Read Online As Dog Is My Witness by JEFFREY COHEN - Free Book Online Page A

percussion cap-fired Deringer pistol
manufactured by the Henry Deringer Company of Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. It has a black walnut stock with checkering, a barrel
with an octagonal upper portion, a round lower portion, and
scrollwork on the sideplates.”
    “Justin,” I said, trying again. His voice was rising
in pitch, too, becoming more agitated. I wasn’t doing well.
    “It has an S-shaped trigger guard and the words
‘Deringer Philadela’ stamped on the lock plate and the top of the
breech plug.”
    This wasn’t helping. I looked to Mary, but she shook
her head. “He’s avoiding you,” she said. “He doesn’t want to answer
your questions.”
    “No kidding.”
    “Most people spell ‘Deringer’ wrong. They use two
‘r’s when they shouldn’t.” Justin was not really in the same room
as us anymore, so Mary and I walked out.
    Justin, carefully this time, locked the door behind
us. She walked me toward the door.
    “I’m sorry I upset him,” I told her.
    “Don’t be,” Mary answered. “At least you got him to
stop tearing up his walls.” She chuckled humorlessly.
    “If he gets into a more receptive state of mind,
would you call me?” I gave her a business card with my 1,600
contact possibilities on it—business land phone, cell phone, email,
fax, business address, guy next door who can come call me
. . 
    “Certainly,” she said, but I knew she considered the
possibility to be remote.
    “Maybe I can bring him something next time,” I said.
“What does he like? “Mary opened the door for me and, as I pulled
on my gloves, the cold wind caused us both to stiffen.
    “Guns,” she said.
     
     

Chapter Eleven

    M ahoney’s next patient was
close to home, in Edison, so I drove to Oak Tree Road and began
watching, again to no avail. But, par for the course, Mahoney
informed me via cell phone that the Florham Park car, which I
hadn’t gotten to, had been sabotaged.
    “All it needed was a tire. Can you believe it?”
Mahoney moaned. “And he slashed it in exactly the same place as the
one I’d fixed. If I didn’t put the flat tire in my van, I’d start
to think I wasn’t doing the work.”
    “Wow, a dead battery and a flat tire,” I said. “You
get all the tough repairs, don’t you?”
    His voice took on a professorial tone. “These are all
pretty new cars. Most of them require simple repairs. In fact,
tires and batteries are the most common. These are even things you could do.”
    “Touché.”
    “But when something big comes up, they need someone
who really knows his stuff,” said Mahoney, never one to take his
work lightly.
    I, on the other hand, did. “Bicycle Repair Man!” I
shouted, re-call-ing the vintage Monty Python sketch.
    A growl from the cell phone. “Very amusing.”
    He finished his work (a fan belt) relatively quickly,
and drove off. And the result was pretty much the same as the last
time—no saboteur, and no difficulty. I drove home.
    Four seconds after I walked in the door, the phone
rang, and naturally, it was the person I was least prepared to talk
to. I checked the caller ID box, saw who it was, sighed, and picked
it up.
    “Hi, Glenn,” I said, hopefully without a tinge of
weariness in my voice.
    “Mr. Tucker? This is Jackie from Mr. Waterman’s
office.” Like most people in Hollywood, Glenn felt the need to
impress everybody with how busy he was. So he had people call you
and then tell him you were on the line. That way, if you weren’t
there, he hadn’t wasted his precious fifteen seconds dialing your
number. “I have Mr. Waterman on the line for you.”
    “I’ll try to contain my excitement.”
    A split second later, Glenn’s voice broke through,
and like most people who have someone else call you up, he felt
compelled to sound surprised. “Aaron! How are you?”
    “Wait . . .  who is this? Glenn ? My goodness! How surprising to hear your voice, after
someone called up and said it’d be you!”
    He snickered, but I couldn’t tell if