Read Online The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos - Free Book Online

VIP room.
    “I’m headed over to Fat Joe’s,” said Shaka. “Play some PS 2. He got the new NC double A.”
    “My pops won’t let me go to Joe’s.”
    “Why not?”
    “Joe’s father has a gun. You know, that little thirty-two he got?”
    “We ain’t gonna mess with it.”
    “My father don’t want me in that house.”
    “Okay, then,” said Shaka, tapping Diego’s outstretched fist. “Later, dawg.”
    “Later.”
    Shaka walked west down Rittenhouse, toward his mother’s row house on Roxboro Place. Diego went east, in the direction of a pale yellow stucco colonial fronted by a porch, on a rise halfway up the block.
    His father’s Tahoe was not in the street. Diego felt that he was nearly a man, but he was still young enough to like the security of knowing his dad was home.
    Dusk was near. The dropping sun cast long shadows on the grass.

Eight
    T HE MUSIC OKAY, sir?” said Dan Holiday, checking the rearview, looking at his client, a fit guy in his midforties, relaxing on the right side of the backseat.
    “It’s fine,” said the client, pressed jeans and a top-end blazer, open-neck shirt, black leather boots, a Tag Heuer wristwatch that must have put him back a thousand beans. Guy had one of those expensive hairstyles, too, shooting off in different directions on top, with that flip-up thing in the front. The look said, I don’t have to wear a tie like all you other suckers, but I have money, rest assured.
    Holiday had watched the guy coming out of his house in Bethesda as he sat out in the black Town Car, waiting. He had estimated his approximate age and, knowing he was some kind of writer (Holiday had been contacted by a publishing house in New York, a frequent customer, for the pickup), figured the guy favored the new wave stuff of his youth, meaning ’77 and beyond. Holiday had found Fred, the “classic alternative” program, on the radio before the guy even slid into the car.
    “You can change it if you’d like,” said Holiday. “You’ve got your own controls on the back of the seat, right there in front of you.”
    They were heading out on the toll road toward Dulles Airport. Holiday had his black suit jacket on but had forgone the chauffeur cap, which made him feel like a bellhop. He only wore the cap when he was driving corporate bigwigs, politicians, and K Street types.
    Holiday didn’t feel the need to be real formal with this particular client, and that was nice, but the music, Christ, it was setting him on edge. Some heroin addict was whooping through the speakers. The writer in the backseat was moving his head a little to the beat as he studied the radio controls mounted in the leather before him.
    “You got satellite in here?” said the writer.
    “I put the XM unit in all my cars,” said Holiday.
All
. He had two.
    “Cool.”
    “Same idea behind GPS technology,” said Holiday. “We used it for tracking purposes when I was in law enforcement.”
    “You were a cop?” This seemed to waken the guy’s curiosity. His eyes met Holiday’s in the rearview for the first time.
    “In D.C.”
    “That must have been interesting.”
    “I got stories.”
    “I’ll bet.”
    “Anyway, after I retired, I started up this service.”
    “You seem too young to have retired already.”
    “I had all my years in, even if I don’t look it,” said Holiday. “Good genes, I guess.”
    Holiday reached for the slotted plastic piece under the sun visor, extracted a couple of business cards, and handed them over the bench to the client. The guy took them and read the embossed printing on the face of the one on top: “Holiday Car Service,” in Old English letters. And below it, “Luxury Transportation, Security, Executive Protection.” And then the tagline, “Let Us Make Your Workday a Holiday.” At the bottom was Holiday’s contact information.
    “You do security?”
    “That’s my main business. My
expertise
.”
    “Bodyguard stuff, too, huh?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    Holiday left much of