Dead End Deal Read Online Free Page B

harbor, minimizing any possibility of capturing his words with a parabolic microphone. Paranoid? Perhaps, but attention to detail was the only way to survive this game. He punched speed dial and listened to the connection being made.
    “O HHH, JESUS, AGAIN? ” Nikki Shepherd moaned.
    Richard Stillman’s lips brushed her navel as his tongue licked salty sweat. “Mmmmmm . . .” Her hands were enveloping his shaved scalp when Snoop Dogg’s Vato began thumping from the black iPhone on the nightstand. Stillman hated Snoop Dogg. Hated rap and hip hop, but relished the up-fromthe-ghetto, bad-ass, nigga gangsta image he so meticulously cultivated. He loved to spin bullshit tales about childhood struggles against huge sociological handicaps, of growing up dirt poor and black in the projects, sharing a one-bedroom apartment with a sister and grandmother while his unwed teenage mother and vagrant father spent time in the county lockup for dealing crack. That the stories were complete fabrications didn’t matter. They were a hell of a lot more exciting than the truth of being the only child of a stay-at-home mom and a Silicon Valley software engineer in middle class suburbia. The truth was boring. With a capital B. The gangster image enhanced his reputation for being dangerous.
    Snoop Dogg continued to rap.
    He was expecting a call from Feist, so as enticing as Nikki’s body might be, he probably ought to check caller ID. He said, “Hold that thought,” and rolled over to check. Sure enough, Feist.
    He muttered to Nikki, “I need to take this,” rolled out of bed and headed toward the balcony, one eye glued to her reflection on the sliding glass door. Loved that body. Too bad she wouldn’t divorce that pig of a husband. Not that he had any intention of marrying her if she did, but it’d make these trysts easier to set up. Jesus, if that bitch Schwartz found out he was boning the CFO, she’d need major psychotherapy. Cupping the phone so Nikki couldn’t hear, he whispered, “How’d it go?”
    “Turned into colossal clusterfuck, mate. Your cobber killed a witness.”
    “What!” Naked, Stillman faced the sliding glass door to a balcony. The drapes and slider wide open, giving him a magnificent mosaic of office buildings and condominiums and the traffic twenty-one floors below, leaving him totally exposed to anyone interested in watching him. Like the weirdo who lived directly across the street. His erection pointed straight toward at the voyeur’s brightly lit living room with the Mariners game on a large plasma-screen TV. The voyeur—a dumpy middle-aged guy with a crew cut—stood at the darkened bedroom window, binoculars glued to them. Dumb shit thought no one noticed, but Stillman usually saw the reflection of streetlight off the lenses. Initially, Nikki had been embarrassed when he watched, but with a bit of coaxing and the passage of time, it morphed into sexual titillation, a major turn on for her.
    “That’s right. Fucking twit shot a witness,” Feist said.
    “Christ almighty! Please don’t tell me it was Ritter.” Stillman watched a jaywalker dodging traffic as he cut diagonally across the street.
    “Right-right, not Ritter. Some old geezer comes out the fucking tunnel whiles we was having our discussion. Asshole said he had no choice. So then I had to bang your boy up a bit.”
    “Like?”
    “Knock him out.”
    Damn! That could mean anything from concussion to major head injury. Last thing he needed was for Ritter to be brain damaged. “Goddamnit! Thought I said do not hurt him.”
    “Couldn’t be helped. Things went tits up fast.” Feist paused. “We was doing just fucking lovely until the geezer pops out the tunnel. Ritter starts yelling for him to run and call the coppers. Thompson shot him.” Just like that.
    Stillman could feel his erection wither, his mind now too distracted for sex. “This witness . . . we’re not talking about Dobbs, are we?”
    “Naw, I said geezer, not