You Bet Your Life: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Three) Read Online Free Page B

use.”
    “You mean you might be able to use me?” I said.
    He nodded his head sagely and said “mmm” as he wiped sugar from his mouth with a napkin.
    “We understand each other,” he beamed. “Here’s my office number and home number.” He pulled out a pencil and wrote two numbers on the napkin he had just used on his mouth. “Take it. Call me if and when, and at least “once a day.” He shrugged. “Trains and planes leave here every day for the bright sunshine of California. If I were you, Señor Peters, I’d get a ticket and head for the sun tonight. You’re not dressed for our weather.”
    “I think I’ll stick around.”
    “Figured you would,” he said, clapping my back with a broad right hand. “No trouble from you—” he pointed to me, “no trouble from me,” he pointed at himself. His pronoun references were unmistakable, but I wasn’t exactly sure of what his definition of trouble might be.
    “It’s a deal,” I said.
    “Nope. It’s the way I say things are going to be. We’re not partners, Mike Shayne. Now, we’ll drop you at a hotel where you can get some sleep, and you can give me call in the morning. You want to stay fancy or cheap?”
    “It’s on MGM,” I said, “but I’m used to small rooms. Too much space makes me nervous.”
    “We’ll compromise on the LaSalle.” He got up, threw some money on the counter, glanced at Officer Jackson, and turned away. Jackson wasn’t finished, but swallowed the rest of his donut and spilled some of his coffee on his uniform trying to get his money’s worth.
    The unmarked cop car was right outside the door in a no-parking zone. Kleinhans and Jackson walked to it slowly. It was no more than a few feet, but pain shot through my head.
    “How cold is it?” I asked, getting into the front seat as directed. Jackson drove. Kleinhans sat in back. I wasn’t a suspect, but one never knew.
    “Eleven or twelve above,” said Jackson. “Not too bad.”
    Kleinhans serenaded us with a whistled version of “San Antonio Rose.” He even buh-buh-buhed like Bing Crosby a few times. No one talked until Jackson pulled over five minutes later and stopped in front of the LaSalle Hotel.
    I said thanks and got out for my dash to the lobby, but Kleinhans called for me to lean over.
    “If the bad guys don’t already know you’re here, they will soon. May even have been somebody at the station watching for you. I didn’t spot anybody, but we’re probably not the only ones who got a call about you from Florida.”
    Officer Jackson looked out the opposite window. I was no fun anymore.
    “I got you,” I said. “Goodnight.”
    “Comparatively,” said Kleinhans rolling up his window. I waited for the car to pull away. It didn’t. So I went up the stairs into the lobby. The doorman tried to take my case, but I wasn’t letting it out of my hands again.
    It was eleven at night. There were lots of people in the lobby to watch me make my way to the desk in a stiff summer jacket and unmatched pants with a conspicuous crease at the knee. The suitcase didn’t help. It was a second-hand piece I got for three bucks from a pawnshop owner in L.A. named Gittleson. I had muscled a teenage Mexican kid for him when the kid tried to buy a gun and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I was a real class item for the LaSalle Hotel, yes I was.
    The clerk on the desk gave me the electric smile with the eyebrows raised to ask what a creature like me wanted in a place like this. He looked like an unprissy version of Franklin Pangborn.
    “I’d like a room,” I said, reaching for the desk pen and dipping it in the inkwell. I dripped ink on the blotter while I waited for him to produce the guest book.
    “What kind of room?” he said.
    “One with a bed and a bath,” I answered. “That’s what hotels usually have. It doesn’t have to be big, just warm.”
    He tried to keep from nibbling his upper lip. I didn’t look enough like a bum or a nut to be thrown out, but I