Bagmen (A Victor Carl Novel) Read Online Free Page A

I’d be silently contemplating the mysteries of life and mortality and the void, but I wasn’t. I suppose such questions are better left for those moments when vomit isn’t surging up your throat.
    “Easy now, Carl,” said McDeiss as he put a hand on my shoulder and nodded to Detective Armbruster.
    Armbruster leaned down, reached for the corner of the tarp, looked up at me with a filthy little smile on his face. “You ready?”
    “No.”
    I stood between the bright lights and the thing beneath the slick blue oilcloth, my shadow ominous on the brick wall where the lifeless thing leaned. I shrugged off McDeiss’s hand and stepped forward, into a puddle I hadn’t noticed. The smell was stronger than what had assaulted me before, fresher, almost predatory.
    A snake uncoiled in my gut as Armbruster pulled away the tarp.

CHAPTER 4
    MEET THE PRESS
    A moment later I was leaning against the old car in the alley, throwing up in great heaving spasms.
    “Did you recognize her?” said McDeiss when I’d reached a lull. He was wisely standing behind me.
    I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, wiped the back of my hand on my black pants. “There wasn’t much to recognize.”
    “They killed her with some sort of tool, apparently a hammer, and then kept going.”
    “Did you find the weapon?”
    “No. Whoever did this cleaned the field up nicely.”
    “That was considerate of them. And no one saw anything or heard anything?”
    “The car abandoned in the alley blocked it off from any onlookers, giving our killer enough privacy to slam away.”
    “Why would somebody do that to her face?”
    “That’s what we’re trying to find out. You recognize her?”
    I had caught a glimpse of what remained of her features before I turned, just a glimpse, but it was enough. It was like a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing, and the missing pieces were an eye and a cheek and the left side of the forehead. But what remained was specific enough for me to guess the picture on the box top. Yes, I had known the woman. I had just that day sat down in a bar with the woman . And in some pathetic part of my brain I’d believed that I had helped the woman in ways large and small, and I had felt so smugly good about doing it.
    “Her name was Jessica Barnes,” I said, still searching for a draft of clean air. “She lived out in Lancaster.”
    “How did you know her?”
    “I can’t tell you.”
    “What the hell, Carl?”
    “It’s privileged.”
    “We have a woman with half her face bashed to pulp and a killer on the loose and you’re talking about privilege?”
    “I met with Ms. Barnes this afternoon on behalf of a client. I had a confidential discussion with her. That’s all I can say.”
    “Did she give you anything?”
    “Detective.”
    “Did you give her money?”
    “Don’t.”
    “How much?”
    “I can’t.”
    “Do you want to see Ms. Barnes again to refresh your memory? Do you want me to shove your ugly face into what is left of hers?”
    “I have to go.”
    “Back to the ball?”
    “Sure, why not?”
    McDeiss sighed. It was a loud, emphatic sigh, world-weary and well practiced, a sigh of resignation to all the stupid lawyers in the world, of which I was just the latest to cross his path.
    “You make my kidneys hurt,” he said finally. “We found an empty manila envelope at the scene with the outline of a stack of something that matched the size of a brick of money. If it was full when she left you, then we have a possible robbery motive. Be clever enough not to tell me what you talked about or why. Just tell me this—was there money in the envelope when she left you?”
    “Yes.”
    “How much?”
    “I’ve told you all I can.”
    “Was it enough money for someone to kill her for it?”
    “Kids are killed for pocket change.”
    “Yes, they are.”
    “This was more,” I said. “Are we done here?”
    “I suppose that’s all we’re going to get out of you tonight, but we are not done, not by a