The Color of Greed (Raja Williams 1) Read Online Free PDF

enough to try to kill him, and
stupid enough to piss him off by destroying his beloved 1966 Duetto
Spider.
    Raja brushed his hair back and pulled out his cell
phone. First he called Clarice Hope to make sure she was okay but got
no answer. Next, he punched the number two on his speed dial. After
the calliope of rapid beeps, the phone rang once and he heard Vinny’s
familiar voice on the other end.
    “You missed me, didn’t you?”
    “You might say that. I wanted to make sure you
were okay.”
    “I should be worried about you. I was sure you
were going to leave with those two young heat-seeking missiles.”
    “You know me better than that.”
    “True dat. Let me guess. Right now you are
sipping expensive scotch in a too-cool West Hollywood bar.”
    “Wish I were. I’m standing up on
Mulholland Drive. And Leonardo is gone.”
    “What do you mean? Stolen?”
    “No, gone—as in gone up in flames.”
    “O-M-G.”
    “Your data was right. We are on to
something—something big. Someone just tried to kill me. Must
have cut the brake lines.”
    “Hot damn! That’s great!”
    “Great? It’s a good thing you are still
in Florida.”
    “You know what I mean. By the way, are you all
right?”
    “Thanks for asking. Yeah. Nothing a couple
fingers of The Macallan won’t fix. But I’m going to need
your help here, Vinny. Seems I poked a particularly nasty hornets’
nest.”
    “Your wish is my command. When do you want me
there?”
    Raja could always count on Vinny in the clutch.
“Next flight you can get. Call me when you are an hour from
landing.” He closed his cell phone and watched as the fire
below began to die out. The sirens of the fire trucks were already
getting louder. He decided to be gone before they arrived. There was
no point wasting time with questions he already knew the answers to,
and being assumed dead would buy him time to regroup. He looked for a
spot where he could work his way down on foot, and disappeared into
the darkness.
    Raja had gotten into the party on the widow’s
invite and only done observation on the scene. Granted, as an
independent private investigator he had some celebrity of his own due
to a number of high profile cases he had previously handled, but the
fact that someone was on to him fast enough to rig his car at the
party meant the stakes were high. It also meant that the widow was
being closely monitored. As he made his way down the hill, he called
Clarice again to check on her. No answer—straight to voice
mail. Damn. Raja called a cab to pick him up when he reached the road
below. By the time he stepped out of the bushes onto Wrightwood Drive
near the bottom of the Santa Monica Mountains, a yellow cab was there
waiting a hundred yards ahead. Raja waved and the backup lights
flashed on.
    The cab eased back to where Raja stood and the
driver peered cautiously out a partially open window. “I don’t
get too many calls like this,” said the cabby, noticing Raja’s
dusty and torn tux. “You said you had a breakdown. Where’s
your car?”
    Raja pointed behind him into the thick brush of the
canyon. A faint orange glow flickered from the spot where the car had
crashed.
    “Some breakdown. You’re lucky you’re
still breathing.”
    “No kidding.”
    “You want to go to the hospital?” asked
the cabby, unlocking his doors.
    “Nope. Sunset Boulevard will do,” said
Raja as he climbed into the back seat.
    The cab stopped in front of a cheap Hollywood motel
where Raja checked in under a different name. Then he walked to a bar
on Sunset Boulevard where he sat in the shadows nursing a glass of
cheap scotch and reviewed the case. He had crashed an exclusive party
held for the California governor. The affair had been held at some
unknown muckity-muck contributor’s house, undoubtedly as
payback for millions donated overtly to the governor’s election
fund, or covertly to a slush fund the governor controlled. Ain’t
politics grand. Raja had come at the request of a recently