The Red Storm Read Online Free

do with that whole loyalty jive of yours, does it?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    I didn’t press the matter. It was worthless, too. “You wouldn’t have a photograph of Mrs. Rae, by any chance?”
    â€œI figured you’d ask me that. Yeah, I do.”
    He jerked a worn leather wallet out his front coat pocket. From inside he took out a three-by-five photograph and handed it to me. It was an old black-and-white photo of a nude woman with her back toward the camera. She was sitting on her feet, with her head turned back toward the lens in a tantalizing manner. Her black hair cascaded down the curves of a shapely back. Above her left shoulder blade was a minute tattoo of a lightning bolt.
    â€œQuite a knockout, wasn’t she?” Storm asked. “She told me she wanted to be a model, so I took a few photographs of her. This is the only one I have. She took them all when she did the run-out, except this one. I always kept it in my wallet.”
    The photograph probably wouldn’t be much help. It was doubtful that Miss Rae would even look remotely close to the way she did from a photograph that was taken nearly a lifetime ago. Outside of that, the photo would be viewed by most people as obscene or inappropriate at the least. This would make it hard to even show the photo to anyone that might recognize her.
    â€œWhere are you staying at so I can contact you later?”
    â€œI’ll give you a number,” he said. I handed him the pencil I was using for the crossword. He wrote his number on a blank margin in the paper. “I’ll be waitin’ for that call.”
    I didn’t say anything as he left the diner. Instead, I sat at the table for a bit, wondering if I should just finish the crossword, go home, and call him later saying it was a dead end. I didn’t feel any moral obligation to help him out, chiefly because I took no material compensation from him, outside of getting him out of my hair. But the desire to get out and do some sort of work after such a long delay was overwhelming.
    I glanced out the window once more, expecting to see the same clear sky I had been gawping at a just a bit earlier. Instead, all I saw was gray.

 
    CHAPTER 3
    There was only one person that could have given Storm the dope on his old lady, and that was Rollie Lavine. Lavine was Storm’s lackey in New York. Back then he was a freckle-faced kid that did whatever Storm told him to do or, as Storm put it, “He’s my monkey and I’m his grinder.” When Storm fled, Lavine leeched onto me and followed me to New Orleans.
    I’d stayed away from him for most of the intervening years, even though he did his best to not make it so. The last I heard from him, he was fencing goods among other things.
    I parked my 1937 Ford Club Coupe on Napoleon Avenue, in front of the one-bedroom cottage where Lavine was living.
    The cottage was rotting with siding stripped off from the humidity like peeled rinds. I knocked on the door several times. I knew Lavine was there. He was nocturnal, and spent his days sleeping.
    It took much pounding on the door before a “Who the hell is it?”
    â€œIt’s Fletcher.”
    â€œI’m sleepin’. Get lost.”
    â€œOpen the damn door or I’ll break it down.”
    The door opened and Lavine stood just inside the entryway. His eyes were tired and bloodshot. His auburn hair had once been a full mop, but it had thinned and lost most of its volume. He was wearing gray khakis and a stained yellowish undershirt.
    â€œWhat’d you want?” he said.
    I didn’t answer, but forced my way in. Clutter littered the flyblown main room and I had to kick things aside to clear a path. Along the wall sat a secondhand single-cushion sofa. Its upholstery was worn so thin that springs and stuffing protruded out. In front of the sofa a wooden crate stood in for a coffee table. A collection of drug and smoking paraphernalia, including a bag of