Read Online Down for the Count: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Ten) by Stuart M. Kaminsky - Free Book Online Page B

to a door. There wasn’t much light from the bulb in the hall, but I could see the door. Meara touched his nose like Santa Claus in “The Night Before Christmas” and turned his left hand to show me that he wanted me to open the door. I opened the door. There was no lady, no tiger.
    “My kid has a dog,” Meara said, coming in behind me with Belleforte silently at his side. “Sort of like a collie.”
    “That’s nice,” I said, looking around the room. There was a wooden table, badly scarred. There were four wooden chairs, badly scarred, with one held together by rope. There was a bench running along one wall, and a small window that wouldn’t have done much to brighten up the room even if there hadn’t been a blue chintz curtain covering it. The only other thing in the room besides the four gray walls was a Los Angeles telephone book on the table.
    “The library,” Meara said, pointing at the book. “We can read or talk. Let’s try talking first. Have a seat.”
    I had a seat. Belleforte leaned against the door with his arms folded and looked at Meara and me, though we were on different sides of the room. Meara picked up the floppy book in two hands and moved toward me.
    “Heavy book, must be, what, half a million names in it? Maybe not that much. Now you got an education, Peters. Let’s see how smart you are. Who was the nigger on the beach?”
    “I’ll wait for a lawyer,” I began, and the book came down on my head. My chair screeched back an inch or two and pain shot through my skull to my chin. I didn’t fall out of the chair.
    “Okay,” Meara said. “Let’s see what you learned from the book. Books can be very educational, right?”
    “Very educational,” Belleforte said from the door.
    I turned my head up to Meara. His face looked blurry blue in the weak window light. He was happy, a natural teacher.
    “Who is he?” Meara repeated, showing me the telephone book.
    “Cab Calloway,” I said.
    The book came down, and this time I had to reach between my legs to keep from falling.
    “Who is he?” Meara repeated.
    “Rochester,” I said. This one didn’t hurt as much. Meara was getting mad, swinging hard but not as accurately. He was getting a little old and drank too much. He was already panting from the exercise. I figured he’d tire soon. All I had to do was hold out till then.
    “Who?” he said, getting the whole thing down to one word.
    “Sugar Ray Robinson,” I said with a grin, which made Meara wild enough to almost miss, but not quite. He caught me with the edge of the book, and the pages scraped against my right cheek like a rusty razor blade.
    “You’re a stubborn student,” Meara panted. “Maybe you need a special tutor. Professor Belleforte, you want to give our student a private lesson?”
    “I don’t think so, Sergeant,” Belleforte said quietly from the door. I blinked my eyes, ran my finger across my bruised cheek, and looked at my bloody fingers and then at Belleforte, who wasn’t enjoying all this. He might not be up there with Meara in the professorial ranks, but he was smart enough to stay out of this one.
    “See?” Meara said, appealing to me. “See what I’ve got to work with? That’s a partner.”
    “I sympathize with you,” I said, trying to ignore the pulsing in my head.
    Meara leaned close to me and whispered, “Has he got something to lose or something? A book doesn’t leave marks. Who’s in here but us?”
    I showed him my bruised cheek.
    “Nothing’s perfect,” he agreed. “I’ll ask you again and then I’ll hit you again. We’ll keep this up till I can’t hit you anymore or you tell me what I want to know. That’s education. Who was he?”
    “You hit me with that book again, and I go for your fat gut,” I said sweetly.
    “Oh,” he said, putting the book down. “You touch me and you go on to the college of hard knocks. Higher education, cuffs on the wrist, and typewriters. Can you type, Peters?”
    Meara, or what I could see of