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

Geronimo Peralta. They are drinking beer, whiskey, eating potato chips and peanuts. They are all very cruel to Maria. They abuse her, they prostitute her. Especially, they prostitute her to one man. An Irishman. He’s a bent cop. His name is Mick. Mick Harragan.”

Still she stared at me, like she was in a trance.

“That night, at almost exactly the same time, this young Jewish kid will shoot a young Latino kid in the head, and Nelson and his four cousins will get murdered. This is my recurring nightmare, Dr. Browne. What can you tell me about that?”

She blinked and took a deep breath. She laid her pad and her pen down on the table in front of her and said, “What do you want, Mr. Stone? You are not neurotic, you do not suffer panic attacks, and you do not have recurring nightmares. So why don’t you just tell me what you want?”

I took out my badge and slid it across the table. She looked at it, but she didn’t touch it. “I know it’s you, Maria. I am not here in an official capacity. I’m here as a friend. I want to help you. Pro is looking for you. I don’t know why. I know most of it, but I don’t know why Pro wants you. But if you level with me, I can help you.

“José needs you. He misses you, and so does your mother.”

At the mention of José, her face changed, but not in any way you could put your finger on. Maybe it froze a bit; maybe her eyes lost focus a bit. She didn’t answer for a few moments, and then she sighed deeply and said, “I am sorry, Mr. Stone. You have made a mistake. I have nothing to say to you, and you are wasting your time. I have no idea what you are talking about.”

I stepped out into the morning sunshine completely nonplussed. I had played my best card, and she had been too cool and too smart for me. She had outplayed me every step of the way. All I had managed was to consolidate my own certainty that she was in fact Maria Garcia. But I had proved nothing and, in the end, achieved nothing.

It dawned on me slowly as I walked that I was watching a deep blue Audi 8 moving through the traffic ahead of me. I told myself there must be a million dark blue Audis in San Francisco. I looked back. I scanned the road. I couldn’t see a single other Audi.

I swore violently. I had no idea what to do next.

Twenty-EIGHT

I hung around, reading papers and drinking coffee until lunchtime, waiting to see if the Audi came back. It didn’t. But all the while I was aware that what I had was not a plan. It wasn’t even a strategy. I was just being reactive to an unknown situation, and that can only lead to one place. Disaster.

I couldn’t spend the rest of my life sitting on the sidewalk outside her office or her house, waiting for Pro and Vito to show up so I could protect her from them. Neither would she let me talk to her. I needed to regroup and think about my options. So I went back to the hotel, had some lunch, and then went and lay on the bed to think things through.

I was pretty sure Pro was acting on his own with Vito. Vincenzo would not be a part of this for reasons that were obvious to me. It was also clear that he would not act in broad daylight on Market Street. The days when the Mob had the kind of power that would allow them to do that sort of thing were long gone. That meant that his appearance the previous evening in Berkeley and today on Market Street were part of his reconnaissance. And that led me irresistibly to one conclusion. He was preparing to strike, and he would strike without delay—and that meant tonight.

I thought of Maria—Mary Browne—sitting in her consulting room listening to me talk. I thought of her kind, humane face, of her courage. I thought of her greeting her children in the doorway, and the shadowy figure of her husband, and I began to structure in my mind the steps I had to take.

The only sound in the room was the soft sigh of the air-con. My back, my arms, and my legs ached. I was tired. I had slept badly. The sound of the air-con was soothing. I closed my eyes to help myself concentrate. Focus.

Center my mind.

Dehan was good at that. She had impressed me in Texas with her thinking. Texas, where the sky was like a dark prairie, and the stars were like ice reflected in the surface of her aviators as we moved irresistibly down the long, straight, interminable road toward Mick’s death.

I opened my eyes. The room was dark. I looked at the window. It was a dull gray square. It was dusk. I was about to swear and sit up, but a sound stopped me. I froze and listened. A gentle clunk. A keycard in the lock. A slit of light. A shadow, warped like a snake of blackness against the slit. The light died and I heard the soft click of the door closing. I could not reach my piece from where I was. In my mind I counted out the steps he would need to take to get a bead on me. Three. My form would be just visible in the dull light from the window.

I visualized, one, two, three. As he raised his weapon to take aim, I hurled myself on the floor. There was no shot. I looked up. His silhouette was moving. The communicating door between my room and the next had opened. A second figure stood in the