Read Online Alone by Loren D. Estleman - Free Book Online

front of the tube and eat cold chicken sandwiches.”
     
    “Sorry. Battleship Potemkin’s playing tonight at the art museum. She’s never seen it.”
     
    “Don’t talk during the Odessa Steps sequence.” Valentino helped himself to chicken and potato salad.
     
    “Since when do you watch basketball?”
     
    “I decided to take your advice and broaden my interests.”
     
    “I hate to leave you alone your first evening. Why don’t you—”
     
    Valentino held up his fork, stopping him. “If you finish that sentence, you’ll never make it out of the rec center alive. Fanta will see to that. I’ll be fine. I’m just grateful to have a roof over my head.”
     
    “You’re not by any chance a morning person, are you?”
     
    “Aren’t you? You’re always in your office when I get to work.”
     
    “Yes, but I don’t sleep more than two hours a night since Elaine died, and they’re not always back to back. If you’re the kind that goes to bed early, I’m going to disturb you with my nocturnal habits.”
     
    “What do you do, clog dance?”
     
    “Let’s just say the things that go bump in the night are terrified of me.”
     
    Valentino wanted to pursue this line of conversation, but the doorbell rang. He had a clear view from his place at the table when Broadhead answered it and Fanta came in. She had the professor in both arms and a leglock before she saw they weren’t alone. She unwound herself and flashed Valentino a broad, unabashed grin. She was a willowy twenty with long straight glossy black hair and a tan that promised to go well beyond her halter top and shorts. Her feet were stuck in clunky black combat boots.
     
    “Hey,” she greeted. She took in the table setting. “Radical. Very Oprah.”
     
    “I said Martha Stewart,” Broadhead said.
     
    “Right. I get them mixed up.”
     
    “It’s easy to mistake a short fat black woman for a tall blonde ex-convict.”
     
    Valentino stood. “Hello, Fanta. How are you getting along with the law?”
     
    “Why, has my parole officer been looking for me?”
     
    “She’s in the top one percent of her class.” Broadhead tucked in his shirt, which had come out when she’d mauled him. “She just started her internship and the firm she works for wants her to report to them first thing she clears the bar.”
     
    “I said no,” she said. “I’m going to work directly for the studios, trying cases of copyright infringement.”
     
    Valentino said, “I hope you talk them into spending part of your first big settlement on film preservation.”
     
    “I will. I’m still jazzed from our excellent Greed adventure. Any big finds lately? That lost reel of Metropolis? The alternate ending to Casablanca, Bergman ditches Paul Henreid and flies off with Bogie?”
     
    “At the moment I’m shooting for an eighty-year-old promo for a department store.”
     
    The grin faded. She shrugged. “I guess they can’t all be special. I hear you’re bunking with Kyle. Spooks run you out of the Oracle?”
     
    “No, just the L.A. County Building Inspection Department.”
     
    “Ooh, scary.” She turned to Broadhead. “You ready to bust some moves?”
     
    He nodded. “I just hope that’s where the busting stops.”
     
    She got to the door first and opened it for him. As he passed through, she swept the cap off his head, sent it sailing toward the sofa, waved to Valentino, and followed Broadhead out, pulling the door shut behind her.
     
    Alone in the quiet house, Valentino finished his meal, decided against the apple pie, put the leftovers in the refrigerator, and washed dishes. Later, sunk among the tired springs in Broadhead’s old armchair, he watched the Lakers play for three minutes, then flipped around until he found The Postman Always Rings Twice on TCM, but he got restless after a half hour and surfed through the rest of the channels; he’d always considered the film a pale shadow of Double Indemnity, and in any case Lana Turner was no