Under the Skin Read Online Free PDF Page A

bunch of conventioneers came surging out and headed
for the dining room. We moved fast to get into the car ahead of the
couple and LQ turned and raised a hand to them and said, “Houston
police business, folks. Yall take the next one, please.”
    Brando smiled at the pretty blond operator and made a shutting
gesture and she closed the doors on the couple standing there with
their mouths open. She had nicelooking legs under her short skirt and
wore her cap at a sassy tilt. Brando winked at her and said, “All the
way up, honey.” She got us moving and said, “Yall policemen?”
    “Don’t we look it?” LQ said.
“Yessir,” she said. “I guess so.”
LQ said he was Sergeant O’Brien and Brando and I were Detectives Ramos and Gallo. She wanted to know if we were going to arrest somebody. LQ said probably not, just ask some people some
questions. She looked from one of us to the others. LQ was fairhaired
and cleanshaven and spoke with an East Texas drawl, but Brando and
I were darkskinned and had big mustaches, and I thought the girl
might be wondering when the Houston PD had started hiring guys
that looked like us.
    At the top floor LQ set down his briefcase and he and I got out.
Brando stayed with the elevator and kept the door open. I heard
the girl say, “I wanna see,” but Brando told her to keep back from
the door. •• We’d figured on the watchdog in the hallway. He got up from his
chair and dropped his magazine on it, tugged his lapels into place and
planted himself with hands on hips. He held his coat flaps back so we
could see the shoulder holster he was wearing.
“Stop right there,” he said.
    We kept walking toward him. “Houston police,” LQ said. “Here
to see William Ragsdale.”
The guy cut his eyes from one of us to the other. He was goodsized
but so was I, and although LQ was on the lanky side, he had the
height on us. The guy’s hands dropped off his hips.
“Let’s see some badges,” he said. You could almost hear the gears
turning in his skull, thinking what might happen if he pulled a gun
and we were really cops. That was the trouble with dimwits—in the
time they needed to think it over, they were had.
“Sure thing,” LQ said, pulling the .380 out from under his coat and
cocking it as he put the muzzle in the guy’s face. “Have a good look.”
I drew my revolver from under my arm and held it down against
my leg. It was an old single-action .44 with high-power loads that
could knock down a horse.
The guard looked heartbroken at being taken so easily. He held his
hands away from his sides as LQ reached in his coat and stripped him
of a bulldog.
“How many?” LQ said, jutting his chin at the door.
“Just him and Kersey, a pair of chippies.”
“Kersey a gunner?” LQ said.
“Naw, shit. Owns a truck company, some strip clubs.”
LQ told him what to say and warned him that if he said anything
else he’d be the first to get it.
I stepped off to one side of the door and LQ stood on the other. LQ
nodded and the guard gave the door two sharp raps, waited a second
and then gave it one more.
A voice inside said, “What?” ••
    “Got a package here for Mr. Ragsdale. The desk just sent it up.
Didn’t say who from.”
We heard the dead bolt working and then the door opened a few
inches on its chain. “Where’s it—”
LQ yanked the guard aside and I stepped up to the door and gave
it a hell of a kick, snapping the chain and knocking the guy on the
other side backpedaling and down on his ass. I went in with the revolver raised. LQ shoved the guard staggering past me and hustled in
behind me and closed the door.
Ragsdale was gawking at us from the sofa where he sat in his underwear and with a girl on his lap. I knew him from a photograph
Rose showed me. Husky, paunchy, thick head of oily hair, fleshy
drinker’s nose. The girl scooted off him in a half-crouch, holding her
shoulders in a shrug and her hands turned back at the wrist in a