McCone and Friends Read Online Free Page A

the upwardly mobile ethnic groups that’re moving in to the neighborhood get their way. It shared the building with a Thai restaurant and a Filipino travel agency. In its front window red neon tubing spelled out THE CASH COW, but on the bucking outline letters was a bull. I imagined Boydston trying to reach a decision: call it the Cash Cow and have a good name but a dumb graphic; call it the Cash Bull and have a dumb name and good graphic; or just say the hell with it and mix genders.
    But what kind of establishment was this?
    My client took the first available parking space, leaving me to fend for myself. When I finally found another and walked back two blocks he’d already gone inside.
    Chivalry is dead. Sometimes I think common courtesy’s obit is about to be published too.
    When I went into the store, the first thing I noticed was a huge potted barrel cactus, and the second was dozens of guitars hanging from the ceiling. A rack of worn cowboy boots completed the picture.
    Texas again. The state that spawned the likes of Uncle Roy was going to keep getting in my face all day long.
    The room was full of glass showcases that displayed an amazing assortment of stuff: rings, watches, guns, cameras, fishing reels, kitchen gadgets, small tools, knickknacks, silverware, even a metronome. There was a whole section of electronic equipment like TV’s and VCRs, a jumble of probably obsolete computer gear, a fleet of vacuum cleaners poised to roar to life and tidy the world, enough exercise equipment to trim down half the population, and a jukebox that just then was playing a country song by Shar’s brother-in-law Ricky Savage. Delicacy prevents me from describing what his voice does to my libido.
    Darrin Boydston stood behind a high counter, tapping on a keyboard, on the wall behind him a sign warned CUSTOMERS MUST PRESENT TICKET TO CLAIM MERCHANDISE. I’m not too quick most mornings, but I did manage to figure out that the Cash Cow was a pawnshop.
    “Y’all took long enough,” my client said. “You gonna charge me for the time you spent parking?”
    I sighed. “Your billable hours start now.” Them I looked at my watch and made a mental note of the time.
    He turned the computer off, motioned for me to come around the counter, and led me through a door into a warehouse area. Its shelves were crammed with more of the kind of stuff he had out front. Halfway down the center aisle he made a right turn and took me past small appliances: blenders, food processors, toasters, electric woks, pasta makers, even an ancient pressure cooker. It reminded me of the one the grandmother who raised me used to have, and I wrinkled my nose at it, thinking of those sweltering late-summer days when she’d make me help her with the yearly canning. No wonder I resist the womanly household arts!
    Boydston said, “They buy these gizmos ‘cause they think they need ‘em. Then they find out they don’t need and can’t afford ‘em. And then it all ends up in my lap.” He sounded exceptionally cheerful about this particular brand of human folly, and I supposed he had good reason.
    He led me at a fast clip toward the back of the warehouse—so fast that I had to trot to keep up with him. One of the other problems with being short is that you’re forever running along behind taller people. Since I’d already decided to hate Darrin Boydston, I also decided he was walking fast to spite me.
    At the end of the next-to-last aisle we came upon a thin man in a white T-shirt and black work pants who was moving boxes from the shelves to a dolly. Although Boydston and I were making plenty of noise, he didn’t hear us come up. My client put his hand on the man’s shoulder, and he stiffened, when he turned I saw he was only a boy, no more than twelve or thirteen, with the fine features and thick black hair of a Eurasian. The look in his eyes reminded me of an abused kitten my boyfriend Willie had taken in: afraid and resigned to further terrible