.”
    “Sounds like Agatha Christie.” Strauss showed no sign that he’d taken any offence. “The son wears a mask. Hey. Don’t laugh, gospel truth.”
    “I’m sorry.” Roger looked suitably contrite. “It isn’t anything to laugh about, it just seemed so…bizarre.”
    “There’s nothing bizarre about being beaten up.” Miles shivered. A series of jumbled thoughts sped through his brain—Agamemnon’s mask, his own vivid dreams of violence and death—none of them making sense, just unsettling him. “Of course they would disguise themselves.”
    “Alex Phillipson—that’s the son—has a tattoo on the back of his left hand. He kept that covered, although it probably wouldn’t have been too visible at dead of night.”
    “But that just raises another question. Two.” Miles ran his fingers through his hair again, perplexed. “How did they know it was this Alex bloke, if he’d taken such trouble to hide his identity?”
    “The presence of the old man would have been enough.” Strauss nodded, as if trying to persuade a judge about the validity of a piece of evidence. “But there’s more. Alex sweats like a pig and he tries to cover it up with cheap cologne. You couldn’t mistake that smell, even in the pitch dark. Not sure any jury would believe it, though.”
    “So my second query becomes even odder. The victims must have recognised the father.” Miles looked at Roger, for confirmation that he wasn’t being a complete idiot and missing something obvious.
    “Exactly. So why didn’t he disguise himself as well?” Roger shrugged.
    “Don’t you think we’ve asked ourselves that? In lieu of asking him, which none of us would do.” Strauss looked out at the street, evidently gathering his thoughts as well as his words. “I don’t believe it was just carelessness—he’s too damned careful, usually. I think he wanted to be seen, because he knew the victims couldn’t do a damn thing about it.”
    “Because he has friends in the police who make sure he gets away with it? It’s possible, I suppose.” Roger drew his fingers along the tabletop. “Even in the twenty-first century.”
    Strauss kept his eyes on the street. “I’m not sure parts of my country have really entered the twentieth.”
    Miles shivered at the echo of his own thoughts. “So he assumes he’s safe and stands by, gloating.”
    “Something like that. But that’s just my point of view.” Strauss turned to face them again, a smile on his lips if not in his eyes. “Not admissible in a court of law.”
    “Can you have them banned from coming in here? No.” Roger raised his hand. “Stupid question. Nobody to enforce the ban if the local police won’t play ball.”
    “And I’m trying to persuade the clientele here to steer clear of enforcing their own version of the law. If old man Phillipson’s got the dice loaded so he keeps out of trouble, chances are he’s got them weighted to fall the other way.”
    “Does anyone know this family well enough to know what really goes on in their