The Riptide Ultra-Glide Read Online Free PDF

backseat of the coupe and sped off, punching the car through its gears.
    A week later, Arnold Lip sat in his empty office. He was behind the reception desk, eating a tuna-salad sandwich that he had made at home with extra chopped celery because he liked the crunch. The sliding translucent window to the waiting room was closed.
    The office’s front door opened. Arnold observed a silhouette approach and stop on the other side of the pebbled glass, like a priest hearing confession.
    A hand knocked.
    Arnold slid the window open, still chewing. “Yes?”
    â€œIs Dr. Lip in?” asked a young professional with a short haircut. He leaned slightly through the window, looking around for other signs of life in the office.
    Arnold wiped his mouth with a napkin. “I’m Dr. Lip.”
    â€œOh.” A gaze that had been straining down the hall dropped down to the man behind the desk. “My name is Hagman Reed . . .” He pointed generally toward one of the walls. “I’m an attorney from the other side of this building.”
    Arnold took another bite. “I recognize you from the parking lot. Porsche 955.”
    Hagman looked around the office again at stacks of old US magazines. “But you are a doctor, right?”
    Lip nodded. “How can I help you?”
    â€œI have a business proposition . . .”
    THE NEXT DAY
    A rnold opened the door to the waiting room. He looked down a clipboard with a grid full of names and times. “Mr. Euclid?”
    He had to raise his voice because the waiting room vibrated from a loud din of conversation, mostly on cell phones. The rest of the overflow clientele flipped through magazines and photo spreads of Angelina dragging Brad Pitt around the third world. The new patients sported a variety of neck braces and casts.
    A man with crutches got up and did a three-legged stroll behind Arnold and into an examination room. He was out in two minutes.
    Lip stood in the door again. “Mrs. Lambright? . . .”
    And so it went the rest of the day. And the week. And the month. You could almost see the waiting line picking up speed.
    The attorney’s business proposition had kicked in.
    The reason lay on the unattended reception desk, the morning edition of the Tampa Tribune . A small article below the fold on page fifteen. Physician arrested for insurance fraud.
    It wasn’t unexpected. Florida had long been plagued by a burgeoning scam industry, making the state the national leader in staged auto accidents. The faux-fender-bender capital was Miami. Until law enforcement cracked down in a big way. And like any other species of scheme in Florida, it was simply a game of Whac-A-Mole. Those who escaped the dragnet just pulled the tent stakes and drove three hundred miles up to the west coast.
    Tampa officially became the new U.S. capital of insurance rip-offs. We’re Number One!
    Authorities rolled up their sleeves and clamped down again. The arrest that was announced in that morning’s paper was the sixth in less than a month. But this one was different. He was the physician in league with Hagman Reed.
    The doctor faced an eighty-six-count indictment, but Hagman was in the clear because he was a lawyer.
    Except it still left him without a conspiring doctor. And twenty more cars had already been smashed up. What about those people? It wouldn’t be fair to them. So Hagman had paid a visit to Arnold Lip, because Lip wasn’t a good doctor. He could have gone to a good doctor, but that would mean no kickbacks and, most lucrative of all, no documentation for imaginary pain and suffering.
    Which brought us to today. Mrs. Lambright sat on the edge of an examination table.
    Lip stood over her with a manila patient file. “Where does it hurt?”
    â€œIt doesn’t.”
    He hit her in the leg with a triangular rubber hammer.
    â€œOw.”
    Lip talked to himself as he wrote: “Hyperextended knee.”
    Then he