Read Online Big Money (Austin Carr Mystery) by Jack Getze - Free Book Online

tell which. I’ve been too interested in her comely smell, the shape of her anatomy, that inner radiance shining from her eyes. An d pretty much in that particular order.
    Gina kicks the door shut behind her. “Tell me where he is or I’ll shoot.”
    Where’s Mallory when I need him? I’d even settle for the Eagle Scout. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen Tony since about six. Before the fire.”
    The good news: Gina removes the revolver from my chest. The bad news: she lifts the gun’s muzzle level with my nose. The really ugly news: her thumb cocks back the hammer. Judging by the large bore on this chrome puppy, I’m a few PSI’s away from decapitation.
    “Turn around and walk me through the house,” she says. “Slowly. No tricks.”
     
     
    Gina drops her lusciousness onto my leather couch and stuffs the gun back in her purse. “Sorry,” she says. “I figured he’d be here.”
    Her huge oval eyes gaze up at me. My fear turned quickly to anger when she lowered the weapon a minute ago, but now my arms are itching to embrace her. And it’s more than lust talking. I want to soothe her soul. Honest.
    “You have any scotch?” she says.
    “Dewar’s.”
    “Make it a double,” she says.
    Takes me two minutes to make Mrs. Tony Farascio feel better, her feet stretched out on my couch, rattling her ice, sipping the watered whisky.
    Most of it’s gone before she sets the glass down on my carpet, says, “Why were you with Tony at that hotel?”
    “Actually, he was with me . I had a meeting with the AASD and Tony wanted to help.”
    Gina snorts. Like Tony might have had some other motive besides kindness. Gee, why didn’t I think of that?
    “What were you doing there?” I ask.
    “Following Tony. I know he’s been cheating on me practically since the day we were married. I’ve just never actually caught him at it. If I could be one hundred percent sure—find him just once in the sack—I’d have the strength to leave him.”
    I watch Gina push her shoes off, let them tumble to the floor. The black skirt rides up, showing me white thighs and making me dream higher.
    “The woman he went to see is an auditor with the American Association of Securities Dealers,” I say. “She’s threatening to file a damaging report about my firm. I don’t think he was up there cheating on you.”
    “You think Tony was in that woman’s room on business?” she says.
    “Yeah. She was in town to see me, not him.”
    Gina shakes her head at me like a scolding teacher, then reaches over her head for the light switch. “I’m sleeping on your couch tonight. I don’t have to sleep with Tony’s gun under my pillow, right?”
    “Right.”
    She flips off the light. “You’re a nice guy, Austin, but you don’t know shit.”
     
     
    I wake up the next morning hard at work on Gina’s blurry, unseen naked body. Only trouble, I’m dreaming. Gina’s not sharing intimate touches. She’s not sharing my bed. Mrs. Tony Farascio’s not even in my apartment.
    The blanket I gave her is neatly folded on the couch. The coffee machine still drips, and a clean cup a waits me on the counter, the mug and a scribbled warning: “Make Tony tell you the truth.”
     
     

 
    SEVENTEEN
     
    The truth about what?
    That’s the question I keep asking myself as I shower, smear Jif Chunky on wheat toast and natty-up for work in a navy blue Canali, white button-down shirt and a maroon tie embroidered with tiny gold clocks.
    The Canali’s secondhand, mind you. A sneaky-looking guy comes by the office every few months with a rack or two of little worn expensive suits. Rumor is he buys them from recent Wall Street widows. Wearing dead man suits is as close to The Street as most Branchtown brokers ever get.
    Or maybe Gina’s message about getting Tony to tell the truth is a way of tugging my chain about her unfaithful husband. Maybe her message is a kind of red herring.
    Wonder if Mrs. Tony Farascio’s pissed enough to take a lover?
    I crank