Read Online Hardware by Linda Barnes - Free Book Online

a skinny version of Tweedledee holding out a helping hand.
    â€œDone,” I said. I’d never envisioned paying less than three hundred to get myself on-line. I’d feared the price tag might go higher.
    And much as I hated to admit it, on-line was the future. If I was going to keep cutting it as a private eye in this town—a less sexist place than some, but still not a utopia where many seek the help of a female P.I.—I was going to have to keep up-to-date.
    Computers have arrived. There it is. Pretty soon there’ll be a different kind of cop show on TV. Uniforms’ll sit around and punch keyboards and discover—gasp—who checked out porno tapes from Videosmith today. I wish I could get into computers, but they have a level of abstraction that doesn’t make me tingle. Cars are truly the only machines I enjoy tinkering with, probably because I grew up in Detroit when cars were sacred chariots.
    Things change. I drive a Toyota. I need a computer.
    â€œYou want a Coke?” Frank asked, as if suddenly remembering that he ought to inquire. He couldn’t seem to decide whether to rush us out the door or hold us hostage. “I mean, if you’re not into beer?”
    â€œI’m not real happy about leaving a car on the street,” Sam said.
    â€œYou brought your own car?”
    â€œI borrowed something.”
    â€œAnd you parked in front? What are you trying to do to me? Jesus. You better get going.”
    â€œLet’s get the stuff first. You know where this PC happens to be?”
    â€œOf course I do. Original carton. I’ll help you load it.”
    â€œI can carry it, Frank.”
    â€œI could use the air.”
    I could see his point. I wanted out and I’d only been there fifteen minutes.
    It took another twenty for the three of us to locate the correct equipment plus manuals, and for Frank to swear that he’d run a search for whatever software could get me the best bang per buck on Datalink. He spoke in initials and put his phrases together so oddly, with no apparent punctuation, that I didn’t understand half of what he said. I kept looking to Sam to translate as if Frank were speaking Italian, and then I’d realize that the words were English, just double-timed and oddly used. Verbs for nouns. Nouns for verbs. Acronyms sprinkled throughout.
    â€œGetting dark” was one phrase I caught.
    â€œWe’ll be going,” Sam said. I tried not to nod agreement too vigorously.
    â€œYou can’t stick this baby in the trunk, Sam. You want to rest it on the floor of the backseat, on a blanket, or better, she could hold it, maybe.”
    â€œYeah, ‘she’ could hold it,” I said. I counted two twenties and a ten into his hand and decided not to give advice about what to do with the cash. A moving van sprang to mind.
    â€œYou could pay me later,” he said. His dark eyes had short, bristly lashes. His eyebrows almost met, knitting themselves into an angry slash across his face.
    â€œI like to settle up as I go along,” I said.
    Sam carried the computer. Frank grabbed the manuals away from me. Also a carton of diskettes he’d insisted on tossing in as a last-minute bonus. I had to promise not to let the cat shed on them.
    The deepening twilight hadn’t improved the block’s appearance. It obscured the mush puddles. My feet were soaked in an instant. Sam had parked close to a streetlamp. Its feeble bulb provided little light. The borrowed car appeared unmolested, but it could have had an additional dent or five. I wouldn’t have noticed.
    Frank fiddled and fussed and decided the computer carton was too large for me to hold on my lap. He took his time arguing about safe stowage, then set off on a lengthy cautionary tale about surge suppressors.
    I was starting to follow his accelerated speech, but it took concentration.
    I didn’t see the black van turn the corner. I heard the screech of tires.