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window.
"It worked," he said, more to himself than to her. "It was perfect."
He's like a little boy, she thought. A little boy who made something a wood
block car, or a slingshot, maybe and is delighted to find that it really
works.
She watched him grab the ring in Joey's eyebrow and haul him to his feet.
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"Come on, Joey," he said, turning him toward Alicia. "I don't think the lady
really believes me. Show her your eye."
"I believe you," she said.
But Jack didn't seem to be listening. "Come on, Joey. Open up and show her
both baby blues."
Joey's red-smeared left eyelids parted to reveal a teary, very irritated but
intact eye.
"Good boy," Jack said, then turned Joey and pushed him off in the direction
his friends had taken. "Go find your buddies."
Jack watched Joey for a moment as he stumbled away, then he turned to Alicia.
"I'll be in touch."
He waved, then turned and walked off.
Alicia stared after him. She hoped he decided to help her out. This was
someone she wanted in her corner.
3.
"Thereyou are!"
Sam Baker spoke aloud in the otherwise empty car as he caught sight of the
Clayton babe. For a few bad moments there he'd thought he'd lost her.
He settled back in the driver seat and loosened his grip on the wheel. His
shoulders ached. He hadn't realized how tense he'd been since that cop had
told him to move his car.
Relax, he told himself. We're back on track now.
He'd followed her to the Upper West Side from the AIDS center, and had
watched her go into that dive called Julio's. He'd found a spot with a good
view of the door and had settled in to watch.
Well, he'd been sitting there only a few minutes, just starting to memorize
the license plates around him, when this cop came along. Seemed Baker's
vantage point came with a fire hydrant attached to it. And though Baker had
tried to explain that he was just waiting for someone and would keep the motor
running, the cop didn't care.
"Drive it away or it gets towed away."
Not much of a choice.
So he'd pulled out and rolled down the street, looking for an empty legal
spot. Fat chance. He would have loved to step into that bar and have a quick
beer while he checked out who she was meeting, but he couldn't risk getting
towed. So he'd kept moving, kept circling the block, waiting for her to come
out.
But then when he finally did spot her coming though the door, he was already
past the bar. And when he stopped and blocked the street, some bastard cab
started honking like he was coming from a wedding. Baker had been driving this
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rented white Plymouth for two days now. After he'd seen the Clayton babe
staring his way on Friday, he figured she might have made the gray Buick. He
didn't want to draw any attention to this one, so he'd raced into another
circle of the block, which turned into an agonizing crawl.
But now everything was cool. He didn't know what she'd been doing since he'd
scooted out of sight, but who cared? She was just about where he'd left her.
The cell phone rang. Baker could guess who that was the Arab had been on his
case something fierce since the girl's lawyer exploded.
"Yeah?"
"You are with the woman?"
"Like stink on shit."
"Pardon?"
"She's uptown. Flagging down a cab as we speak."
"Where has she been? Meeting another lawyer?"
"She was in a bar."
"In a bar? Does she appear inebriated?"
"You mean drunk?" Really weird the way this guy talked. Arab to the bone but
he spoke English like a Brit. "No. Tell you the truth, I don't think it has
anything to do with what we're interested in. Probably meeting a boyfriend or
something."
"She does nothave a boyfriend."
Baker watched the Clayton babe's loose skirt tighten across her butt as she
bent to get into the cab. Nice ass.
Hard to believe she was completely unattached. She wasn't bad-looking. At
least what he'd been able to see of her. A little makeup, a tight skirt, she
could be a real looker. Instead&
Maybe she was a lez. Nothing wrong with that. He could get off on a lez. He [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]