Torque Read Online Free PDF

details before I commit.”
    “We’ll get into that, later.” She dug into
her purse. “Here. Take this.” She placed a gold card embossed with
the hotel insignia on top of the bar tab.
    “What is it?”
    “A room key. Give me ten minutes, then come
on up.” She eased out of the booth then leaned forward to run a
finger down his cheek. “And do leave a nice tip.”
    The lounge was now mostly empty and he could
watch her hips sashay through the maze of tables until she reached
the mezzanine. If it was her intent to coerce him, Svoljsak mused,
then she was going about it the right way.
    He tapped the key absently on the table and
tabulated the points. He’d definitely given away more than he’d
learned. She wanted something boosted. It would take some finesse.
Her first name was Brittany, and she was a lawyer with an ambiguous
clientele.
    Or was she? For all he knew she could have
been a narc. A narc with a wire. Shit. He’d confided the sins of
his life. Even told her about the kid he’d fathered when he was
nineteen.
    He checked the exit. No cops waiting to cuff
him. Besides, wouldn’t she have said ‘You’re busted’ and flashed a
badge?
    He examined the room key and was puzzled for
a moment because there was no room number on it. Then he noticed
that #710 was written at the top of the bar tab.
    A nice tip would bring the total to about a
hundred and twenty bucks.
    Her room. Her tab. Hell, let’s make it a
hundred and fifty.
    He looked around. All that remained were a
few conventioneers quietly abusing their expense accounts. The
stools by the bar were vacant but tripped a memory of the flannel
skirt rising past her stocking tops.
    “This is going to cost me,” he thought. “I
just know it.”
    His reflection skipped between the bottles as
he passed near the bar. The lights in the mezzanine were
bright.
     

 
     
    CHAPTER
6
     
    Thursday, October
8th
     
    Fenn had ten minutes to find a victim. A
left on Pine Lane, over one block, and then a right put the car
onto Pearl Street; a quiet promenade in Burlington’s chic shopping
district. Beneath a canopy of maple and oak, elegant Victorian
homes had been turned into boutiques and offices for retailers and
professionals who wanted an address to impress. Along the curb
ahead he spotted a car with ample space behind it.
    “There’s our victim, Brandon,” he said,
pointing it out to his student. “Check your mirror; signal right;
and start braking.”
    Fenn’s formula for parallel parking was
simple and efficient. He could get a student into and out of a spot
within two minutes. The less time it took, the less chance there
was of the other car’s owner overreacting. About once a month
someone would glare, yell, or run out in bunny slippers to move
their vehicle, so he made a point to linger no longer than need
be.
    == == ==
    Svoljsak stepped out of his monthly rental
at the Skyway Motel and locked the door. An end unit with a
refrigerator and hotplate it provided lodging without attachment,
and a somewhat anonymous mailing address. The cloying odour of hot
asphalt reminded him a paving crew was resurfacing the parking lot,
and that he’d left his car a couple of streets over. He lit a
cigarette and skirted the workmen by walking beneath the overhang
access to the second floor units.
    He’d awoken hung-over and alone at the Hanlon
Place Hotel. All that remained of the mystery woman was a stale
potpourri of scotch, sex, and perfume. Last night might just have
been a helluva dream—except that it wasn’t. Svoljsak had found her
on the king-sized bed, open and ready for business. For some reason
he’d expected tattoos but from the dark locks on her forehead to
the stilettos piercing the mattress, her body was a blank canvas.
Not even a hair, elsewhere.
    Her intensity told him she was on something
other than scotch. Svoljsak, not having been laid in over four
months and in good shape for his age, was able to keep pace. Well,
sort of. He’d simply let