Elvendude Read Online Free PDF Page B

onto the partially finished pavement, which irritated Swink further.

    He shouted over his PA: " PULL OVER NOW ."

    The bug pulled over. Again, not as quickly as Swink would have liked. I'm going to enjoy this.

    Jackpot. The bug had an out-of-state tag. California. And it was one of those vanity plates, which Swink hated. It read, simply: REPO.

    As he pulled up behind he bug and stopped, flipping the stand out with a boot heel, he saw that he had misread the plate. It was actually an Oklahoma tag, IEX-1095, one he could call in. Given the black windows and the erratic driving, he smelled danger. Better call it in, he thought, reaching for the radio mike.

    When the dispatcher responded, Swink blinked his eyes. The plate now was from Texas, QUP10-1, with an expired sticker. Blood vessels swelled in Swink's temples. Then he called in that number.

    According to the dispatcher, the plate had never been issued by the state of Texas. Bogus. That's four. And this one's going to jail.

    Swink called in a backup, and the dispatcher told him one was a minute away. He glanced back to the northwest and saw a Caprice cruiser about two hundred yards away, stopped in traffic. Another fifty feet and he would have unfinished pavement to drive on.

    Swink approached the car, unsnapping his holster as he walked up to the window. He didn't like this; normally he'd be wearing a Kevlar vest, but he was sunburned from mowing the lawn the day before and had left it at home. He prayed he hadn't made a fatal mistake by doing so as he tapped on the driver's window.

    The window rolled down slowly. Inside, Swink saw nothing but darkness and wondered briefly if there was another window, or a curtain, or something. The blackness was absolute. He saw nothing inside, the driver, the steering wheel, not even the door locks.

    Swink was about to ask the driver to step out of the car when a deep, demonic voice rumbled from inside.

    " You're blind ."

    Darkness poured from the car's interior, reaching out like a fist and wrapping itself around Swink's face; the cop staggered backward, held his hands up in front of his face, seeing nothing. Then he touched his eyes, which were open, but just not sending signals to his brain.

    As he reached for his gun, the darkness briefly robbed him of his breath. When he regained it, he screamed in rage as he listened to the bug speed away.

     

    On a late Monday afternoon, Paul Bendis left the Criminal Courts Building in downtown Dallas, near the historic West End District. He gave his briefcase a jaunty swing as he entered blazing sunlight, pleased with himself for helping his drug dealer walk away from an open-and-shut case of cocaine possession.

    It doesn't get much better than this, he thought. Who said lawyers were worthless?

    Earlier that day he had been a little down over the demise of his youth. Today I turn forty-five. Today is going to really suck, he remembered thinking when he got up that morning. He looked forward to the trial of Donald R. Wallbrook, a.k.a. Presto, with the same enthusiasm he reserved for root canal work. The best he had thought he could arrange for his client would be time in a minimum security prison, but something had told him to go to trial instead of plea bargain; he still couldn't put his finger on it, but despite what appeared to be good reason to bend over for the prosecutor, he fought it through.

    He glanced over at his client, who was walking out of the building with him, a tall man in his thirties who could pass, with the right clothing, as someone ten years younger. Presto was smiling in the bright Dallas sunlight, his smile a flashing billboard for Paul's abilities.

    Hell, yes, I'd be smiling, Paul thought. I should be smiling too, but  . . . 

    The case had been dismissed, but the police would be watching them both for some time. He didn't like the attention, but being the number one criminal lawyer in Dallas County had its drawbacks. Not just that, but Bendis