Thicker Than Water (A Leo Waterman Mystery) Read Online Free PDF

get your big ass out.”
    I held up a testifying hand. “Not me in there,” I swore. “Nobody in the history of mechanics has ever been less adept with a wrench than I am. I can turn a thirty-dollar jobinto a nine-hundred-dollar job in about as much time as it takes to sneeze.”
    We started down the dock side by side.
    “Ward…he was the first one outta here,” the guy said. “Then the big blonde honey from the desk.” He waved his free hand in the air as if to shoo the breeze. “After that, they all just melted off into Neverland, one by one.”
    “Any idea what Ward’s doing now?”
    He stopped walking and looked up at me. “What you wanting him for?”
    “It’s kind of personal,” I said.
    “You ain’t the cops.”
    I shook my head. “No.”
    “Bill collector?”
    Another shake.
    “Process server?”
    “Like I said, it’s personal.”
    That was good enough for him. As far as this guy was concerned some things were best left unsaid.
    “By then Jorgensen was mostly usin’ him as a repo man anyway. The dealership had all these units up in B.C. that was way behind in their payments. Most of ’em not even fighting it. Wanted to give the damn boats back.” His expression said, “You know how people are when money gets tight.” He started walking again. “Mr. Ward…he’d fly on up there, get all the Canadian paperwork straight and then run ’em back down here.”
    I made a show of looking around again. “Doesn’t look like Jorgensen needs any more inventory,” I commented.
    “Shit no,” he agreed. He waved his calloused hand again. “Ward had some other deal goin’ on. Musta workedout something directly with Northwest Maritime.” He shot a glance up at the office. “That’s the lender Jorgensen uses for Canada. Ward musta made some kind of deal with them. He was cleaning ’em up someplace up on Northlake and wholesaling them off somewheres, gettin’ whatever he could for the bank.”
    He looked up for the briefest of moments and smiled. Above us in the front window of Millennium Yacht Sales, Jorgensen stood with his arms folded tight across his chest, gazing down on us like the lord of the manor.
    “Taking a slice for himself and avoiding the middleman.” He smiled and flicked another glance at Jorgensen.
    “Bound to be better than
not
sellin’ yachts for a living.”
    “Were there hard feelings about his leaving?” I asked. He shook his head. “Not as far as I could tell,” he said. “I got the impression Harvey was glad Brett found something else. The handwriting was on the wall by that time. The economy was full scale in the shitter. Wasn’t nobody buying boats. They were all standing around the office pickin’ each other’s ass.”
    I followed him up a set of metal stairs onto the side deck of Daniel’s Broiler. The deck was desolate and deserted. Inside the window, half-a-dozen early diners chewed contentedly on fifty-dollar steaks and gazed out on to the turbulent waters.
    “He have any particular friends on the crew?”
    He thought about it. “Used to go to lunch sometimes over at Hooters with that Ricky guy.”
    “Ricky?”
    “Ricky, Richie…Something like that.” He cut quotation marks in the air with his greasy fingers. “One of the salesassociates. He’s sellin’ shoes up at the Northgate mall. I seen ’em when I went up there with my sister the other day.” He grinned. “He pretended not to recognize me.”
    I trailed him up the remainder of the stairs, up along the back wall of the kitchen where the smell of seared meat coming from the massive exhaust fans was strong enough to paralyze vegans, and then up and out into the parking lot, where I thanked him for his help. He said it was no big deal, resettled the tool bag on his shoulder, and strode off.
    I stood in the rain and watched him disappear into the gathering darkness, then ducked my head into the wind, and began jogging toward my car.

    When you poke your nose into other people’s business