the same time and waited until she felt him start to probe her.
“That’s a girl,” he said. “Just relax and…”
She snapped her right elbow back as hard and as high as she could and felt the point hit something that went concave and then stop solid against a jagged edge. When she felt him roll with the blow she twisted out from under him but lost purchase on the slick grass and went down.
“You fucking bitch!” he growled, and she was on her hands and knees groping for her jeans and cussing him back when she looked up.
In the light of the teacup moon she saw him step forward. With one hand he was pulling up his pants and with the other he’d come up with a small silver-plated handgun.
“Think you’re the tough one now, Suzy?” he said, and his eyes were flat and hard.
The last thing she ever recorded was the glint around the .22-caliber black hole pointed in her face. Her brain did not have time to even register the flash.
CHAPTER 3
I met Richards for a late breakfast at Lester’s. Turns out, neither of us would end up eating. Settled alongside of what used to be the main highway into Port Everglades, Lester’s is one of those old chrome-sided diners where the coffee comes in huge ceramic mugs and the waitresses are as chipped and sturdy as the glassware. It used to be the spot for truckers hauling fuel and whatnot from the port to points north. Later it was the shift change hangout for cops when the sheriff’s office headquarters was nearby. Remnants of both pasts still walked in on a regular basis. I got there early and took a booth near the back. The new vinyl crackled under me when I slid in.
“Hiya, hon. Coffee?”
The waitress was sixty if she was a day and the red shade on her lips was the color of fire engines before they went to that fluorescent yellow green. She was already balancing the birdbath-sized cup and saucer in her hand. Few people stopped at Lester’s if they were afraid of caffeine.
“Please,” I said.
The ceramic setup clattered like two rocks when she put it down. She poured from the plastic pitcher in her other hand and the aroma was my heaven.
“Ya knowwhatchawant, hon?” she said, like it was all one word.
“I’m waiting for someone.”
“Ain’t we all?” she said and slid a menu next to the coffee and winked before leaving.
I sipped the coffee and watched the patrons over the rim. Guys on the counter stools with long-sleeved flannel shirts rolled up to the elbows, rumpled jeans and thick-soled boots. Two young women facing each other in a booth. The bleached blonde was facing me and I could see her red-rimmed eyes and she kept exhaling and shaking her hand in between low words. It was hard from a distance to tell if the dark smear on her cheekbone was a bruise or a swipe of running makeup. The back of her friend’s head just kept bobbing, listening. Two guys, medium height and build, slid out of another booth. They were clean-shaven and dressed in pleated slacks and polo shirts. The one with his back to me had a lump that was belt high under his shirt. When he leaned over to put a tip on the table the fabric pulled up over the clip-on holster, exposing the leather. When I looked up beyond him, his partner was checking out my eyes. Cops casing the customers, I thought. How typical.
Richards came in ten minutes late. I caught the blonde top of her head bobbing just below the windows as she walked up from the parking lot. In heels she was taller than most men. She hesitated just inside the vestibule and I couldn’t tell if she was finishing a cell phone call or putting on a fresh layer of lipstick. She stepped in and turned the opposite way first. She was in a beige, silk-looking suit and her hair was longer than I remembered. It was pulled back into a thick braid that hung down her back like a wheat-colored rope. When she spun and spotted me she smiled. As she approached, I raised the big cup to my lips, uncertain what my face was showing.
“Max, I’m really sorry I’m late.”
I put the cup down and started to get up to greet her but she slid gracefully into the other side of the booth. There would be no quick embrace, kiss on