Tough Baby (Martin Fender Novel) Read Online Free PDF Page A

such luck. Also, after my urine sample was sent down to the lab, Lasko wanted to personally talk to the lab people at Brackenridge to make sure everything was coordinated properly. Retha had had at least a sip of that margarita.
    It was a waiting game. Her parents were flying in from LA. The doctors were waiting for a change. They said she could go either way. The DA was waiting, too. If Retha came to, they could ask her if I was the one who beat her up and ripped her clothes off. If she died, I was a murder suspect. The stakes would be higher. They could hold me for several days without bail while they gathered evidence and decided what degree of murder charge to file.
    I wanted to get out of there before her parents arrived. I wanted her to live, I wanted to know what happened after I drank that margarita, and I wanted someone to pay for what they did to her.
    I was almost as annoyed with Martin Fender as Lasko and the Lieutenant were. I felt dumb, numb, and guilty. Maybe it was the hangover talking, but whatever it was, it nipped and nagged at me until it became a nagging chorus with another thing that had been bugging me for eighteen weeks, something I hadn’t done anything about.
     
     

CHAPTER THREE
     
     
    It was almost eight o’clock when Ladonna’s black Ford Escort pulled up in front of the hospital. As I walked down the steps, I couldn’t see her face, only one porcelain white arm and shoulder, a charm bracelet on a slim wrist, and long red nails tapping the steering wheel. I could still hear Lasko’s words.
    “Aside from your bass being the weapon and her blood being on your shirt, it’s circumstantial evidence. But pretty heavy circumstantial evidence that might get one hell of a lot heavier between now and tomorrow. Thing is, you’re a well-known character about town. That gets you in free to all the clubs. It gets you a bit of recognition on the street, gets you strange women wanting to give you a ride to parties. For chrissakes, you been around the music scene forever, you ought to get something out of it. But the Lieutenant doesn’t give a rat’s ass about any of that, it’s less than circumstantial. You can’t put it in the bank, you can’t take it to court. Might be the only thing it gets you is one last free night . . .”
    They said her skull was cracked up like an egg, and there were internal injuries, too. Things didn’t look good. Ladonna knew it. I could see that. Feel it too.
    She wore a Day-Glo green tank top and white Capri pants with a wide black patent leather belt and sling-back shoes. With her hair combed off to one side, you could see that she had better bone structure than Madonna. But that face bore a stem look now, modulated by a slightly quivering chin.
    “Welcome home,” she said as she whipped the car out into traffic, cutting across a couple of lanes of 7th Street to get on the interstate. She hadn’t kissed me, hadn’t even touched me. And I didn’t press the matter. “Billy dropped off your bags. I’m taking you to your place. I can’t leave Michael alone for very long.”
    “He doesn’t know.”
    “Of course he doesn’t know,” she snapped. “By the way, he said to tell you again that you were really good last night. I had a hard time getting him out of the club. It was good. But he can’t be out all night, and even though things are usually pretty slow at the real estate office with the economy the way it is around here, I have to work, you know. If only I would have stayed, and . . . oh, Christ ...”
    She jerked the steering wheel, lurching the car onto the off ramp. She took the serpentine curves of Riverside Drive even faster than usual, sailing through the amber light on South 1st, going left, up the hill and into my driveway. She parked under a big oak tree, set the brake, cut the ignition, and hunched over the wheel, crying.
    To my surprise, she didn’t push me away when I tried to do something about it. She still sobbed, chewing on the