Shot of Tequila Read Online Free PDF

Couldn’t be more than a few grand. Do you kill someone for that little?”
    “People get killed for el tokens.” Which was an actual case of theirs a few months back.
    “But why did anyone have to die? If he wanted to cheat the insurance company, all he had to do was hide his money, conk himself on the head, and say he was robbed.”
    Jack nodded. “Binkowski’s hiding something.”
    “Are you saying we should take him back to the station ourselves and grill him?”
    “Until he’s well-done.”
    “You want to be the bad cop?”
    Jack smiled. “Let’s both be bad cops.”

T equila drove up to his parking garage and honked the horn. After a delay of a few seconds, the garage door opened and the attendant, who’d been sleeping in the booth, gave Tequila a courteous nod as he drove past.
    For the eighteen hundred bucks a month it cost to rent here the attendant shouldn’t sleep on duty. Tequila considered calling the Building Association about it, but decided to let it go. Tequila wasn’t the type to rat on anyone, even somebody whose salary he helped pay.
    He parked in his usual spot, next to the lobby doors, and set his car alarm after getting out. It was supposed to be a security garage, but then it was also supposed to have an attendant who was awake to let people in and out. Tequila didn’t believe in luck, but he did believe in odds. He stacked the odds in his favor whenever he could.
    He walked into his lobby and was greeted with a smile by Frank the doorman, who was quick to ring for Tequila’s elevator.
    “Good evening, Mr. Abernathy.”
    Tequila nodded and stepped into the lift, all chrome and mirrors and carpet. He pressed the button for the thirtieth floor and stared at the doorman’s smile until the doors closed.
    The building was under ten years old, featuring state-of-the-art elevators, and twelve seconds later Tequila was on his floor. The hallway had been done in cream, with expensive plush carpeting and lattice pattern wallpaper. Works of art adorned the walls between apartment doors, and a black Drexel coffee table stood in the corner where the hallway turned, with a large silk arrangement in an iron vase perched upon it.
    Tequila followed the hallway through the bend and to the first door on his left. He checked the knob, pleased to find it locked. China was almost religious about security, but Tequila still checked it every time. A habit from when he and Sally used to live in a much different apartment building, before he worked for Marty.
    He unlocked the door and announced himself as he always did.
    “It’s me, China.”
    China poked her large black head out of the kitchen and smiled at Tequila.
    “How was work, Mr. Abernathy?”
    “Fine. And you?”
    “Sally wet the bed again. She don’t like falling asleep when you ain’t home. I changed her, and put on fresh sheets. She sleepin’ now.”
    “Thank you, China.”
    Tequila hung his coat up in the closet and walked into the kitchen, taking the apple juice from the refrigerator. He poured himself a glass while the overweight care-giver watched.
    “It’s getting late,” Tequila said after downing the juice. “You can stay the night if you’d like.”
    “I just might do that, Mr. Abernathy.”
    China pulled herself up from the confines of the kitchen chair and walked out of the kitchen with precise, petite steps, wool slippers already on her feet. Whenever Tequila worked late, it was a given that China would stay over. But she always waited until asked. He’d tried more than once to hire her as a live-in, but China insisted on her independence.
    “Got to be able to do what I want to,” she said time and again.
    Yet for the last four years, her sole job was taking care of Sally. She had no family that Tequila knew of, and the one time he followed her home—a small bit of surveillance to make sure he knew what kind of person she was before he hired her for Sal—he found she lived alone in a tiny apartment that bordered on