Jack Strong: A Story of Life After Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

but fit him so well that he might have acquired it when it was new. When he stuck out a hand, I gave him a hundred-dollar bill.
    His eyes widened, and he clutched the lucre with both hands. He didn’t say anything, just rushed down the street—the money already spent.
    When he was a block away, and no one else was in sight, Sergeant William Tamashanter Mortman broke the back window of the four-door with the butt of the pistol he’d recently taken off a corpse. He reached inside, jerked the handle, and pulled the door open.
    A man-shaped form in the backseat was trying to throw off the blanket that covered it. Sergeant Mortman and I grabbed the form by the collar, pulled it out, and slammed it against the passenger’s side front door. While being astonished at my own strength, I hit the nameless Latino man in the forehead with the butt of my pistol. I figured I was doing the guy a favor. Lana would have certainly killed him once she’d recovered my key to the loot.
    After searching his pockets for weapons, I tossed the unconscious conspirator into the backseat and covered him with the blanket. Then I walked into Tyson’s feeling very good about the operation so far.
    She was sitting at the bar, as beautiful as the day Lance had met her. He had called her his golden girl because of her skin, hair, and eyes. The metallic hardness of Lana’s tanned body, copper-blonde hair, and ocher eyes made her both cold and precious. Her eyes widened when I approached. Her nostrils flared. These sexual expressions used to excite my heartless skull mate, but now both he and I knew that she could summon such physical innuendos on command.
    “You’re late,” she said.
    “I been watching you.”
    I took the stool next to her, turning slightly to check out my environs.
    The bar had nine other inhabitants, including the bulky bartender. Lance didn’t recognize any of them. Siggy Petron would have sent out the word looking for the face I wore, but I didn’t plan to spend long in that bar or the city for that matter.
    “You got the key?” I asked, still looking out across the gloom of the bar.
    “Your hair is different,” she said. “Red and curly.”
    “You have the most beautiful skin I have ever seen, Lana,” I, and most of my cohorts, remarked.
    There must have been power behind the words because, unbidden, her lips parted and she took in a quick breath. My golden executioner was looking at me, trying to see if I was who I said I was, when the compliment threw her off.
    “Are you comin’ on to me, Lance?”
    “Death fascinates all living things.”
    “You see?” she said. “The Lance I knew never said things like that.”
    “The Lance you knew liked to lick the little brown mole on your left labial lip.”
    I realized that she had been tense because she relaxed at those words. Her shoulders let down a quarter inch, and a smile that any Renaissance master would have appreciated appeared.
    “Would you like to do that again?”
    “That position would leave the whole top of my head exposed.”
    “You don’t have to worry about that.”
    “Oh? Why not?”
    “Because I know now that I was wrong to try and kill you,” she said.
    “Because it didn’t work?”
    “No, it’s four years later and I’m still alive. You could have gone after revenge or turned me over to Mr. P anytime you wanted.”
    “Do you have the key?”
    “I’ll give it to you outside.”
    I considered pretending that I was nervous, asking her to go in the alley instead, that I didn’t want her pulling a gun on me. This last notion reminded me of a need I had.
    “Okay,” I said. “But give me your purse.”
    There was a red handbag sitting on the green-and-white marble bar. It matched her dress perfectly.
    “Can I get you anything?” the lethargic bartender asked. He was looking at my face as if it was familiar but he hadn’t placed it—yet.
    Without looking directly at him, I took a twenty from my wallet and placed it on the bar. I took