The Mike Murphy Files and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF

served you right,” she grumbled.
    I didn’t say anything more. There’s a time to talk and there’s a time to hold your tongue. Maura may be a selkie, with teeth on her strong enough to crack an abalone shell and all sorts of odd tricks up her sleeve, but she also works out every morning at the gym, and it’s her strong left hand I’m more in fear of. As for me, I’m just Irish, and that’s good enough for me, whether it be leprechauns or ogres or angry taxicab drivers I’m dealing with.
    We walked back up to the parking lot. The cabbie’s eyes popped out of his head when he saw Maura. There was a lot to see, I’m sure.
    “Where we go now?” he said. “Is this fifty bucks?”
    “Can it, you swindler. Just get in and drive.”
    “I am good family man. What will the wife say if she hear I drive naked woman? Fifty bucks would keep mouth shut.”
    “She’d say a lot, I’m sure. So why don’t you drive us for free and I won’t tell her.”
    And that’s what he did. Grumbling curses in Ukrainian, of course. Maura dripped water onto my shoulder. We had some shoes to pick up. It was the start of a good day.

 
    PERMANENTS AND PEARLS
    From the Files of Mike Murphy
     
    I was lying on a beach in Tahiti. Me, Mike Murphy, living the good life. The sea was a beautiful blue. The sand was as gold as gold. Girls in bikinis ambled by. A fern frond umbrella shaded my face from the sun. I yawned. My girlfriend Maura walked up, tanned and stunning in some kind of exciting yellow polka-dotted ensemble. She sat down on the chaise lounge next to me.
    “Here,” she said. “Here’s your Iced Coconut Rum Slurp.”
    The Iced Coconut Rum Slurp comes in a large coconut shell and consists, oddly enough, of fresh coconut milk, about a gallon of rum, and some crushed ice. She handed the thing over. But instead of shoveling it into my hands, she shoved it against my ear.
    “Here,” she said again. “Take it.”
    “I’m trying to,” I said. “Stop that.” Coconuts are rough, hairy things and I don’t enjoy them smashed against my ear. What’s more, the damn thing started ringing. Brr-ing! Brr-ing!
    “Stop it!” I yelled.
    Brr-ing! Brr-ing!
    The coconut kept on ringing. It got louder and louder. I tried knocking the coconut out of Maura’s hand, but she’s always been too fast for me. I sat up. Opened my eyes. The beach was gone. The clock on my nightstand read 5:47 a.m. in glowing red malevolence. The phone beside it kept on ringing. I made a grab for it.
    “What?” I snarled.
    “Murphy?”
    “What?! Do you know what time it is?”
    “Oh?” said the voice innocently. “Is it late? Have you had breakfast yet?”
    Captain Patrick Thaddeus Corrigan ran the 53 rd Precinct. He was a red-haired, red-faced slave driver, and ever since I’d quit the force and gone to work for myself as a private detective, he wasn’t my boss. He had a voice that sounded like bricks getting liquefied in a blender at slow speed. I could recognize it anywhere, especially at 5:47 in the morning.
    “You’re not my boss. Get it through your thick head. I quit! Two years ago!”
    “I shoulda fired you!” he yelled over the phone. The Captain has a pretty short fuse on the best of days. “You’re a whiner!”
    “Okay,” I said. “I’m gonna hang up now before I have to charge you with police harassment.”
    “Now, now,” he said soothingly. “Just give me a moment. You were always a good cop, Murphy. Best nose I’ve ever known for sniffing out perps. None better. When I lost you, I lost my right hand.”
    “What do you want?” I asked suspiciously.
    “Oh, nothing much. Just a little advice, a little assistance. It’ll be like old times.”
    “Old times?” I thought about my empty wallet. “Old times plus four hundred bucks a day. Plus expenses.”
    “Get down here on the double!” he shouted, obviously having decided that the sentimental approach wasn’t working. “Get down here before I have you arrested for tax