Samson's Deal: A Laid-Back Bay Area Mystery (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series) Read Online Free

problem as well as a couple of others, but I couldn’t take the job until I knew for sure. Fortunately, the problem-solving involved a couple of guys I played poker with, so I could keep my one-day promise to Harley without sacrificing my weekly ritual.
    Then there was Rebecca. I wanted to talk to her before I made a decision. She’d gotten me into this in the first place.
    I came down out of the Oakland hills to the realities of the flatlands. As usual, my liquor store’s parking lot was overfull, and I had to squeeze my car into a diagonal position that practically guaranteed a dented fender. Also as usual, I took my chances, since there is no such thing as a poker game without beer and chips. I bought a newspaper, too.
    When I emerged from the store, I saw that I’d been lucky. The same cars were parked on either side of me. No dents. I slid behind the wheel and glanced at the paper. A small story, at the bottom of page one. It didn’t have anything in it that I didn’t already know.
    By the time I pulled up at my gate it was nearly four o’clock, and my tenant, Rosie Vicente, was home from work. Her pickup truck with its padlocked toolbox was sitting stolidly out in front. Rosie’s a carpenter, self-employed. I hadn’t seen her for a couple of days and decided to stop at her cottage to see if she’d drink a beer with me before I went on back to my house.
    The usual setup for a house and cottage is big house in front, small cottage in back. Not my place. The front was fifty feet of occasional and self-reproducing vegetable garden and dirt driveway with patches of paving here and there. Beyond the garden there’s a clump of bamboo coexisting with a stand of acacia trees. Behind that prolific camouflage is the cottage with its tiny yard and, to the left of that, the path going back toward my front yard and my tiny house, surrounded by other people’s back yards and tall fences. Privacy and quiet.
    The top of Rosie’s Dutch door was open, but I knocked on the door frame anyway. Her bed was just a few feet away, and respect for each other’s privacy was the best way I knew to ensure continued friendship.
    She came to the door dressed in cutoffs, work boots and heavy socks, and a T-shirt decorated with the head of Gertrude Stein. Rosie is a knockout, about five foot five with curly black hair, cut short, and peacock blue eyes. She’s always slightly tan from working outdoors. She’s in her early thirties. We’ve been friends for two years, ever since she first rented the cottage. Just friends. She smiled and invited me in. Her aging standard poodle, Alice B. Toklas, also has curly black hair and also smiled and welcomed me.
    I pulled two beers out of my sack, and her smile got even brighter. I followed her past her bed around the ell to her kitchen table.
    “What’s new, Jake?”
    We sat and looked out the big casement windows into her shady, fuchsia-draped yard. I noticed a small pile of lumber under the acacia. She had mentioned that she was going to build a curved seat around its trunk.
    I shrugged. “I may be getting involved in a job. If I do, I may need your help from time to time, feeding Tigris and Euphrates, that kind of thing.” Tigris and Euphrates, my sister and brother cats, were very particular about being fed on time. Mutual pet-sitting in a pinch was part of the agreement Rosie and I had.
    “Sure. If you’re not around I’ll just deal with it.” She took a swig of beer and looked at me quizzically. “What kind of job? Anything interesting? Anything you might need help with?” She knew I’d been involved in some pretty disreputable chores in the past.
    “Could be,” I said carefully. “Sounds like you’re bored.”
    “I am. Busy but bored. Decks, decks, and more damned decks. I haven’t built anything complicated since last year. And winter’s coming.” If the season was particularly rainy, there’d be days at a time when she did no work at all. “And my love life? Yech. Look