The Accomplice Read Online Free PDF Page A

work?”
    Caleb took a moment to mull the question and found no ulterior motives behind it. Holliday’s expression was genuine as he perched on the edge of his stool waiting for the response. Reaching up to feel his jaw, he found plenty of bloody gaps but no more glass. “Feels a whole lot better than when I came in.”
    “Then that can hold me over until you can pay me. Now, how about those cuts? Shall I see to them, or would you prefer to go to another doctor?”
    “Since I’m already here, you might as well do it. If I’m going to run up a bill, I’d just as soon just run up one big one than a few smaller ones.”
    “Now that is what I call sound reasoning. Care for something to help with the pain?”
    Fully expecting a tonic or some kind of ointment, Caleb nodded. What he got instead was something that made him look down just to make sure he was guessing correctly about what the dentist had given him. Sure enough, it was a dented metal flask. The initials JHH were engraved onto its front. A quick shake told him the flask was about half-full.
    “That might sting a bit going down,” Holliday said with a wink. “But it’ll be worth it.”
    Steeling himself with a deep breath, Caleb twisted open the flask and lifted it to his mouth. When he tossed back some of the contents, he made sure to keep as much of it as possible on the less damaged half of his mouth. The whiskey was smooth and potent, with a bit of a smoky aftertaste. That wasn’t enough, however, to dull the flash of pain that filled Caleb’s skull like billowing smoke.
    Swallowing the liquor, Caleb handed back the flask. “Tastes expensive,” he said.
    Holliday nodded while accepting the flask. When he took a pull for himself, he didn’t so much as flinch. “Feel better?”
    “No, but let’s get this over with.”
    “What’s the matter? You don’t trust Hank to watch your place while you’re away?”
    Caleb squinted through the slight haze that had rolled in behind his eyes from the combination of pain and whiskey. “Why do you say that? And how do you know so much about my business?”
    Holliday’s features lightened a bit as he shrugged. “Maybe I should be asking you why you don’t recognize the face of one of your customers?” After another second ticked by, Holliday smirked. “Relax, Caleb. I make it my business to know as much as I can about the person who runs a place where I play cards. It helps me avoid the money pits.”
    “Money pits?”
    “Sure. Places where the only ones who win are the cheats and the owners who let them operate. Everyone else might as well be tossing their money into a pit.”
    “Clever. You think up that one on your own?”
    “Not hardly.” After one more pull from the flask, Holliday offered it back to Caleb. It was refused, so Holliday took Caleb’s portion for himself. “Now then, let’s see what we can do about that face of yours.”
    Caleb’s first impulse was to vacate that uncomfortable chair until some of the whiskey had been purged from the dentist’s system. He stayed put when he saw that Holliday’s hands were just as steady now as when he’d started.
    The whiskey gave Holliday’s skin a rosy hue and made the smile on his face a bit more personable. Anyone else would have looked like a drunkard. For a man who appeared to be a few steps over a corpse, any bit of color was a welcome change, no matter where it came from.
    Only a few of the cuts on Caleb’s jaw were deep enough to need stitches. The rest only required bandaging so they could close up on their own. Now that the broken glass was out, the damage to his jaw didn’t seem half as bad as it had first seemed.
    “You’ll be fine,” Holliday said, his southern accent polishing up the words like varnish on a knife’s handle. “You want some advice?”
    “Sure.”
    “Next time you see a bottle coming your way . . . duck.”
    Caleb started to smile but held back when he realized that one of his cuts was still in the process