Read Online Operation Fireball by Dan J. Marlowe - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Dan J. Marlowe
Ads: Link
phone.
The place might be all that Hazel claimed for it, but the name itself gritted on my teeth like unwashed spinach.
So I had time to kill while I waited for the arrival of the registered package of money from Hazel.
I killed a lot of it at Curly’s. I half-expected to run into Slater there, but he didn’t show. Either he was staying out of sight voluntarily or Erikson was keeping him out of sight. It looked, in fact, as though Erikson was calling most of the shots for the pair.
Not that I minded. Even as little as I knew about Erikson, I had no reason to prefer Slater’s judgment to Erikson’s. I preferred my own to either, for that matter. Erikson’s seeming dominance of Slater, though, was so different from the Slater I remembered that it didn’t ring true. When I could manage another tête-à-tête with Slater, it was worth probing.
I returned to the Aztec from Curly’s one night about two thirty A.M . I let myself into my room with my key and turned on the light. Two steps inside the door I stopped short. A mounded-up heap of bedclothes shocked me into the realization that someone was in my bed.
I wasn’t wearing my gun. I took a quick step in the direction of the bureau under which it was taped. Then the bedclothes heaved to one side and Hazel sat up in the bed, yawning and stretching. “ ‘S about time you came home, horseman,” she complained drowsily. “Thought I’d had my little trip for nothing.”
I went over and sat down beside her on the edge of the bed. I couldn’t think of anything to say for a moment while confronted with this fresh evidence that people simply will not do what you expect them to do. Or what they should do. “Did you come to the hotel directly from the ranch?”
“Sure did. Soon’s I picked up the cash. Decided to fly down and s’prise you.”
“How’d you get into the room?”
She chuckled sleepily. “I found a young-looking assistant manager and laid a bill on him. Told him I was your best girl and wanted to s’prise you.”
He must have been young, I thought. I stared at Hazel in the off-center slip that was her only garment. A hotel old-timer would never have gone for her story, bill or no bill. A veteran would have suspected a private detective with a photographer in tow trying to get evidence in a divorce case.
What bothered me was that if there had been time enough for the sheriff’s report on the shooting affair at the ranch to reach certain interested parties, there could have been a tail waiting at the ranch to pick Hazel up upon her return from her trip south. If so, she had led the tail directly to the Aztec. That was bad, but to make things worse, her story to an impressionable young assistant manager called attention to both herself and me. If confronted with a badge, he wouldn’t need much persuasion to talk about us.
Even half-asleep, Hazel could see that my reaction wasn’t what she expected. “You’re not glad to see me,” she said in an injured tone.
“It’s a nice surprise, but—” I didn’t finish it. Nothing would come of her indiscretion, probably, so why spoil her pleasure? She should have stuck to the script and mailed me the cash, but I could hardly expect her to act like someone who hadn’t made a move in twenty years without considering every possible consequence. “Okay,” I conceded. “Move over and make room.”
She did so with alacrity. I shed clothing and joined her in the bed. “That’s more like it, horseman,” she breathed in my ear. “For a minute there you had me thinking you’d thrown a shoe.”
I tipped her onto her back and wrestled the slip up out of the way. She grunted inelegantly as I plunged the coupling pin into its slot. Her hands cradled my shoulders firmly as I set out to make it last as long as possible. She was a noisy partner. Even in three-quarter time, her breath came in hissing jets.
Her legs crept up and tightened around me. “Whooo-EEEE!” she gasped. Her excitement fed my
The place might be all that Hazel claimed for it, but the name itself gritted on my teeth like unwashed spinach.
So I had time to kill while I waited for the arrival of the registered package of money from Hazel.
I killed a lot of it at Curly’s. I half-expected to run into Slater there, but he didn’t show. Either he was staying out of sight voluntarily or Erikson was keeping him out of sight. It looked, in fact, as though Erikson was calling most of the shots for the pair.
Not that I minded. Even as little as I knew about Erikson, I had no reason to prefer Slater’s judgment to Erikson’s. I preferred my own to either, for that matter. Erikson’s seeming dominance of Slater, though, was so different from the Slater I remembered that it didn’t ring true. When I could manage another tête-à-tête with Slater, it was worth probing.
I returned to the Aztec from Curly’s one night about two thirty A.M . I let myself into my room with my key and turned on the light. Two steps inside the door I stopped short. A mounded-up heap of bedclothes shocked me into the realization that someone was in my bed.
I wasn’t wearing my gun. I took a quick step in the direction of the bureau under which it was taped. Then the bedclothes heaved to one side and Hazel sat up in the bed, yawning and stretching. “ ‘S about time you came home, horseman,” she complained drowsily. “Thought I’d had my little trip for nothing.”
I went over and sat down beside her on the edge of the bed. I couldn’t think of anything to say for a moment while confronted with this fresh evidence that people simply will not do what you expect them to do. Or what they should do. “Did you come to the hotel directly from the ranch?”
“Sure did. Soon’s I picked up the cash. Decided to fly down and s’prise you.”
“How’d you get into the room?”
She chuckled sleepily. “I found a young-looking assistant manager and laid a bill on him. Told him I was your best girl and wanted to s’prise you.”
He must have been young, I thought. I stared at Hazel in the off-center slip that was her only garment. A hotel old-timer would never have gone for her story, bill or no bill. A veteran would have suspected a private detective with a photographer in tow trying to get evidence in a divorce case.
What bothered me was that if there had been time enough for the sheriff’s report on the shooting affair at the ranch to reach certain interested parties, there could have been a tail waiting at the ranch to pick Hazel up upon her return from her trip south. If so, she had led the tail directly to the Aztec. That was bad, but to make things worse, her story to an impressionable young assistant manager called attention to both herself and me. If confronted with a badge, he wouldn’t need much persuasion to talk about us.
Even half-asleep, Hazel could see that my reaction wasn’t what she expected. “You’re not glad to see me,” she said in an injured tone.
“It’s a nice surprise, but—” I didn’t finish it. Nothing would come of her indiscretion, probably, so why spoil her pleasure? She should have stuck to the script and mailed me the cash, but I could hardly expect her to act like someone who hadn’t made a move in twenty years without considering every possible consequence. “Okay,” I conceded. “Move over and make room.”
She did so with alacrity. I shed clothing and joined her in the bed. “That’s more like it, horseman,” she breathed in my ear. “For a minute there you had me thinking you’d thrown a shoe.”
I tipped her onto her back and wrestled the slip up out of the way. She grunted inelegantly as I plunged the coupling pin into its slot. Her hands cradled my shoulders firmly as I set out to make it last as long as possible. She was a noisy partner. Even in three-quarter time, her breath came in hissing jets.
Her legs crept up and tightened around me. “Whooo-EEEE!” she gasped. Her excitement fed my
Similar Books
