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

He was the second man I wanted to talk to, a good solid guy with some good solid connections with the DA’s office. He didn’t exactly owe me, like Artie did, but our friendship had involved a lot of give and take, so I thought he wouldn’t mind doing me a favor now and then. I set Hal up in front of the Franklin stove with a beer can in his hand and invited Artie to join me in the kitchen while I dumped the chips into bowls.
    I kept my voice low and he followed suit, but like I said, the house is small and there was no way to be sure Hal wouldn’t overhear.
    He asked what he could do for me. I told him. He leaned against the wall, looked at me from under serious eyebrows, and said he didn’t see why not. He’s a little guy, and sometimes he overcompensates for his size by deepening his voice and puffing up his chest.
    My cover would be that I was working on a story for
Probe,
a piece about the mysterious death of a local artist. Artie would leave a free-lance contract in my mailbox the next morning.
    “That ought to open doors for you, Jake,” he said. He laughed, but he meant it. “The cops don’t like us much, but they tend to leave us alone. They hassle you, want to check to make sure you’re doing what you say, just have them call me.”
    “Thanks, Artie.” It was funny, but now that I’d touched him on his power base I became suddenly aware of how much he’d changed since I first knew him. Back in the early seventies he was a nice kid with a thin beard and wide eyes. Now he sounded like he should have a big cigar in his mouth.
    There was a knock on the door. That would be Jim Nelson, a friend of Hal’s and the fourth member of the group. I started out the kitchen door, but Artie stopped me and Hal got up to let Jim in. I let Artie pull me back into the kitchen again.
    “Listen, Jake,” he said, “are you going to be doing this kind of thing often?”
    “I don’t know. Why?”
    “Sometimes I hear about people in trouble. Good people.”
    “I might consider it, job by job. You willing to keep vouching for me?”
    “Sure.” He smiled slyly. “Of course, once in a while we may have to run a little something with your byline. Just to make it look kosher. And you could probably pick up some useful information for us on some of those jobs—”
    “It’s possible,” I interjected, grabbing for the bowls of chips. If I wasn’t careful, Artie would have me working for him. He pulled some beers out of the refrigerator and followed me to the living room. The conspiratorial look on his face made me feel I’d just made a pact with the devil.
    When we drew for the deal, I came up with a king. It didn’t make me feel any better about Artie when he announced, in unnecessarily significant tones, that it looked like “Samson’s deal.” He even winked at me.
    The king was the best card I had all night, except when Hal dealt a game of low ball. I drew a full house, aces over tens, and lost to Artie’s two of diamonds, three and four of clubs, seven of spades, and nine of hearts.
    I finished up twenty-three dollars down, a real bundle for our low-stakes games. But when I asked Hal to stay for an extra beer afterward and gave him the story about the magazine piece, he said he didn’t think he’d have a problem passing along a little public information on the case for my “article.” I don’t know whether he’d overheard any of my conversation with Artie, but it was clear that he didn’t believe a word I was saying. On the way out he punched me on the arm, snickered, and warned me to watch my tail.

– 4 –
    Rebecca owned a condominium in a big new anthill of a building in North Berkeley. Only five stories tall but it stretched for half a block, and somehow the architects had managed to cram thirty-two apartments into it. I pushed the button for number 15 and waited.
    The intercom crackled and Rebecca’s distorted voice descended from the third floor.
    “Who is it?”
    “Jake.”
    “Okay.” The