Slow Burn Read Online Free PDF

not being mentioned at all.
    Alice stopped talking when she realized I was standing there. She looked me up and down, and I could tell she didn’t think much of what she saw. I didn’t mind. It was tough to pin down exactly what it was that made Alice so irresistible to men, but whatever it was, she had it in spades. Her deep brown eyes were so warm and inviting that a man could forget his troubles just by looking into them, at least for a little while. The city was littered with guys who’d tried doing just that.
    “Hello, Alice,” I said. “It’s been a while.”
    She gave me a half-hearted smile as she stubbed out her cigarette. She didn’t seem thrilled to see me and I couldn’t blame her. After all, I was cutting in on her payday. Bixby finally looked up from his notebook. He was about my size, maybe a little smaller, with wisps of brown hair pushed across the top of his head. His thick round glasses made his beady eyes look bigger than they really were.
    “Well, well, well,” Bixby said as he set his pen aside and grinned up at me. It wasn’t a nice grin. It was lopsided and cynical, like everything else about him. “If it isn’t the Prodigal Policeman. The Merchant of Avarice himself.” Bixby looked at Alice. “You’re a lucky lady, my dear. I’d like to introduce you to something before it goes the way of the dodo bird—and by way of the dodo bird, I mean extinct. This is Detective Charles Doherty of the New York Police Department. He used to be a bag man for the boys downtown, not to mention a damned good source of information for me once upon a time.”
    Alice was justifiably unimpressed. “I’ve known Charlie for years, Wendell.”
    Bixby looked me over. “Then you probably remember when he used to be somebody. Now he’s just another two-bit cop, crossing off days on a tiny calendar nailed to the wall next to his icebox, waiting for retirement.” He sucked his teeth. “How many days is it now, Charlie? And don’t tell me you’re not the type who counts.”
    I didn’t let him rile me. The bravado was for Alice’s benefit. He’d be gentle as a lamb once she was out of earshot.
    “We need to talk, Wendell. Now.”
    Bixby looked at Alice again. “Now, how do you like that? I haven’t seen him in over a year and he expects me to just drop everything and talk with him?” Then he looked at me while he motioned to the girl. “Can’t you see I’m entertaining a lady friend, Charles? Why don’t you wait at the bar until…?”
    I shifted my jacket to my left hand and made a fist with my right. “You’re starting to annoy me.” I heard the boys behind me scramble further down the bar. Like I said, they all knew me.
    Bixby made a big show of sighing. “Alice, be an angel and give me a few minutes with Charles. We’ll get back to your story very soon, I promise.”
    Alice frowned and she suddenly wasn’t so pretty anymore. She had that kind of face. “But what about my money?”
    “When you come back, darling,” Bixby patted her hand. “Now, run along like a good girl, but not too far, mind you. I’m still very interested in what you have to tell me.”
    Alice gathered up her bag, slid out of the booth and stood in one swift movement. Like a girl who’d had plenty of experience being asked to leave conversations between men. When she stood, she was almost half a head taller than me. But I wasn’t complaining about the view.
    She said, “I heard you and Theresa split up. I was sorry to hear that. That’s rough.”
    I shrugged it off. “I broke the first rule of law enforcement: don’t marry the women you arrest. I knew what she was when I married her.” That sounded far more bitter than I’d intended, and I covered it as quick as I could, “Heard you’re not singing at The Bronze Peacock anymore.”
    “That’s because The Bronze Peacock closed a year ago, dopey,” she said. “I’m over at The Tangiers now.”
    “The Tangiers?” I smiled. “I didn’t know it was