Robert B. Parker's Wonderland Read Online Free Page A

lights, giving a halo effect around the stadium.
    A cold beer in one hand and a warm pancake in the other; life was good. Z looked bored.
    An hour and a half after I called, a striking woman walked into the Hong Kong Café.
    I summoned my detective abilities to study her body to see if the description matched. Z watched her subtly from the bar. He raised his eyebrows. She was the kind of woman who expected men to stare.
    The woman was tall, maybe five-ten in heels, with stylish, layered brown hair. Her eyes were large and dark. She had a pert nose, prominent cheekbones, and very large, sensuous lips painted bright red. She had the figure of someone who worked out and used weights. Perhaps she had even attempted Zumba.
    The dress hit just above the knee, a black wraparound number with a deep neckline. Studying her legs, I guessed the boots cost about as much as my rent.
    I stood and walked over to her.
    “Do I know you?” she said, with the slightest trace of a British accent. I hadn’t noticed it on the phone.
    I gave Walleye’s name and said he couldn’t make it.
    “Why?”
    “Tonight’s his night for the Big Brothers program.”
    She gave me an appraising glance. “You look tougher,” she said.
    “What you see is nothing,” I said. “I got a Balinese dancing girl tattooed across my chest.”
    Even though she failed to smile, I motioned her to my table. The waiter had already cleared the plates and left me the check and two fortune cookies. He soon reappeared and asked if the lady would like to see a menu. She did not. Nor did she wish to have a cocktail.
    Up close, she appeared older than I had first guessed. Which wasn’t a bad thing. A very fit woman in her forties with crinkles at the corners of her eyes and subtle laugh lines around her mouth. She wore large diamond earrings. Her makeup was impeccable, and she smelled of expensive perfume.
    She smiled at me. I smiled back.
    “And?” she said.
    “Yes?”
    “What’s the emergency?”
    “Those people at the condo are giving us trouble.”
    “That’s not our problem,” she said. “That’s your problem.”
    “They ain’t backin’ down.”
    I said it just like that, with the “ain’t” and the dropped g . I figured I’d go for the thick-necked Southie type. It went well with my broken nose and Irish heritage.
    “You take care of it,” she said, studying the inside of her wrist, where she wore a gold watch twisted backward.
    “You guys sure want this property,” I said. “Why not just go for somewhere easier?”
    “I don’t pay you and your friends to think,” she said, chin dropping, eyes intent.
    “These people got friends,” I said. “It could get messy.”
    “How messy?”
    I shrugged. “Some people might get hurt. You know?”
    She stared at me and crossed her legs. I followed the legs. Her eyes caught me staring. She widened them and bit her lip. “You have until the end of the week,” she said.
    “The boss is some fuckin’ ball buster, huh?”
    The rain fell in a neat slant in the stadium lights behind her.
    “I am the fucking boss,” she said, standing. “If you attempt to follow me or make any trouble . . .”
    “So we’re not friends?”
    “Not likely,” she said.
    I smiled and shrugged.
    She shook her head and walked away, sliding into a stylish little raincoat she’d kept slung over her arm. It matched her boots. She lifted the hair off her neck as she settled into the coat and knotted it tightly at her waist, heels clicking hard on the tile floor. Without a word, Z laid some cash down on the bar and followed her out to the parking lot.
    I paid, pocketed both fortune cookies, and walked out into the rain. I turned up the collar on my jacket and headed up Boylston, cutting over to Commonwealth, where pink and purple magnolia blooms fell in the bright glow of streetlamps.
    Let the kid do the work, I thought.

6
    EVEN THOUGH I was my own boss, I liked to arrive at the office early. I enjoyed the banter with