Read Online Play Dead by David Rosenfelt - Free Book Online

forehead—“Loser.”
    Sam flies into Newark rather than LaGuardia, which is where most Boston flights arrive. I share Sam’s dislike for LaGuardia; it’s tiny and old and so close to the city it feels as though the plane were landing on East Eighty-fourth Street. Newark is far more accessible and feels like a real airport.
    Newark is far more accessible and feels like a real airport.
    Sam is outside and in my car within five minutes of landing, because he did not check a bag. Sam wouldn’t check a bag if he were going away for six months; he doesn’t think it’s something a real man should do.
    Sam has some mental issues.
    As Sam gets in the car, I realize I haven’t prepared for the song talking game that dominates our relationship. The trick is to work song lyrics smoothly into the conversation, and Sam has so outdistanced me in his ability to do this that he has taken to adjusting the rules so he won’t be bored. Now he will sometimes do movie dialogue instead of song lyrics, and I never know which it’s going to be. Unfortunately, I have not prepared for either.
    The good news is that Sam is so interested in finding out about the upcoming investigation that song or movie talking doesn’t seem to be on his mind.
    I brief him on what I know, and “brief” is the proper word, since I know very little. “For now I want you to focus on the victim, Stacy Harriman,” I say. “There is very little about her in the record.”
    “You know where she’s from, age, that kind of thing?” he asks.
    “Some. What I don’t have I’ll get.”
    “Is this a rush?”
    I nod. “Evans sits in jail until we can get him out. So it’s a rush.”
    “I’ll get right on it,” he says.
    “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
    He shrugs that off. “No problem. Someday, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me.”
    He’s doing Brando from The Godfather. It’s a movie I know very well, so there’s a chance I can compete, but right now my mind is a blank. “Sam, I want you to be careful, okay?” I say this because two people in my life have died because of material they have uncovered in this kind of investigation. One of the victims was Sam’s former assistant.
    “Right,” Sam says, shrugging off the warning.
    “I mean it, Sam. You’ve got to take this stuff more seriously. We could be dealing with dangerous people.”
    He looks wounded. “What have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully? If you’d come to me in friendship, then these people would be suffering this very day. And if by chance an honest man like yourself should make enemies, they would become my enemies. And they would fear you.”
    He is incorrigible. “Thank you, Godfather,” I say. “You want to work out of my office?”
    He frowns. “You must be kidding. On your computer? It would take me a year.”
    “I can set up whatever system you want,” I say.
    He shakes his head. “No, I’ll work at home… I’ve got wireless and a cable modem.” Then all of a sudden he’s yelling, “At my home! Where my wife sleeps! Where my children come to play with their toys!”
    “Sam, can we finish this before you start making me offers I can’t refuse?”
    “Sure. What else is there?”
    I’m about to answer when I hear a loud crashing noise and then feel a sudden rush of warm air.
    “Holy shit!” Sam screams, and I realize that there is no longer a side window; it has just seemed to disappear. “Andy! To your left!”
    I look over and see a car alongside us, with two men in the front seat. The man closest to us, not the driver, is pointing a gun at my head. He looks to be around forty, heavyset and very serious-looking. In an instant the thought flashes in my mind that he looks like a man on a mission, not a joyride. There have been some random highway shootings in the past few years, but I instinctively feel that this is not one of them.
    I duck and hit the brakes just as I hear a loud noise, probably