Days of Rage: A Smokey Dalton Novel Read Online Free

six, stressing that our meeting was important.
    Laura knew I wanted to see her, maybe rekindle the relationship that I had torn apart in the summer. If she didn’t come for me, maybe she would come for Jimmy, whom she loved.
    The secretary took my message. I did the dishes, straightened the apartment , and got it ready for company. Jimmy would be happy when he learned that Laura was coming over.
    A few minutes later, the phone rang. Laura said, without preamble, “Smokey, I can’t come tonight. I’m swamped. We have investigators here from the Model Cities program, and this whole construction worker thing is causing some problems within our ranks. The whole city’s up in arms.”
    “I know,” I said. “That’s why I don’t want to come down there.”
    “Can you just tell me? I’m sure we can find some kind of solution to whatever you’ve got for me without some kind of meeting.”
    So different from how she’d been just six months ago. Then she, like me, looked for any excuse to get together.
    “No,” I said. “I need to see you. You’ll understand why once I tell you what’s going on.”
    She sighed theatrically. “It can’t be tonight. I’m supposed to take these bureaucrats to dinner and drinks and you know how it is.”
    I didn’t, really. My jobs had never included wining and dining anyone. But hers did. It was just one of the many ways in which our lives differed.
    “How about tomorrow, then?” I asked. “I’ll make us lunch.”
    “Why don’t I meet you somewhere?” she asked. “Maybe—”
    “Laura, we’re not talking about any of this at a restaurant. You need to come here.”
    Something in my voice must have finally gotten through to her.
    “This is serious,” she said.
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Life-and-death serious?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. Possibly.”
    “You’re not leaving again, are you?” she asked.
    “Laura,” I said , trying to keep the aggravation from my voice. “This is about work I’m doing for you.”
    “All right then.” She sounded so businesslike. “How does one o’clock sound?”
    Like the heat of the day. But I’d make it work.
    “Perfect,” I said, and hung up before she could change her mind.
    I wiped my hands on my pants and leaned against the back of my couch. I was nervous as a boy , and not just because of those skeletons in the basement of that Queen Anne.
    I wanted to patch things up with Laura, and I wasn’t sure I knew how.
     

 
    FOUR
     
    Saturday dawned clear and warm, with just enough of a lake breeze to keep the heat from becoming unbearable. Jimmy slept in, which surprised me. He’d been thrilled to learn that Laura was coming for lunch, and in the past that would have gotten him out of bed before sunrise, cleaning and planning and bursting with excitement.
    But he was moving into adolescence. When I got up at nine, he was sprawled across his bed, lying on the covers, his toes brushing against the floor. He was beginning to look more and more like the brother who had abandoned him, lanky and thin, and I was going to have a heck of a time keeping him in clothes.
    I’d made potato salad the night before, and after I mixed up a green salad, there wasn’t a lot more for me to do until Laura arrived. I went into the backyard, moved the picnic table under the complex’s one shade tree — not that it would do much good at midday — and staked our claim with a tattered plastic tablecloth held in place with Jimmy’s battered American history textbook.
    I woke Jimmy and then I paced, trying to figure out what the next steps were.
    If this were a normal investment company in a normal city, I would have already called in the authorities and let them handle the investigation. But Sturdy’s shady past and Laura’s precarious hold on the company’s future didn’t allow me to follow the rules.
    There was a good chance that the people who had put those bodies in the basement were still alive; there was an even better