Jericho Point Read Online Free PDF

frame, one hip jutting out.
    ‘‘Talk about chutzpah.’’
    She stalked in, chewing gum. ‘‘Tell you, it’s a hell of a way to start the weekend, getting those checks back from the bank yesterday.’’
    I turned to her. ‘‘I didn’t steal them.’’
    ‘‘Deny, deny, yada yada. Bay at some other moon, girl.’’
    Karen Jimson was five-foot-zilch of hard body. Kitten nose, gamine hairdo, fawn’s eyes, and a white drill instructor’s T-shirt, cut short to reveal her six-pack. She wore a sapphire ring the size of a Gummi Bear. Working with her was like wrestling a crowbar.
    ‘‘Let me lay it out,’’ she said. ‘‘Evan came to the house on January twentieth. Those checks are dated January twenty-first. Don’t know ’bout you, but I can count.’’
    ‘‘Wait,’’ I said. ‘‘I was at the house for all of ten minutes, getting your signatures on the Embarcadero contracts. And I was with you or Ricky the whole time.’’
    ‘‘Sleight of hand.’’ She mimed a pickpocket. ‘‘Finger magic.’’
    ‘‘Good point. Have you taken steps to preserve the fingerprints on the checks?’’
    She scoffed. ‘‘At this stage? There’s gonna be too many to count. Mine, Ricky’s, the bank teller’s, whoever stuffed them back in the envelopes to mail to us . . .’’
    ‘‘But not mine.’’
    ‘‘Honey, come off it. In thirty seconds you could have scoped it out.’’
    ‘‘Karen—’’
    ‘‘So here’s the deal. You return the money.’’ She turned to Lavonne. ‘‘And Sanchez Marks severs its relationship with her. Permanently.’’ The gum snapped in her teeth. ‘‘Meet those conditions and this all goes away. It never happened.’’ She looked at me. ‘‘By Monday afternoon.’’
    I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Karen chewed.
    Lavonne said, ‘‘Give me a minute with Evan.’’
    ‘‘Yeah, I’ll bet. Where’s your coffeepot? I need a hit.’’
    She left, and Lavonne shut the door. ‘‘Monday afternoon. Got that?’’
    ‘‘I can’t.’’
    ‘‘Karen’s giving you a pass. She’s turning her back and counting to ten, and if everything is put back in its place, they won’t call the police. Or the state bar.’’
    ‘‘Lavonne, I didn’t steal the money. You can’t actually believe that I did.’’
    She stood motionless, so hot that she was practically crackling. ‘‘Belief is useless without proof.’’
    It was an opening. ‘‘What do you want?’’
    ‘‘Evidence.’’ She tossed her glasses on the desk. ‘‘By Monday morning. Do that, and I’ll present it to the Jimsons.’’
    I stormed out of Lavonne’s office into the hallway, clutching the photocopy. I was cussing rapid-fire. I rounded the corner into the lobby.
    Ricky Jimson stood by the window, talking on a cell phone.
    ‘‘Sloppy, man, I’m telling you the track’s a mess,’’ he said.
    His arms were rope-thin. His jeans sagged across the butt. Up close I could see gray hair threading his blond mane.
    ‘‘The drum’s lagging, and the rhythm guitar’s flat,’’ he said. ‘‘Hey, I’m listening to it in my car, and I can hear it going south over the fuckin’ freeway traffic. We gotta fix it.’’
    ‘‘Ricky,’’ I said.
    He turned, his attention still on the phone call. In his prime he had been likened to a cobra. Now he looked like a python that had swallowed a Christmas ham. But his face was still handsome, rakish and bright-eyed, if pumped smooth with beer fat.
    ‘‘No,’’ he said into the phone. ‘‘Call the studio and tell them we’ll be in this afternoon. We’re Jimsonweed, dude. You don’t ask; you tell ’em we’re coming.’’
    I raised the photocopy to face level. ‘‘You have a problem.’’
    His eyes crinkled with curiosity. Scratching his chin beard, he leaned forward to peer at the text. His brow creased. ‘‘Hang on, man.’’
    ‘‘I’m not the person who ripped you off. So think— who else knows where Karen keeps the Datura