Two for Flinching Read Online Free

was only a matter of time
before he reached out. I hoped.
    My stomach was telling me lunch was getting
close when the office phone rang.
     
    ***
     
    “Camp Investigations. Your private eye to
the stars.”
    “Funny. You still on good terms with Judge
Drake?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Then you better get out there in a
hurry.”
    “Why?”
     
    ***
     
    The line had already gone dead. The voice
had been vaguely familiar, neither friendly nor unfriendly. I took
the .45 from my desk. I did not rush out the door. I had the tag
number of my new friends’ truck and my next act of business was
going to be running it down, finding out who had been stalking me.
The voice on the phone was one I knew, yet couldn’t place. He had
been aware of our relationship with Judge Drake and he had known I
would go to Drake. He had used the office phone, not the cell, so
it was unlikely he was a friend of mine. I checked the caller ID.
Private. It could be a setup, an ambush. The caller might be the
one responsible for bringing in the boys from Louisiana. With Sarah
in pre-school, this could be their chance.
    Or Judge Drake might have stepped in it
again. He had been quiet for a while, too long. Overdue. I crossed
the office and looked out the window. The cracked parking lot was
big, enough space for forty cars. Back in more prosperous times, it
would have held the vehicles for a shift in the sock factory. That
shift was now working a factory in South America, thanks to trade
deals our Congress had given us. The green Cherokee was the only
vehicle in the lot, parked in what had once been a handicapped
space. No Dodge pickup.
    I slipped into my bomber jacket and went into
the hallway. To the right, the hallway ran back into the factory,
but everything—aside from my office—had been boarded up for years.
To the left was the door to the metal stairs. I pushed open the
heavy wooden door and stood back, waiting for a rifle shot.
Nothing. I checked my watch, a cheap Timex, and waited five full
minutes. I didn’t posses many skills or talents, but patience was
one I had in abundance. I did nothing better than anybody I knew. I
popped my head out of the opening and drew it quickly back, trying
to draw fire from an impatient sniper. Nothing.
    I waited two more minutes before running down
the stairs, the pistol dangling from my hand. I jogged to the Jeep,
jumped in and fired it up. I felt a little foolish as I drove
through town. The little guy might go for an ambush, but that
definitely didn’t seem to be the big guy’s style. You had to
prepare for what the enemy could do, not what you thought he would
do. Lessons learned the hard way. Foolish was okay. Dead was
not.
    I kept one eye on the rearview, took a right,
and another right, eventually circling the block. The streets were
fairly deserted on the edge of town and nobody seemed to be
following me. Back on the main road, I pushed up the speed. I had
wasted enough time and if Judge Drake had indeed poked another
hornet’s nest, I needed to hurry.
    I parked in the circular driveway. The grey
stone house sat on a little rise, the rye grass green in the dead
of winter, a magnolia tree towering over the yard. I tucked the
Colt in the holster at the small of my back and climbed the steps.
A man was in the rocking chair on the porch, waiting for me.
    Luther Drake was recently retired, his hair
gone to grey, eyeglasses a few years out of date. Normally, he was
a dignified African-American, smartly dressed and stiff-backed with
a military bearing. Today he was in a sweat suit, unshaven, a half
empty bottle of Evan Williams at his feet. And a shotgun cradled in
his arms.
    “The war hero to the rescue.”
    “Morning, Judge.” I took the white rocker
next to him. “What’s going on?”
    “Fucking power company.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Parked their big ass truck right there on
the road. Engine running, diesel fumes making me sick.”
    “You didn’t like that?”
    “Hell no, I didn’t like it.” Drake