Read Online Hard Case Crime: Fade to Blonde by Max Phillips - Free Book Online

head in back. The blonde head got out and became a big young guy with sort of sparkly hands and what looked like Halliday’s chin. He breezed right by the valets with his hard boys and breezed back out at 10:25. By then I had my engine running, and I slipped into traffic two cars behind him.

7
Jade Mountain
    We headed back toward town on the Golden State. The radio was broken, so I was singing That’s Amore . I had the window open and was letting my hand fill with cool wind and molding it like clay. Late as it was, there was a bar of dull blue light floating over the western horizon somehow, and the glow you always see over downtown, and all the lights, spreading out to the mountains. When they turned east onto 10 I was right behind them, and agood thing, too, because they turned off right away onto Soto and if I’d been bashful I’d have lost them. We cruised through Boyle Heights for a few blocks and then they pulled into a big Chinese place called Jade Mountain. I pulled into a supermarket two blocks further on, got the car turned around, and waited.
    The market had a big neon sign of a performing seal. It had a red ball balanced on its nose, and then the ball was floating a little above its nose, and then higher, and then gone. Then it reappeared on the nose again. After five minutes I drove back to the Jade Mountain. The blue Lincoln was in the back corner of the lot, almost out of sight behind the restaurant. I got out of the car, locked my door, and went inside.
    The bar was off to the right as you come in the front door, one of those grotto things with a low ceiling, all the light coming from behind the bottles. There was an old Chinese gent in a short jacket behind it, and Halliday at the far end, chatting with the cocktail waitress. She wore a snug brocade dress and had a smooth cool face you wanted to cup in your hands. Her waist was about as big as my neck. He had big rings on every finger, as advertised. They must have been pure hell during piano lessons.
    I guessed his lugs were still out in the car. Aside from us, the bar was empty. I sat down at the other end and ordered my fifth gimlet. I hoped there weren’t going to be too many more. The waitress was neat and smooth. She had everything a man could want, only little. She and Halliday looked awfully pretty together, and I watched them talk and tried not to get sad. People talk a lot of crap about the Chinese being inscrutable, but there was nothing mysterious there. She was looking up at him as if she thought he was just fine. He gave her a business card, and she did a little series of head-bobs over it andadmired it and tucked it away somewhere in her dress. Then he kept talking, looking friendly and reasonable, and you could see her wondering if she might not be understanding him right. Then her face went slowly dead, and then she said something brief and walked steadily out of the bar. Halliday looked after her ruefully. When he turned, he found me grinning at him. I raised my glass.
    He came over in no hurry and said, “Laughing at me, friend?” It was a nice voice, medium deep and not trying too hard.
    I shook my head, still grinning. “Toasting you. You got more nerve than I do.”
    “For whatever good it did,” he said, sitting down next to me. “I guess I got told.”
    “I guess. What were you told?”
    “Actually, I couldn’t make it out. But whatever it was, I got told, all right.”
    “Honorable wound, anyway. Let me buy you a drink. Make up for my bad manners.”
    “The hell you’ll buy me a drink,” he said amiably. “I just got trimmed down to nothing. I need to feel like a big shot again. I’ll buy.”
    Halliday was about the best-looking man I’ve seen. He had thick, dull blonde hair swept straight back from a broad forehead, thick straight brows, a straight nose that wasn’t too small, and a small, sensible-looking mouth. He might’ve had a little more jaw than he needed, but it had a good shape. He wore a tan mohair