Planet Willie Read Online Free

that while the black bear is a strictly
wintertime hibernator, your polar bear will choose its time depending on
weather and food supply. Knows what it needs and manages accordingly. I like to
think I share those same secrets – of adapting myself to circumstances – of
knowing when to hold ‘em or to fold ‘em, so to speak – and with five thousand
dollars in my pocket, mister you are about to hear me roar.
    First order of
business, however, is converting Shore’s check into something green with a
little more heft to it. I drive back up the coast towards my hometown, which
resembles most of those you’ve never heard of along the Gulf. The air is good,
the sunsets are fine, and there’s plenty of fishing for those so inclined. You also
get some strange characters mixed in with the suburban types, and I guess I
can’t except myself from that bunch. Sun-crazy retirees, ex-sailors, seasonal
drunks, and those on the run who ran till they hit the Gulf of Mexico. I fall
into this last category, I guess, except I started out here. By the time I hit
fourteen, however, I was on my own and on the road, California to the New York Islands. Give it a little catchy beat, and that one could be my theme song. Then
after more than a few false starts, and more than a few spectacular
conclusions, I found myself drawn back to the Gulf again. Whatever I had of
family was long gone, but I guess somehow I thought I might like to feel
settled in a place again. Reunited with Caroline, got a detective’s license,
and picked up a few odd jobs, then stuck around long enough to know that
settling’s not for me, but that didn’t give me long enough.
    I pass a
couple of bait shops just opening up, some drive-thrus serving late breakfasts,
and decide to stop in at Pete’s for a second breakfast, specifically for the
pancakes. Pete still works the kitchen and piles them up right over the
sausage. Comes out looking like a birthday cake. Then it’s just a matter of
blueberry syrup and some serious knife and fork work, a delicious combination
if you ask me. Betty, Pete’s waitress, never lets my coffee cup get down past
halfway. She’s wearing her candy-striped uniform, which I do like on her, and
once she’s wondered where I’ve been and we’ve gotten in our morning flirtations,
I go out back to call this fella I know down at the police station. Figure I’ll
get a little head start on the Madonna. Early bird and the worm and whatnot.
Jimbo James is his name. I’ve known him for a couple of years and share a drink
with him from time to time for lack of better company. I also happen to know he
married above his station, so to speak, to a little redhead who works in the
suit department of Fabien’s Fashion for Men. Agreeable to a little nip and tuck
when you’re looking to set yourself up in Italian style. Keys to the dressing
rooms and whatnot. Gave ol’ Jimbo no end of pain, till I guess he figured he had
no choice but to become a hard-ass. Started cruising around in his trooper at a
cool five miles per hour just begging you to jaywalk. That kind of thing.
    So I get Jimbo
on the line, and he tells me he hadn’t heard they let me out, which is the kind
of material you’ll get from Jimbo, not that you can entirely blame him.
    “Funny stuff,
Jimbo,” I say. “Actually I just wanted to pick your brain for a moment. Don’t
get nervous. Really I just wanted to know if you’d run a name through the
computer for me.”
    “Don’t tell me
you’re working, Willie,” he says, doing his best to sound real awestruck or
whatever. It’s the little things you miss.
    “The name is Fernanda Shore,” I say. “Just the usual, if you don’t mind, Jimbo. Past arrests, credit
rating, current address, anything you can find.” He tells me he’ll see what he
can do. Even manages to be relatively polite about it, although we both know
that’s because there’s a bottle of high-dollar bourbon in it for him.
    In the lot
outside Pete’s, I manage to