Nightcrawlers: A Nameless Detective Novel (Nameless Detective Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page A

were just words. It did work that way, much of the time. And not just in crimes against gays or other hate crimes—in nearly all low-profile street felonies. Too many crimes, too many criminals, too little time and manpower. Too many excuses and too much apathy.
    Joshua said bitterly, “I thought you didn’t lie. Isn’t that what you told me in December?”
    “All right. I’m sorry.”
    “Sorry. What good is sorry?” Shuddery breath. The blue eyes were moist now; shifting emotions, pain the most intense. “He could die. Kenneth could
die.”
    “His condition that critical?”
    “Internal bleeding. The doctors had trouble stopping it. It could start again at any time . . .”
    It seemed for a few seconds that Joshua might break down. Runyon felt an impulse to sit beside him, give him a shoulder to lean on. Didn’t do it because he knew the gesture would be rejected. What his son wanted from him had nothing to do with fatherly solace.
    Joshua made a visible effort to pull himself together. At length he said, “I hate this,” in a shaky voice. “Kenneth is the strong one. I’m no damn good in a crisis.”
    Runyon said, “I am.”
    “I just . . . I don’t know what to do.”
    “You’ve already done all you can. Calling me was the right thing.”
    For the first time Joshua looked at him squarely. “Could you find them, stop them before they kill somebody?”
    “Maybe. No guarantees.”
    “Would
you? If I hired you, paid you . . .”
    “No.”
    “But you just said—”
    “I’ll do what I can, but not for pay.”
    Silent stare.
    “You’re my son,” Runyon said. “That’s all the reason I need.”

3
TAMARA
    Vonda said, “Well, I met this guy.”
    “Uh-huh.” So what else is new? Tamara thought.
    “A couple of weeks ago at a club in SoMa. We danced and had some drinks and he asked me for my phone number and I gave it to him. I was a little ripped or I probably wouldn’t have.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “He kept calling me up and I gave in and I’ve been out with him a couple of times. A really nice guy, and gorgeous . . . I mean a real hunk. His name is Ben, Ben Sherman; he played football when he was at UC Berkeley. He has a good job, he works for a brokerage company in the financial district.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Saturday night we went out again, dinner and dancing, and afterward . . . well, he invited me to his place on Tel Hill, he’s got a great apartment up there, terrific view and everything . . .”
    “Let me guess. You ended up in bed.”
    “I wasn’t going to, it just happened. I mean, you know me, I don’t usually sleep with a guy until I get to know him first.”
    Oh, yeah, right. She’d been friends with Vonda since they were sophomores at Redwood City High. Shared some wild times, their gangsta period when they’d chased with some rough homies, smoked weed, done all kinds of stuff that came close to crossing the line. Vonda looked a little like a young Robin Givens, slim and sleek but with a J-Lo booty; guys had been all over her since her boobs started to show. She’d lost her cherry when she was fifteen, must’ve slept with fifty different guys before and after she cleaned up her act.
    “How was it?” The usual girl-talk question.
    “Oh, great. Wow. The best ever. I mean, Ben really knows how to treat a woman in bed. But it wasn’t just sex.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “No lie. There’s a difference, you know there is. Sex is one thing, making love’s another. I thought I’d made love a time or two, but with Ben . . . Lord, I think I’m in love with that man.”
    “Uh-huh.” She’d heard that one before, too.
    “Seriously, Tam. And it’s mutual. He came right out and said he loves me.”
    Tamara covered a sigh with a sip from her glass. Mineral water. And a white wine spritzer for Vonda. Tamara Corbin and Vonda McGee, the two badass young ‘ho’s all cornrowed and grunge-dressed and party-ready. If those high school homies could see the two of them now, nine years