Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

He turned to me and narrowed his eyes. “You sure about this? You want me to come along?”

“Too late for that, Harry. I’m in. But I’ll be honest with you. I’m surprised they agreed to your request. I’d have serious questions about my objectivity.”

“Yeah, the fact that you remarried helped. And I stressed you were only a consultant. That and the fact that nobody knows the case like you do swung it.” He pulled out the keys to his car. “It’s not a Jag, but it’ll get you from A to B. Try to stay on the right side of the road.”

“You mean the left.”

“That’s what I said.”

We watched him run across the road, dodging the traffic, then made our way to the VW Passat he’d parked opposite the entrance to the pub. I leaned on the roof as she opened the passenger door to get in. “He’s right about one thing,” I said.

She jerked her head at me. “What?”

“It’s not a Jag.”

London has one immensely long road that runs right the way through it and all the way out to Oxford. It has various names all along its length, including High Holborn, Oxford Street, Bayswater Road and Notting Hill Gate. We followed this road most of the way, except for Oxford Street, which is only open to big red buses and black cabs, and at Notting Hill Gate, we turned down Kensington Church Street and joined Kensington High Street. The traffic was heavy and the humid heat was oppressive. We didn’t talk, except that at one point Dehan asked me, “How do you want to do this?”

I shook my head that I didn’t know. Turned to look at her and shook it again. Pretty soon, we crossed the bridge over the subway and turned right onto Olympia Way. We eventually found the multi-story car park, left the car on the fourth story, and made our way on foot to the main entrance of the exhibition center. On the way I had a look at the leaflet Harry had given Dehan. It said:

SATAN’S CAVE

ONLINE STORE FOR KICK-ASS MERCHANDISE

AND MORE.

They had everything from leather cigarette pouches and customized Zippo lighters to Viking drinking horns and confederate flags emblazoned with the skull and crossbones. There was a picture of him in one corner. He had aged, but not much. His long, sandy hair was a bit thinner on top, his beard, which had been copper, was now turning gray, but aside from that, he was pretty much the same hard-ass desperado he had been fifteen years earlier. His stall was number six six six. It kind of had to be.

We stepped through the main doors and into Geek Junction. The entire hall, which is vast, was draped in black cloth, with bits of broken castle dotted here and there. Many of the larger stalls were designed like dungeon entrances or ancient taverns from Cimmeria.

We strolled down the central aisle. I glanced at Dehan’s face and smiled. She didn’t look at me, she just said, “What?” and before I could answer, “Did you ever play?”

“Dragons and Dungeons? No. You did, though, didn’t you?”

“You kidding? I wasn’t even born when it came out.”

“Yeah? I wasn’t born when Clue and Monopoly came out. I still played them.”

“That’s different.”

“Confess.”

“Yeah, OK, I was addicted for, like, two years.”

“It’s written all over your face.”

“So you’re smart. Who knew.”

“I am struggling not to imagine you in a brass bikini.”

“Try harder. Look, there it is, over there.”

We were at an intersection of two aisles. Two corners down on the left, there was a large stall, part castle wall and part bearskins. Sticking up over the corner pole was a luminous cube with the number 666 on it. Dehan looked up into my face.

“You want me to go talk to him? Get him onto the subject of gun control. How hard it is to get a piece in this country…”

I smiled at her. “He’s a white supremacist militia man. You are half Mexican and half Jewish. How do you think that’s going to work out?”

She slid her eyes sideways. “I could use the Force. I trained as a Jedi too, you know?”

“I know. But this time, let’s just pay him a surprise visit.”

He was crouching behind a counter that was draped with black velvet and laid on top with trays of silver rings and torques, mostly bearing either skulls, dragons or wolves. Hanging on the back wall were samurai swords, Viking swords and battle axes. There were also drinking horns, flagons and various other bits of kit for anybody bent on remembering their previous incarnation as a heroic barbarian.

I leaned on the counter and spoke quietly. “I hope you’re not hiding back there, Brad.”

He looked up and his eyes shifted from my face to Dehan’s and back again. They said he recognized me, but he asked, “Do I know you?”

I felt a slow, hot rage begin to build in my gut, but I kept my voice quiet. “Well, that’s a little rude, Brad, to kill a man’s wife and not remember his face. That’s not polite.”

He frowned at me, then began to smile. “No, not coming to me. But you know, when you do as much whoring as I do, it’s hard to keep track of every bitch you fuck and kill, and who she was married to. It’s a lot to remember. Was there anything else?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Where were you between the hours of ten AM yesterday and ten AM this morning?”

He burst out laughing. “You have got to be kidding me, man! I do not believe this! I don’t have to answer your fuckin’ questions, man!”

I nodded, “That’s true. But you know what, if I talk to my buddies at the CID about all the war games you get up