Shaken Read Online Free Page B

seat somewhere.”
    Herb shifted his bulk around, making my Nova bounce on what little shocks it had left. After some grunting, and several glistening sweat beads popping out on his forehead, he found his prize.
    “Got it.” Herb cradled the cereal box in his hands like it was a kitten. Then he frowned. “They’re bran flakes.”
    “That’s what I said they were.”
    “Where’s the milk?”
    “No milk.”
    “You eat them dry?”
    I sighed. “No. I eat them with milk. They fell out of my grocery bag, and I keep forgetting to bring them into the house.”
    “What am I supposed to do with these?”
    “I have no idea. You asked if I had any food. I gave you what I had.”
    Herb made a face. The Cadillac pulled over to the curb, a few hundred yards ahead of us, next to a warehouse boasting the sign “U-Store-It.” I parked alongside a fire hydrant and picked up the binoculars.
    “Couldn’t you have at least bought raisin bran?” Herb asked.
    “I could have. But I didn’t.”
    “Who doesn’t like raisin bran?”
    “My mother. They’re for her.”
    Herb frowned. I peeked through the lenses and watched our person of interest exit his vehicle while Herb opened up the box.
    “You’re kidding me,” I said, glancing at my partner.
    “I gotta eat something. Look at me.” He patted his protruding belly. “I’m wasting away to nothing.”
    Herb looked like he’d just eaten Santa Claus.
    “We’ve got the rest of the day ahead of us,” I told him. “I don’t know if I want to spend it with you after you eat a box of bran.”
    “I just want a few nibbles.”
    My junior partner tore into the bag. I studied the surroundings. It wasn’t a good part of town. Industrial mostly, a few overgrown, fenced-in lots, some abandoned factories. Certainly not a place where a man driving a new Cadillac would hang out.
    “What’s he doing?” Herb asked, his voice muffled by a mouthful of cereal.
    “He’s walking over to a self-storage building.”
    “Is he holding any milk? Because damn, this is dry.”
    “He’s empty-handed.” I played with the focus. “Jacket is swinging funny on his left side. He’s packing.”
    “Maybe he’s going to put it in storage.” Herb cleared his throat. “You got anything to drink? These flakes sucked up all my saliva. It’s like eating dust.”
    “I might have a bottle of water left. Check between your feet.”
    Herb rocked forward, trying to reach the floor. He failed. He tried again, bending even further, and then began to cough, spitting bran flakes all over my dashboard.
    “Sorry,” he mumbled.
    I winced at the mess Herb had made. He tried once more for the water, stretching and straining, his face turning red with effort, and snatched the bottle. Herb held up his prize, triumphant. Then he frowned. “This is empty.”
    “He went in.” I lowered the binocs. “Now we have a choice. We can wait for him to come out, then bust him, or surprise him inside and bust him.”
    “I vote for waiting,” Herb said. “Less work. And if he’s going in for something, maybe he’ll come out with it.”
    We waited. Herb did a half-assed job wiping the bran off the dash, then sucked down the remaining five drops of water at the bottom of my bottle.
    “I had a weird dream last night,” Herb said.
    “Speaking of non sequiturs.”
    “You want to hear it or not?”
    “Is this the one where you’re a caveman and everyone has a bigger spear than you?”
    Herb raised an eyebrow. “What the hell are you talking about?”
    “I remember someone saying something like that once. Thought it was you.”
    “It wasn’t. My spear is above average size, not that it’s any of your business. My dream was about lawn gnomes.”
    “Lawn gnomes.”
    “Yeah. A bunch of lawn gnomes.”
    “What were they doing?”
    “Nothing. Just standing there, looking gnomish.”
    I pondered this for a moment. “And this is interesting because?”
    “I dunno,” my partner said. “You think it means