Third Strike Read Online Free

trouble?”
    â€œHe called me a lifesaver.”
    â€œWouldn’t tell you why?”
    I shook my head.
    â€œHe calls it urgent,” she said, “and you take it at face value.”
    I shrugged. “I know. It might be nothing. Larry Bucyck’s not the world’s most stable person. Actually, he shows all the symptoms of a paranoid schizophrenic. Thing is, though, if I didn’t go and something really did happen to him, I couldn’t live with myself.”
    â€œHe’s your client.”
    I nodded. “He is my client.”
    â€œAnd he needs you.”
    â€œThat’s about it,” I said.
    â€œYou should’ve been a social worker, you know that?”
    â€œI’d’ve made a terrible social worker,” I said.
    â€œAnd this has nothing to do with slipping off to the Vineyard for a weekend, escaping the steamy city, getting away from your crabby girlfriend for a couple days, doing a little surf casting, huh?”
    â€œNothing like any of that,” I said. “Something has seriously freaked the man out. Anyway, you’re not that crabby. You’re, um, challenging sometimes. And sexy always. But I wouldn’t call you crabby.”
    Evie smiled. “So how exactly were you planning to get down to the Vineyard?”
    I looked at her for a minute, then slapped my forehead. “I forgot about the damn strike.”
    â€œThat’s what I was trying to tell you. The ferries aren’t running.”
    â€œGod damn Larry, he never even mentioned it.”
    â€œYou said he was living off the grid,” said Evie. “Maybe he doesn’t know.”
    â€œHow could he not know?” I said. “The whole world knows about the ferry strike. Stupid me for not thinking of it. Just the other day ex-President Callahan was on TV saying he’d be available to mediate it if the two sides were willing to sit down. I guess if Callahan could bring those Middle East countries to the table, he ought to be able to get a ferry strike settled. Seems to me he’s done more good peacemaking since he left office than he did while he was in the White House.”
    â€œSo what’re you going to do?”
    â€œI can’t not go,” I said.
    Evie smiled. “Of course you can’t,” she said. “Listen. The big-shot surgeons at the hospital wouldn’t be caught dead riding the ferry with the riffraff even when it is running. They fly. You want to fly?”
    â€œSure. What’s my choice?”
    â€œNo choice.” She frowned. “What’s the name of the…? Okay. I remember. Cape Air. Several flights every day, Logan direct to the Vineyard. Want me to call them for you?”
    â€œThat,” I said, “would be sweet.”
    â€œYou go make us another pitcher of gin and tonics, then.”
    I took the empty pitcher into the kitchen as Evie was pecking numbers on the telephone. When I returned, the phone was sitting on the table beside her.
    I filled both of our glasses, then sat down. “So’d you get me a reservation?”
    She smiled. “Cape Air flies every hour on the hour starting at 7 A.M ., something like ten flights a day, and the first available seat was next Monday. She said things’ve been crazy with the ferries not running, especially around the weekends. I did not reserve that seat for you. You said it had to be tomorrow.”
    I nodded. “It does.”
    â€œCan’t he wait?”
    â€œIn the first place,” I said, “Larry said he was in trouble, that this whatever-it-is was urgent. He kind of scared me. Second place, I don’t know how to get ahold of him to tell him the plan’s changed.” I shook my head. “Now what do I do?”
    â€œCall J.W.,” Evie said. “If anybody can tell you what to do…”
    â€œIt’s J.W.,” I said. I took a sip of gin and tonic, then picked up the phone and called the Jacksons’