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190 pages

English

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Somebody's been doing the world a favour and bumping off all the City's top bankers. But did that same somebody kill Chrissie Barker? An aging Indiana Jones is hired by a preppy corporate lawyer to find her sister's killer. They have a history these two: utter contempt can best describe her feelings towards him; animal lust his feelings towards her; a thorny relationship that endures right up until the dark and evil conclusion of this on again, off again, investigation.

Informations

Publié par	First Edition Design Publishing
Date de parution	15 mai 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781622873203
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0420€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Close To Evil
Peter Brown

First Edition Design Publishing
Close To Evil
By
Peter Brown
Table of Contents

PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
EPILOGUE
Close To Evil
Copyright ©2013 Peter Brown
ISBN 978-1622873-21-0 PRINT
ISBN 978-1622-873-20-3 EBOOK

LCCN 2013939429

May 2013

Published and Distributed by
First Edition Design Publishing, Inc.
P.O. Box 20217, Sarasota, FL 34276-3217
www.firsteditiondesignpublishing.com

Cover Design by Deborah E Grodon

ALL R I G H T S R E S E R V E D. No p a r t o f t h i s b oo k pub li ca t i o n m a y b e r e p r o du ce d, s t o r e d i n a r e t r i e v a l s y s t e m , o r t r a n s mit t e d i n a ny f o r m o r by a ny m e a ns ─ e l e c t r o n i c , m e c h a n i c a l , p h o t o - c o p y , r ec o r d i n g, or a ny o t h e r ─ e x ce pt b r i e f qu ot a t i o n i n r e v i e w s , w i t h o ut t h e p r i o r p e r mi ss i on o f t h e a u t h o r or publisher .
PROLOGUE

“Bet on a winner. Bet on Jesus.”
Where did these people come from? Shouldn’t they be out there converting a few loaves of bread and a little fish on the side for the fifty million Americans on food stamps? Stupid cow, I had come to bet on a winner. Red Roman in the fifth. Once I was out of her sight, I scrunched up the pamphlet she had so urgently pressed into my hand and threw it into one of the bins overflowing with losing bet tickets.
*******
The loudspeaker crackled into life. “It’s all clear and here’s the official result of the fifth race. First Hula Dancer, second Dark Mirage, third Who’s Your Daddy.”
*******
Up in the stands in one of the exclusive members’ enclosures, Lane’s End Farm celebrated Hula Dancer’s win; another Group 1 winner, their third of the season. This would definitely guarantee a bumper breeding season and stellar stud fees. To top it all off, a full brother of today’s winner would be offered up at next month’s National yearling sale. What price would he fetch now? Demand for the bluest of blue-blood thoroughbreds had never been stronger and that demand came from all corners of the globe. The bottom 50 percent of the world’s population might only own 1 percent of the world’s wealth, but the top 1 per cent owned 50 percent and here in the US top earners now carted home 1750 times the mean wage, compared with 40 times at the end of World War 11. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and if the beholder boasted a sixty six thousand square foot Italianate mansion sporting twenty nine bedrooms, three dining rooms, three swimming pools, a 164-seat theatre, and a recreational pavilion with basketball court, gym, and bowling alley on sixty-three acres of waterfront land and he was bidding against the proud owner of a 557 foot yacht with two helipads, home cinema screens in every guest cabin, multiple hot tubs, plus essentials like bulletproof glass, motion detectors, a missile detection system, and, in case those fail to do their job, its own miniature submarine…. the price for this golden colt could be anything at all; the sky was the limit. Literally. That’s just the way the market was. And not just for the bluest of blue blood yearlings, but works of art, exotic cars, exotic baubles…. exotic anything. Basking in the trillions of dollars of cheap ‘fiat’ money being printed by Central Bankers around the world which greatly favoured them, the 1 per cent at the top of the pile were hard-pressed to find that special ‘look at me’ item to spend a tiny smidgeon of all their newly acquired largesse on. Small wonder that spirits ran high and the champagne flowed freely. A phone call changed all that.
CHAPTER 1

The elk had given us the slip, but it didn’t really bother Al or me.
“Still no winners?”
“Nope.”
Al shook his head. “You’re a sad case, Jack. So did she end up taking you to court for trying to rape her?”
My best friend’s sudden change of question momentarily threw me. “Not rape you bozo. Told you how that whole thing happened. Packed like sardines in the elevator and I’ve got the best looking arse in the City pressed up against me at 8.30 in the morning. Just hap…..”
“Taking too much Viagra again, Jack?”
“Don’t need it.”
Al shot me an unambiguous look that read: “Bullshit”.
“Best looking arse in the City. That’s one hell of a statement you just made there Jack. Have you seen Maria’s daughter in a bikini?”
“She’s sixteen years old.”
“Shhhhh.” Mike Rolley’s hand waves us quiet. Then points. How did Mike know the elk had back-tracked down that ravine? He just did. That’s why he got to be Captain Mike Rolley and why Al and I never had a hope in hell of making officer material.
“Have you seen that sixteen year old’s arse in a bikini?”
In the distance the elk turned, tossed his head and disappeared before anyone could draw a bead on him. Mike Rolley scowled at Al.
*******
It looked like Mike wouldn’t be joining us for too many drinks. Not getting off a shot had probably pissed him off.
“You doing for New Year?”
“Promised Maria this year is going out with a big bang.”
Mike Rolley ignored what Al had just said and looked at me.
“Work,” I said.
“Sex. That all you two ever get up to? The Spic here doing the one thing they know how to do best and you gathering evidence for some shonky divorce lawyer. You’d think adulterers would give it a break over the festive season and spend time with their families.”
Al’s eyes had suddenly taken on a hard, flat look; a look plenty of Gooks had seen just before they went off to meet their Maker and I just hoped like hell he would cool it and not do anything stupid. Captain Mike Rolley was a master shot who could easily manage a 3 inch grouping at 200 yards; 6 inches at 400 yards. Al was no more than 10 feet away and Mike’s rifle was resting against the table within easy reach. “That what you do Mike?” I said. “Spend time with your family?”
Mike Rolley laughed: “You’ll let me know if my wife ever wants you to do some work for her, won’t you Jack?”
*******
“Fireworks for Maria’s kids. Not fucking. That Mike Rolley. Never sure if he’s just a little bit pissed off, or plenty pissed off. For sure he do his best to piss me off.”
I looked across at Al who had just driven straight through another red light. “Plenty pissed off….with both of us. How about you, Al? Got a death wish or something? That’s the third straight set of red lights you’ve just driven through.”
“Dancing classes, Jack. Tonight we learn how to do the samba. Very sexy dance and you should see the dress Maria has made. Makes it hard for me to concentrate, you know.”
Fred Astaire? Gliding around the dance floor in a tux didn’t quite fit the image of the only Vet I knew who still missed ‘Naam. All that danger. All that buzz. Back in Yawnsville he needed an illegal edge and had to content himself with driving through red lights, or breaking and entering (taking from the rich to give to the poor i.e. Al), or walking the City’s most dangerous streets at midnight in the hope that some poor mugger would try out his luck. I say some poor mugger, because the mugger, any mugger, would stand no chance. In a street fight I would back Al against anyone and anyone included Mike Rolley; the only other person in the world I could think of who would stand a remote chance of coming out on top against the toughest, meanest fighting machine I had ever seen. But then Al had surprised me before now in his quest for a more profound form of experience: His so-called charity work, for example, where he had taken it upon himself to help all the childless women in the City by donating his sperm, medically tested for AIDS, hepatitis B&C, cystic fibrosis and any other contagious disease known to man; then offering to take photos, for free, at christenings, probably in the belief that half the time he was taking shots of his own offspring.
“Thanks for the ride, Al. And take it easy on Maria’s toes.”
Driving away from the garage, where my car-a vintage Corvette Stingray-had spent the day getting its suspension dropped so that I could squeeze another 10mph out of it, Al’s hand suddenly appeared out of the driver’s window and gave me the finger.
*******
The weather was abnormally warm for this time of year. In some parts of the US a whopping 40 degrees above average; global warming the popular scapegoat, but experts had put it down to ‘La Nina’ conditions, or the ‘Arctic Oscillation’, or a tenacious subtropical ridge pushing loads of hot air across the country. Oh, to be a weatherman instead of a real live betting person. They get three chances to get it right. I get one. Whatever the real reason, this warm weather was expected to be with us for another couple of weeks.
Driving back to my place I reflected on our afternoon excursion in these relatively balmy conditions. Whilst we hadn’t bagged anything, it had felt good to be back in the wild. Especially with your buddies; buddies with whom you had fought, back to back, in some pretty hairy situations: Vietnam, and an unexpected and particularly nasty little property dispute in Africa.
Vietnam was bad: Elep