Read Online Last Shot (2006) by Gregg - Rackley 04 Hurwitz - Free Book Online Page B

"Now, that's what I'm talkin' 'bout."
    Bear, momentarily distracted by the breasts swaying mere feet from his head, took a moment to find his focus. "Do you know Walker Jameson?" He nodded for Tim to produce the photo, which Freddy studied intently. "Or Boss Hahn?"
    "Okay. Okay." Freddy seemed to be trying to sort his way through a drunken muddle of thoughts. "Who are y'all?"
    Bear shifted his weight against the glass, showing off the Marshals star on his belt.
    Freddy bobbed his head a bit more, as if considering his options. "Don't know that cat," he finally said, tapping a dirty fingernail against the picture, "but I know of Boss Hahn. Big mofo in the AB, ain't that right?"
    "He was recently demoted." Bear settled heavily into the seat beside Freddy. "We had a little chat with Tommy LaRue yesterday evening. I guess you did, too. Right around, say, five-thirty P.M. We want to know what you told him."
    "I ain't gonna bitch up for y'all. Not on Tommy. We're road dawgs, man. Thick and thin."
    "We're not interested in LaRue," Tim said. "Not at all. We're after someone else, and we'll be as happy to ignore LaRue as we'll be to ignore you."
    The metal screen slammed down, leaving them alone in the darkness. Bear fumbled in his pocket, fed a crumpled bill into the machine, and then there was light. And breasts.
    He shrugged at Tim. "Ambience."
    "And say I don't want to talk to y'all?" Freddy asked amiably.
    "Then we'd probably have to poke and pry around all that merch in your pad. Irregularities in your First Union account. How you afforded to fly yourself and Bernadette to Brazil. Who you saw there, what you brought back."
    Freddy's eyes registered surprise at some of the proper nouns. "We don't want that," he agreed. The woman stopped dancing in her glass box and folded her arms, annoyed at the sudden lack of attention. Freddy fussed with the edge of his sweater sadly. "You talked to Bernadette, huh?"
    "Tough lady," Bear said.
    Freddy shook his head. "Word."
    "What'd you tell Tommy LaRue?" Tim said. "Answer the question and we were never here. And we won't make trouble for LaRue. Or you."
    Freddy squinted at Tim in the faint light. "Hey, you that dog killed them people?"
    "Lotta dogs kill a lotta people in this city."
    "A'ight. I'll bump gums. You cross me, I go public on your ass." Freddy winked good-naturedly. "Now, I don't know what it means. I'm just a relay man. Tommy can only call certain phone numbers from the inside, and I'm one of them. I'm his clearinghouse, right? Yesterday I get word to go to a pay phone at a certain time, someone would call. So I go. And they call. Just a grumble. 1Three words. Tommy calls me at our usual time today. I tell him. He hangs up. That's all I know. I just relayed the message."
    "Which was?" Bear asked impatiently.
    "'The left side.'"
    As if on cue, the metal screen slammed down, bathing them in darkness. At the same time, Tim and Bear repeated, "'The left side'?"
    "The hell does that mean?" Bear said.
    "'F I supposed to know, they'd be no point in tellin' me in code, right?" Freddy held up his hands. "Like I said. I don't know too much so I don't know too much."
    "I'm beginning to feel the same goddamned way."
    After the next few questions went equally nowhere, Tim and Bear left the strip club in silence. Finally Bear said, "Maybe the left side was a meet point for after the break. The left side of a road. Or a river. Something."
    "I think it's more than that. Walker had an emotional reaction to it. It put him in motion. It's the answer to something."
    "So maybe it was a signal for the break. The bedsheet? Wasn't that on the left side?"
    "I keep thinking it's gotta have something to do with Boss Hahn."
    "Walker stabbed Hahn on the left side. Though I doubt that directive would've puckered him in the dining hall. Let's take a spin through the files again, have Guerrera do a keyword search on the Aryans, the prison, the Black Guerrilla Family, whatever we got." Bear pulled himself behind