Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [classic children's novels txt] 📗

in the thirties. It had a cute wooden arch with a rose bush growing over it that led to the front door. I just caught a glimpse of her bending down to hug a couple of kids as he held the door open. The kids were about four or five. He was about thirty-two and dark.

I drove on by.

I drove slowly, drumming a tattoo on the steering wheel as I chewed my lip and thought. The roads were empty, and dusk was creeping across the sky. I noticed absently in my mirror that there was a dark blue Audi 8 some distance behind me. Some people play with worry beads, some people have a special pen for signing contracts, others have a St. Christopher in their car. I have a stupid notion that bad guys always drive black or dark blue Audis. It is my thing. So I turned right into McGee Avenue at the end of the road and waited for him at the junction with Dwight Way, like I wasn’t sure which way to go. He came up behind me, but I couldn’t see his face because his windows were tinted. I turned right into Dwight, and he followed. So I turned right again into Grant, and as he followed again, I turned right once more into Blake again and stopped. I got out and walked back toward him as he turned in behind me. I made a motion he should wind down his window. Instead he pulled out past me and drove away at speed.

I got back in my car and returned to my hotel.

I had a light supper. While I was eating, my mind was racing. It was obvious to me who was in the Audi. What was troubling me was, when did they pick me up? Had they been with me when I went into Mary Browne’s clinic? Did they know who I’d been tailing? I probed back with my mind. I was pretty sure that I would have noticed a dark Audi tailing me.

Also, logic suggested they had not been with me very long—or at least they did not know who I had been tailing, because they had continued past her house, following me, not who I was following.

That night I slept fitfully. By six a.m. I had to get up, though I felt more tired than when I’d gone to bed. I had a shower and called room service for coffee and croissants. I was out by eight. It was a bright, fresh morning with the first hints of autumn in the air. I stood in the doorway of the hotel scanning the road left and right. Everybody seemed to be moving. There was nobody staring in a shop window, loitering reading the morning paper or waiting on the corner for a cab. So I moved into the crowd and took a long, winding, circuitous route to Market Street. I was pretty sure by the time I got there, I had not been followed.

I went up to the fifth floor and pushed into the clinic. Marylyn looked surprised to see me but forced herself to smile.

“Mr. Stone, back so soon? I didn’t think we’d made an appointment…”

I shook my head. “We didn’t, but this is an emergency. I am having a crisis, and I need to see the doctor right away. Or I might do something crazy.”

“But she isn’t in yet…”

“I’ll wait.”

“But she has a nine o’clock, Mr. Stone…”

I shook my head again, more insistently, “I’m telling you. I need to see her now, or I’m going to jump out of a window or do something crazy. I mean it.”

She stared at me. I tried to look crazy. She picked up the phone. After a moment, she said, “Mary? It’s Mr. Stone from yesterday. He is very insistent that he must see you straight away…”

“Tell her I’ll do something crazy.”

She listened for a moment, then hung up.

“She is just arriving. You can have fifteen minutes. After that you must make an appointment.”

As she was speaking, the door opened behind me and Mary Browne came in. She gave me a look like I was a naughty boy and said, “Come on in.”

I followed her into the consulting room and closed the door. I dropped into a chair while she took off her coat and hung it up.

“What is all this about, John?”

“I have this recurring nightmare.”

“We have fifteen minutes.”

“I know, so don’t interrupt me. This could be important for you.” I pointed at her chair. “Sit down. It goes like this. I’m in the Bronx. You know the Bronx?”

She shook her head and sat, holding a notepad and a pen. I shrugged.

“I’m in the Bronx. It’s nighttime. Maybe two in the morning. I am like a ghost. I have no substance. You know what I mean? Like an invisible eye floating in the air. And there are two scenes being played out. And I can see them both happening simultaneously. You still with me?”

She nodded. She hadn’t written anything down yet.

“One scene is in the street. There’s a young kid, maybe twenty, twenty-one. He’s Jewish. He’s kind of lost, but he’s lost in a rage. He has a revolver. It’s a pearl-handled revolver that his father had.”

I paused, watching her. There was no reaction, no expression. I went on.

“So this boy is about to do something very bad. He is about to kill somebody. Meanwhile, I am also aware of a girl, a very pretty young Mexican girl. Her name is Maria—Maria Garcia.”

I stared at her a long time, waiting for some kind of reaction. There was nothing. Nothing at all.

“Maria is at a party. More than a party, really, it’s a poker game. There are five guys there. I even know their names. Nelson Hernandez, Dickson Rodriguez, Evandro Perez, José Perez, and