DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book ten (the Charlie Fox crime thriller series) Read Online Free Page B

DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book ten (the Charlie Fox crime thriller series)
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was still experimenting wildly on the best way to spend it.
     
    Photographers appeared out of nowhere, snapping furiously around him like a pack of starving dogs around a butcher’s cart. He ignored them with the blasé air of someone for whom this was such a regular occurrence he didn’t even see them any more.
     
    His security guys were large and obvious. The leader elbowed a path to the door and ushered him inside. The youngster paused just inside the entrance, making the most of it.
     
    The commotion finally penetrated O’Day’s focused spiel. He turned and caught sight of the newcomer and his whole body reacted like he’d just seen the Mona Lisa for the first time.
     
    “Gabe, my boy!” he cried. “Glad you could make it. Come and meet one of our benefactors—a very dear friend of mine, Blake Dyer.”
     
    Gabe came ambling over, an odd way of walking that moved his shoulders but not his head. He hooked one arm of his shades into the neck of his shirt and smiled at Dyer.
     
    “Blake, I’m sure this young superstar needs no introduction. This is Gabe Baptiste.” He did not seem to get the irony of his words. “Finest baseball player of his generation—the next Tom Seaver.”
     
    Dyer held out his hand, but Gabe Baptiste had suddenly frozen in mid-stretch. I was close enough to see his pupils dilate, the hairs riffle along his forearms. I recognised it as pure, instinctive flight-response.
     
    I glanced at Dyer. He was staring in bemusement at the guy and clearly had absolutely no idea what should have caused this kind of reaction.
     
    My eyes flicked back, but this time I tracked Baptiste’s sightline and realised he wasn’t looking at my principal. His gaze had slid past Dyer’s right shoulder and was locked, firm and terrified, on Sean.
     

Four
     
    “Baptiste is a last-minute substitution,” Parker said. “Trust me, I had no prior knowledge of his involvement or I would have warned you.”
     
    “Warned me about what, Parker?” I demanded. “All I know is, as soon as Baptiste clapped eyes on Sean he panicked like someone had stuck a cattle prod up his backside. I’m amazed his goons didn’t draw on us.”
     
    I was in my room at the hotel, which adjoined Blake Dyer’s. Sean had the room directly across the hall. He was currently conferring with our client about his schedule for the next few days, in case there were any other surprises. I’d left Sean to go through the details—tried to make it seem that I had absolute confidence in him. It was not an easy façade to maintain.
     
    “O’Day had the reigning NASCAR champion, Lyle Junior, all lined up as his star attraction,” Parker said. “Then Junior hit the wall on turn three in California doing about one-ninety-five last weekend and rolled a half-dozen times. Won’t be out of traction for a month. They had to find a big-name draw to take his place in a hurry. Just so happens that Gabe Baptiste was born right there in New Orleans—in St Bernard Parish—before he got out and made good. I can see why he was considered the ideal choice.”
     
    “I realise this Baptiste guy is some kind of hot-shot ball player, but what’s his connection to Sean?”
     
    Parker’s dry chuckle came clearly down the phone line from New York. “You’re never going to pass for American if you don’t understand our national obsession with baseball, Charlie.”
     
    “Why? It’s exactly like the game they foisted on the girls at school who weren’t tough enough for hockey, only we called it rounders. This is just played by guys in old men’s underwear, with frequent ad breaks and more spitting.”
     
    I thought back to my schooldays. Well, OK, maybe not more spitting . . .
     
    He laughed out loud. “Don’t let anyone hear you say that or they’ll practically throw your ass in jail.”
     
    “Well, it won’t be the first time,” I said dryly. “And I know I can rely on you to post bail, can’t I?”
     
    “You can rely on me for

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