Too Close to the Edge Read Online Free PDF

course, the problem with malleable people is that what attracts you, attracts a lot of other people. You’re not the only one who can manipulate them.” She laughed ironically. “I just need to make a couple calls and deal with my messages.”
    “Okay,” I said. “Good luck tonight.” I pushed the playback button on the answering machine, waited until the tape announced the first caller, and walked out, shutting the door slowly. I stood for a moment, my brow clammy, sweat running from my armpits. For the first time I allowed myself to feel the swirling in my stomach. What would Liz Goldenstern say, I asked myself with forced wryness, if she knew how much just the thought of paralysis terrified me? Me, a homicide detective. My eyes closed; I gave my head a sharp shake; I flexed my fingers and pressed my toes down against the soles of my shoes, feeling a wave of guilt at the relief those movements gave me.
    The sharp breeze slapped my face. I realized I had been standing on Liz Goldenstern’s porch for minutes. I was just starting down the ramp when the voice on the tape said, “Liz, you were right; only they are up to date. My fee is dinner. Let me know when.” There was an unusual tone to that voice, but that wasn’t what caught my attention. The caller hadn’t bothered with a name. He knew Liz would recognize his voice. I could understand that. I recognized it too. It was the voice of Herman Ott.

CHAPTER 4
    I T DIDN’T SURPRISE ME that Liz Goldenstern knew Herman Ott. Ott was more of a fixture on the Avenue than Liz, or at least he’d been there a lot longer. I wasn’t sure how long Liz had been spearheading the access campaign on Telegraph, but I had the impression when I got the Telegraph beat three years ago that she was fairly new. Herman Ott, on the other hand, had been around since the sixties. Then he had been an introverted student at Cal, the type who would now be a hacker. But in those precomputer days, there were only math, sciences, and philosophy for the adolescent Herman Otts to nest in. Ott had chosen philosophy. He had followed the well-worn path of social awareness, volunteering in the offices of the ACLU. But early on he realized that he had no more ability as part of a system, even one he believed in, than he had as a student of a system. From the ACLU he had shifted to doing leg work for an old Avenue detective whose ethics he could support.
    And over the years, his college classes had become fewer and fewer, and cases more. And when Ott’s boss finally died (of natural causes) the Ott Detective Agency was born. Ott’s office, which doubled as his home, was in a shabby building on the Avenue. He dealt with the shadiest of characters, but he didn’t carry a gun, and I had never seen him in a fight or even a standoff. Over the years Herman Ott had come to know everyone on the Avenue, and everything they were up to.
    As I came abreast of the Avenue, Connie Pereira hurried toward me. In the failing light, she looked like she had intended to run but couldn’t muster the effort. Her blond hair stood out in recalcitrant clumps, and her face had an indistinct look—she had sweated her make-up off. “Jill! Where were you?” she demanded.
    “Getting Liz Goldenstern home,” I said, hoping I no longer resembled the woman who had stood shaking on Liz Goldenstern’s porch. That fear of paralysis had haunted me since childhood. It was there whenever I swam. The hours of physical training the department required had given me a control of my body I hadn’t dreamed of before. It made the possibility of losing it more terrifying. Swallowing, I asked, “What about your thief? Did you catch him?”
    “What do you think? By the time I got going he was half a block away. I spotted him at the corner; then he cut down a driveway; and when I got to the garage there was no sign of him. I spent the next hour rooting through the neighboring yards. You wouldn’t believe the garbage people leave piled up