Loren D. Estleman - Amos Walker 16 - Poison Blonde Read Online Free PDF Page B

jerkily. Neither of them looked at me and so I decided I was the subject of the conversation. Matador fished out a key card and let us into a room cater-corner from Gilia’s.
    The suite was as small as a suite could be and still share a floor with the one across the hall. The sitting room came with a pocket-size refrigerator and microwave and an armchair upholstered in stiff fabric, unused since the showroom. The bedroom was just a room with a bed and related furniture in it and on the top sheet lay a Franchi Magnum shotgun, assorted semiautomatic pistols with chrome and composition finishes, a couple of tasers, and a Korean assault rifle with plastic stock and handgrips and a magazine the size of a toaster. Boxes of shells and police-issue speedloaders finished making a mess out of the housekeeper’s hospital corners. Five men as large as Benny, one white, one black, the rest as brown as Mexican heroin, stood around the bed in shirtsleeves and clip-on neckties, monkeying with the cylinders and slides of additional handguns. They looked up when Matador entered.
    He threw them out with his chin. They belted and shoulderholstered their weapons, climbed into their Big-and-Tall suit coats, and left us, leaving deep footprints in the pile carpet.
    “I didn’t know singing was hazard work,” I said. “Or was that the chorus?”
    “Miss Cristobal averages three death threats per month. That is two more than John Lennon. She is permitted to carry a concealed weapon in every state, but where would she conceal it? All these men are licensed private investigators. Not that any of them has ever investigated anything. They serve but one client,
and her full-time. The black fellow trained with the U.S. Marshals. He can punch a three-hundred-grain round through a two-inch oak board from six hundred yards.”
    “Handy, if she’s ever attacked by a dining room suite. What about close up?”
    “That’s Benito. He’s qualified in all the standard forms of Oriental dirty fighting. You caught him at a bad moment earlier. Yes, I am aware of everything that goes on within walking distance of Miss Cristobal. He has been reprimanded.”
    “And he’s still manufacturing hormones? You’ve mellowed. Does the parole board know about all this ordnance?”
    He leaned across the bed, grabbed the coverlet, and twitched it over the firearms. “This is between you, me, and the sheets. Strictly speaking, it is permitted as long as I don’t actually handle the weapons, but my p.o. has a linear mind. He thinks guns lead to shooting. And so this is a secret you have on me as well.”
    “Close friendships have been built on less,” I said. “But not today.”
    He sighed a Latin sigh. “You are an unforgiving soul, Anglo. The People of the State of Michigan have decided my debt is repaid. Is it not lonely to be the solitary holdout?” He perched himself at the end of a love seat covered in industrial-strength chintz, crossed his slim legs, and spent a minute adjusting the crease in his pants. All he needed now was a slim Cohiba, and he selected one from a calliope-shaped case made of glossy brown leather.
    “Lonely as the grave. Which is where I almost was when you turned my police bodyguard after I talked to the grand jury. I’m holding the grudge. Call me petty.”
    “That was not personal. Nor is the assignment Miss Cristobal has offered. Would you have accepted if I were not in the picture?”
    “What do you think?”
    “I haven’t that luxury. I do not know the Anglo mind. If I offered to remove myself from the situation, would you reconsider?”
    “I might, if you used one of those removers on the bed.”
    He looked sad. “You may select one, if that is truly how you feel. It should not be difficult for an experienced man such as yourself to arrange the evidence consistent with a self-preservation defense. It’s unlikely the Dearborn Police will lean very heavily upon the forensic anomalies. El muerto es solo verdad. ”
    “The