Stuff Dreams Are Made Of Read Online Free PDF Page B

Still is.”
    “No shit?”
    “No shit.”
    “So, was he ever implicated in the death?”
    Rick wiped up his sauce with a piece of white bread. “I don’t remember, Skip. I mean, the guy’s out there on the circuit so it couldn’t have done much damage to his career. From what I hear, people are still dropping money in the guy’s collection plate.”
    More than ever. “Still —”
    “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinkin’. What were you talking about, this senator stuff?”
    “Never mind. Just a story I heard.” I’d finished half the sausage gravy and found out that I’d lost my appetite. I wasn’t in the mood to eat anymore. I said good-bye and drove back to our crappy abode. I wasn’t in the mood for selling either.
    James came home about three, begging off early so we could get to the park.
    “I ran into Rick Mosely at Esther’s today.”
    “Rick? I saw him last week. Told him about our gig with the rev.” James walked to the refrigerator and grabbed one of my long necks. We were fifty-fifty on expenses, but my fifty was usually about seventy-five or eighty.
    “Yeah, well he told me something I’d forgotten.”
    James pulled a brick of cheddar cheese from the fridge and took a bite off the end. My cheese, his germs. “And what was that?”
    “About ten years ago, I took a weekend with my Uncle Buzz.”
    “I sort of remember that. You came back and raved about the pleasures of Jack Daniels. Hell, I thought that he was your new best friend.”
    “Buzz and I went to a revival meeting.”
    “And?”
    “And, the girl who took collections from us was murdered. They found her body the next morning in the park. She’d been strangled.”
    James took another bite of cheese and washed it down with my beer. “You forgot that?”
    “No. I think I probably told you about it.”
    “Yeah. I’m sure you did.”
    “However, I forgot that it was in Oleta River Park. Andeven though I was at the revival, I never really knew who the minister was. It was Cashdollar.”
    “So what’s your point?”
    “Rick said she was Cashdollar’s underage girlfriend.”
    “That’s it? The underage girlfriend?”
    “What do you want?”
    “I don’t know. It lacks any passion, romance, or decadence.”
    He had a point.
    “So Rick was insinuating that the rev killed the girl?”
    I joined the party and pried the top off a long-neck beer. I decided against the cheddar cheese. “Rick said he’d never heard anything about that. He figures that if Cashdollar is still on the circuit, it must be because no one ever accused him.”
    But, man, Cabrina Washington, Senator Long, the food vendor, and who knows how many other deaths — all happening under the shadow of Cashdollar’s tent.
    “Man, we’ve got to go into the tent. We’ll leave now, set up the truck, and we can catch an hour of this guy’s spouting before we have to serve the starving masses.” James swallowed the last of his beer. “Help me get the stuff organized. I went out and got more patties and brats. I think we’ve still got enough peppers, onions, and potatoes to feed a Third World country for six weeks.”
    “And once more, tell me why we really care what the reverend has to say. Why do we even want to involve ourselves in the dreams and schemes of a man who may have been implicated in two murders and a mysterious death?” The food vendor that James had mentioned — it bothered me.
    My partner was silent for a moment. He tossed his beer bottle toward the kitchen trashcan, it missed with a thud, and rolled across the cheap linoleum floor.
    “Why do you want to do this, James?”
    “It’s not so much the intrigue of foul play at the revivalmeeting, amigo. It’s not that I want to see how he’s going to bring down the talk show host, Barry Romans.”
    “Then what is it?”
    “He’s successful. I think we need to explore success, whenever the opportunity arises.”
    It sounded like James. Always trying to find the next get-rich-quick idea.