Read Online Caper by Parnell Hall - Free Book Online Page A

performance began.
    It wasn’t the singing star. It was her opening act. Some god-awful boy band I’d never heard of, no doubt aping some god-awful boy band I’d heard of vaguely but hadn’t a clue who they actually were. They didn’t play instruments, just sang and danced, if that’s what you could call it, or at least moved in unison. They had short hair, huge smiles, wore matching slacks and polo shirts.
    They made me wish I hadn’t ordered dinner. Perhaps I’m just jealous. Perhaps I just wished I were one of them. Young and successful, singing for a roomful of people. Instead of conducting a sordid clandestine surveillance.
    The song ended. Sharon was cheering, wildly, enthusiastically, almost spilling her drink. Her second drink. Which I noticed was almost gone.
    The congressman surreptitiously motioned the waiter over, pointed to her glass. The waiter smiled and nodded.
    So what was I going to do? I couldn’t sit here and watch him pour booze down her throat all night. And I couldn’t bear much more of the Backside Street Boys. I had to get her out of there.
    I got to my feet, wove my way through the tables in their direction. Weighed my chances. I had the disadvantage that she knew me. The advantage: she must be pretty drunk.
    Plus she was watching the stage. The boys were performing another nauseating step-in-time routine, which, from the way she was paying attention, must have been absolutely fascinating.
    I stumbled against their table. Put out my hand to brace myself. Actually knocked over their salt shaker. Muttered, “Sorry, sorry,” and stumbled away.
    I didn’t look behind me. If the congressman was coming to beat my brains in, I didn’t want to know. If a waiter was coming to escort me from the dining room, I didn’t want to know that either. I just wanted to put as much distance between me and the congressman’s table as possible.
    That and screw the top back on what was left in my bottle of chloral hydrate.
    She had another drink after that. The girl clearly had an iron constitution. She probably didn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds soaking wet, and here she was, guzzling margarita after margarita with enough chloral hydrate in her to fell a bull moose. Had I missed her glass? Poured it all over the table?
    I had not. Just as the boy band was leaving the stage to thunderous applause, which I could fully understand (I was delighted to see them go too), she folded her arms on the table, leaned forward, and put her head down, just as if it were nap time in school.
    The congressman peered at her curiously. He couldn’t know she’d been drugged. With all the booze she’d had, he must have thought she’d just passed out. He poked her, tried to rouse her, but no luck.
    If he asked the waiter to call a doctor, I was sunk. But I didn’t think he would. He wouldn’t want to explain to some medic why the sixteen-year-old girl he was sitting with in a nightclub was sloshed to the gills.
    The congressman checked to see if she was breathing, a point in his favor—and there were damn few—and headed in the direction of the restrooms. More likely he was going backstage, to tell the diva there’d been a slight hitch in his plans.
    I watched him disappear down the hall, then snagged a passing waiter, neither mine nor theirs. “Help me, please! My daughter’s sick!”
    â€œWhat?”
    I pointed. “My daughter. Over there. She’s sick. I think she’s going to throw up.”
    The waiter, a young dude with a pointy headed haircut, was eager to pass the buck. “Hey, man, that’s not my table.”
    â€œCome on, help me get her out of here. It’d be better if she throws up in the parking lot. Please.”
    He smelled a tip. “Okay, man.”
    With his help, I lifted Sharon up from the table, put her arm around my neck. “Take the other side.”
    The waiter did. Once