On the Street Where You Die (Stanley Bentworth mysteries Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

interested?”
    Here we go again. I swallowed the oatmeal, washed it down with coffee, wiped my mouth with a napkin, and looked her in the face, not easy to do when her boobs were rubbing back and forth on the table and showing their cleavage inside her non-buttoned blouse. She had that doe-eyed look that always made me wilt. She knew it too.
    “You know, Bunny, we’ve been down this road before.”
    “Yeah, and maybe we’ll go down it again. And maybe not.” She pulled away from the table, looked around the diner and ran her hand through her hair. “I’m getting a little long in the tooth, Stan. I’m not the hottie I used to be. You got a better chance of hanging on to me now.”
    Bunny had given me a picture of herself in a two-piece bathing suit. I kept it in my desk drawer. With the onset of middle age, she had gone down a few notches on the Bo Derrick scale and had to lower her standards and go out with guys like me. Until she found better, that is. Then it would turn into the old maybe-we-should-see-other-people, let’s-stay-friends routine. What could you do?
    I shook my head. “It sure flatters a guy when a woman wants him only because she’s too old to attract younger men.”
    “I thought you’d feel that way. I’m sorry. You want to go out for a drink tonight?”
    “I quit drinking?”
    “Bullshit. When?”
    “About a half hour ago when I realized that a fried egg would decorate the linoleum. So I’m off the sauce. It’s easier to give up than eating.”
    “We’ve been down that road too.”
    “Yes, we have.”
    “Well, think about it. Stop by at quitting time if you’re willing. Since you’re on the wagon, maybe you can come by my place for a taco.”
    She laughed again and returned to the kitchen.

Chapter 4 
     
    I finished my breakfast, left money on the table, and headed back across the street to the office. I felt better already. Must have been the healthy breakfast.
    The day looked like a nice one for late autumn. It was chilly, and I pulled my trench coat around me, but the sun was shining, and the wind was down. I went in the building and climbed the stairs, an easier climb than this morning’s. I went in and took off my trench coat.
    “Any messages, Willa?”
    “Your sister called. Not urgent.”
    “Anything left from that thousand?”
    “No.”
    “We still in debt?”
    “Yes.”
    I sounded out Willa on the Bunny situation.
    “I got news. Bunny’s back on the market,” I said.
    “So?”
    “She wants me back.”
    Willa sniffed. “That’s not news. For how long this time?”
    I couldn’t answer that.
    “You know how this is going to turn out,” she said. “Just like always.”
    I didn’t want that debate so I changed the subject. “You think I’d be more attractive to women if I took up body building?”
    “Maybe if you built one from scratch. Not much to work with there.” She laughed.
    “Thanks a lot. I just don’t know how to hang onto a woman. Particularly one who goes for younger men.”
    “Rogaine, a face lift, liposuction, and AA might help. Not in that order.”
    Willa didn’t approve of my drinking. I didn’t want to get into that one either, so I went into my office.
    Rodney was at my desk, his face in the laptop, his fingers tapping the keys faster than the notes in a Kenny G solo.
    I sat in the guest chair, took out my phone, and called my sister.
    “Hi, Mandy, what’s up?”
    “Is Rodney there?” she asked.
    “Yes. He’s here working on a problem for me.”
    “He ought to be in school.”
    “He graduated, remember?”
    “I mean in college. Smart kid like that. Can he hear us?”
    “No. Did you buy him that shirt?”
    “What shirt?”
    “The one with the taco on it.”
    She giggled. “I bought that for me to wear to aerobics. He keeps taking it.”
    “Burn it. What do you need, Mandy?”
    “I’ve been seeing a guy, an Army Captain assigned to where I work. We’ve been out a few times to the Officer’s Club and out on his boat.