Read Online Big Money (Austin Carr Mystery) by Jack Getze - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jack Getze
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suit begins to shred at the knees and elbows. Nobody’s ever going to wear this imported puppy again. The way my life’s turned so violent this year, I better start buying my clothes at Sears.
The fire must have started in the basement. Flames almost eat me as I approach the burning cellar stairwa y. I push the door closed to hurry past. The hair on the back of my right hand curls, singed by the heat.
In the dining room, I don’t find Luis on the right, but to the left, I spot a black Reebok poking out from behind the bar. Luis. I wriggle closer, the cloud of searing smoke warming my back like a red-hot poker.
I tug on his ankle but can’t move him. I inch closer. My back feels like it’s about to explode in flames. I grip him with both hands and yank. Nothing. He’s stuck like a long-term bull in a bear market.
EIGHTEEN
The burning smoke forces my head and stomach lower, pressing me to the floor with a force stronger than Creeper’s hands. My nose is inches from the stained linoleum floor. A long, gray bug with hundreds of synchronized legs runs for his life, trying to hide in my nostril. I snort to blow him away.
Maybe sniffing like that enhances the senses because suddenly I can smell the cotton-blend material of my best blue suit, warming to ignition. Sirens blare on Broad Street. The floor begins to heat up like a pancake griddle.
I wiggle beside Luis to see what’s snagging him. No accident here. Luis’s wrists are bound with rope and tied to the stainless steel leg of his four hundred pound ice maker. No time to untangle knots. I need a sharp edge.
A spasm makes me cough. Smoke fills my throat and makes me cough again. Dizziness blurs my vision. Probably the first stage of carbon monoxide poisoning.
My heart’s skipping rope as I yank Luis’s new switchblade from his right back pocket and hack at the ropes. But I run out of air before I can free him. My lips kiss the floor searching for the smallest taste of oxygen. I cough again, then choke. Maybe getting a spoonful of air. No matter. Smoke fills the restaurant, floor to ceiling. That has to be my last breath inside this burning coffin.
Praying adrenaline will help, I finally slash the rope in two and jerk Luis from underneath the bar and onto my shoulder. I stagger and reel backward under his weight, but the bar backs me up. I stay on my feet. This is it. Get out now. I can’t take a breath and I can’t stop walking. My face is on fire.
Through the black rolling smoke and heat, I stumble past the basement stairway, then bank left off the twin sinks and grope along the kitchen’s wooden table. My lungs want to burst. I’m starving for air.
My head and shoulders begin to outrun my feet, stealing my balance. I can’t see my nose in the blackness.
My right hip bumps the corner of the kitchen table, then empty space, and I pitch Luis and myself toward a memory of the back door. My shoulder crashes something hard, and I spin onto steps, stumbling enough to lose Luis and fall. For a second, I’m so disoriented I imagine I’m falling off a skyscraper.
The smoke clears on my way down. I see Luis land in the sturdy arms of a Branchtown fireman.
Nobody catches me. I hit the asphalt like a gasping fish.
The Branchtown Fire Department saves Luis’s restaurant, but i t’s early afternoon before the nurses let me inside his hospital room to tell him the good news. The smoke and fire did some heavy but repairable damage to the interior of his building, but it’s the minor damage to his lungs and a concussion he needs to worry about, injuries that will keep him in the hospital overnight. The doctors say someone hit him over the head with a tube-shaped weapon, most likely a pipe. Luis is too groggy when I get to his room, however, so I head outside to the parking lot where I can use my cell phone. I need to call the ex-wife, tell her about moving the children to safety.
“What do you mean you can’t do it?” I
The fire must have started in the basement. Flames almost eat me as I approach the burning cellar stairwa y. I push the door closed to hurry past. The hair on the back of my right hand curls, singed by the heat.
In the dining room, I don’t find Luis on the right, but to the left, I spot a black Reebok poking out from behind the bar. Luis. I wriggle closer, the cloud of searing smoke warming my back like a red-hot poker.
I tug on his ankle but can’t move him. I inch closer. My back feels like it’s about to explode in flames. I grip him with both hands and yank. Nothing. He’s stuck like a long-term bull in a bear market.
EIGHTEEN
The burning smoke forces my head and stomach lower, pressing me to the floor with a force stronger than Creeper’s hands. My nose is inches from the stained linoleum floor. A long, gray bug with hundreds of synchronized legs runs for his life, trying to hide in my nostril. I snort to blow him away.
Maybe sniffing like that enhances the senses because suddenly I can smell the cotton-blend material of my best blue suit, warming to ignition. Sirens blare on Broad Street. The floor begins to heat up like a pancake griddle.
I wiggle beside Luis to see what’s snagging him. No accident here. Luis’s wrists are bound with rope and tied to the stainless steel leg of his four hundred pound ice maker. No time to untangle knots. I need a sharp edge.
A spasm makes me cough. Smoke fills my throat and makes me cough again. Dizziness blurs my vision. Probably the first stage of carbon monoxide poisoning.
My heart’s skipping rope as I yank Luis’s new switchblade from his right back pocket and hack at the ropes. But I run out of air before I can free him. My lips kiss the floor searching for the smallest taste of oxygen. I cough again, then choke. Maybe getting a spoonful of air. No matter. Smoke fills the restaurant, floor to ceiling. That has to be my last breath inside this burning coffin.
Praying adrenaline will help, I finally slash the rope in two and jerk Luis from underneath the bar and onto my shoulder. I stagger and reel backward under his weight, but the bar backs me up. I stay on my feet. This is it. Get out now. I can’t take a breath and I can’t stop walking. My face is on fire.
Through the black rolling smoke and heat, I stumble past the basement stairway, then bank left off the twin sinks and grope along the kitchen’s wooden table. My lungs want to burst. I’m starving for air.
My head and shoulders begin to outrun my feet, stealing my balance. I can’t see my nose in the blackness.
My right hip bumps the corner of the kitchen table, then empty space, and I pitch Luis and myself toward a memory of the back door. My shoulder crashes something hard, and I spin onto steps, stumbling enough to lose Luis and fall. For a second, I’m so disoriented I imagine I’m falling off a skyscraper.
The smoke clears on my way down. I see Luis land in the sturdy arms of a Branchtown fireman.
Nobody catches me. I hit the asphalt like a gasping fish.
The Branchtown Fire Department saves Luis’s restaurant, but i t’s early afternoon before the nurses let me inside his hospital room to tell him the good news. The smoke and fire did some heavy but repairable damage to the interior of his building, but it’s the minor damage to his lungs and a concussion he needs to worry about, injuries that will keep him in the hospital overnight. The doctors say someone hit him over the head with a tube-shaped weapon, most likely a pipe. Luis is too groggy when I get to his room, however, so I head outside to the parking lot where I can use my cell phone. I need to call the ex-wife, tell her about moving the children to safety.
“What do you mean you can’t do it?” I
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