The Dirt Peddler Read Online Free PDF Page A

from its blue plastic pick to the bottom of the glass before looking up at me.
    “No, I keep it in my briefcase, which is usually locked.”
    “But not always,” I said, making an obvious assumption. “And you don’t have your briefcase with you every minute. Ever leave it lying around open?”
    He thought for a moment. “Uh…I had it with me at that little dipshit publisher’s one time, and I had it open to put in a galley proof of the book, and…” he pursed his lips “…and I left the office to take a piss, but I remember when I got back it was just where I’d left it. And what in hell reason would Bernadine have to rummage through my checkbook?”
    “Did they know at that point that you were planning on dumping them with your second book?”
    “No,” he said casually. “I hadn’t officially accepted the advance offer yet. I didn’t tell them until my agent had everything all sealed up with the new publisher.”
    It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that an open briefcase might be somewhat tempting if Bernadine Press knew or suspected he was planning to jump ship…and check #2501 would have been the top check in a new set of twenty-five. Just lifting the cover of the checkbook would have shown it in carbon copy.
    I took a long sip of coffee, carefully replacing the cup on the saucer, before speaking.
    “Well, to be honest with you, Mr. Tunderew, knowing your aversion to faggots and considering that I am one, I might suggest you could be better served by going to the yellow pages and picking a private investigator with whom you might feel more comfortable.”
    I was watching his face for any reaction to my letting him know I was gay myself, but there was none. He didn’t bat an eye.
    “I’m not stupid, you know.”
    Really? You couldn’t prove it by me, I thought.
    “Of course I could have contacted a heterosexual private investigator, but the nature of this…issue…would be better addressed by someone more familiar with it on a personal level. I deliberately asked Glen O’Banyon for a reference because I was pretty sure he’d recommend…a fellow traveler,” he said with a small, condescending smile. “I’m a very open-minded and practical man when it comes to my own best interest.”
    I said nothing, having earlier decided against mopping the floor with him, but was still debating just getting out of my chair and leaving.
    “I appreciate your candor.” I was again vaguely pleased by how calm I sounded. “Not very many bigots have the courage to be so open in a one-to-one, face-to-face situation.”
    His smile returned. “Since I doubt we will ever be spending much quality time together, we don’t have to like one another, Mr. Hardesty. But I understand that you are both discreet and good at what you do. And for you to turn me down, as I’m sure you’ve been considering doing, would only prove that you were as bigoted in your own way as you claim I am in mine. As a final incentive, I’m willing to pay half-again your normal rates in an effort to appeal to your own practical best interest.”
    Well, I hate to admit it, but he had a point or two in there. And it occurred to me that probably the main reason he chose me was because he was so firmly convinced the blackmailer was Fletcher. His paranoia didn’t want anyone straight—even a P.I.—to think he was gay. Tunderew may have been positive about Fletcher, but I’d bet the line of people with a good reason to blackmail him would stretch around the block.
    “And if, on some very outside chance, it isn’t Mr. Fletcher?” I asked again.
    He just shrugged, removing the little pick with the two remaining onions from his glass. He closed his teeth just past the second onion and pulled the now-empty pick slowly from his mouth, then drained his drink, and dropped the pick back into the empty glass.
    “It is. No question. He follows me around to book signings, keeps sending me love letters—I just tear them up without opening