Bright Futures: A Lew Fonesca Mystery (Lew Fonesca Novels) Read Online Free Page B

is smart, full of energy and vigor, and inclined to do things without thinking that might get him in trouble.”
    “Like hire me?”
    “Like trying to prove his friend didn’t murder Phil Horvecki. I think it’s possible; even likely, that there are people who are not unhappy that Horvecki is dead, people who might have killed him, people who do not have the conscience of an orange beetle or a lovebug. Horvecki was not a nice human being.”
    He leaned toward me and lowered his voice.
    “And if such a person or persons were responsible for the demise of Philip Horvecki they would not be happy to know that you are trying to help that young man in jail, a young man who, I might add, is not the most socially acceptable of characters. They would prefer that young Mr. Gerall go to a juvenile facility for the crime.”
    “Got it,” I said.
    “Do you? Good. Take it from me. D. Elliot Corkle loves his grandson. Word has already gone out that D. Elliot Corkle will be seeing to it that his grandson is no longer pursuing this inquiry.”
    “No,” I said.
    “No?” said Corkle.
    “I took your grandson’s money and told him I would at least talk to Ronnie Gerall and look around, and that I fully intend to do.”
    “Randolph Scott in
Comanche Station
,” said Augustine.
    Corkle looked at the ex-actor with something less than approval. Augustine shrugged.
    “My grandson could be hurt,” Corkle said, smiling no more.
    “Your grandson could hire someone else if I walked away.”
    “Perhaps someone not quite so stubborn.”
    “This could wind up costing a lot,” I said.
    “I can afford it. You know how many Power Pocket Entertainment Centers I sold last year?”
    “No.”
    “Three million.”
    “I’m impressed.”
    “You’re damn right you are,” he said, plunking his almost empty glass on the table. The remaining ice cubes clinked musically.
    “I’d like to go now,” I said.
    “Who is stopping you?” asked Corkle.
    I put down my glass, which didn’t clink as musically as Corkle’s, and stood. So did Augustine and Corkle, who wiped his hands on his shorts.
    Corkle silently led the way back through the kitchen and to the front door, where we paused while he made a stop at a closet and came up with a white box about the size of a large book. He placed the box in my hand.
    “Forty-two songs on three CDs,” he said. “Best of the original jazz crooners. Bing Crosby, Dick Powell, Russ Columbo.”
    “I don’t have a CD player,” I said.
    “Not in your car?”
    “I don’t own a car.”
    He shook his head and said, “Wait.”
    I looked at Augustine as Corkle disappeared back in the closet and came up with a white box even smaller than the one with the CDs. He placed it in my free hand.
    “Big seller in its day,” he said. “Nine ninety-five. Thirty-dollar value. Great little CD player.”
    “Thanks,” I said.
    “Think about my offer,” said Corkle. “D. Elliot Corkle is as good as his word. You a poker player, Fonesca?”
    “Used to be.”
    When Catherine and I were first married, I played poker twice a month with two cops, an assistant district attorney and another investigator who, like me, worked for the state attorney’s office. Well, he wasn’t quite like me. He was in prison now, for murder.
    “I host a weekly Wednesday game in my card room. If you like, I can let you know when we have an open seat. You can join us, see how you like it, how we like you.”
    “Game?”
    “Five card stud. That’s it.”
    “Stakes?”
    “Ten, twenty-five, fifty for the first hour,” said Corkle. “Last hour, one to two in the morning, we go up to twenty-five, fifty, and a hundred. We start at nine at night. I know where you can get the money to play. Think about it.”
    He started to close the door as Augustine and I stepped out and said, “If I can’t get you to say ‘no’ to Greg, can I hire you?”
    “To do what?”
    “Exactly what my grandson hired you to do, with one