Free Not Quite an Angel by Bobby Hutchinson Page B

thing are meaningless abbreviations, Bernie. These damn machines make me itch behind my ears. I’m allergic to them.”
    Bernie, oblivious to his partner’s lack of enthusiasm, was scrolling through some complex filing system on the screen that made sense only to him. “Here we go. I knew I coded these to see if any kind of pattern might be developing. There’s none yet, but you never know.” He sent a minuscule arrow scooting across the screen, ignoring Adam’s sour muttering.
    â€œLook here. There’s three of these things now. They all concern older women, wealthy women, who trusted some guy to make long-term investments for them. The investments looked legit, too. None of these broads were out-and-out stupid. There was extensive paperwork and the letterheads on all the forms were real. The women each received reams of confirmation and updates on their investments over a period of time. Two of the women died, and when their heirs went to collect on the investments, they found out they were phony. This last one, this Mrs. Hammerstein, is in a nursing home now. She’s confused and the daughter’s trying to straighten out her affairs and finds out she bought a document for twenty-five grand, and the insurance company it’s supposed to be with has no record of the transaction. Problem is, the cops can’t do much. None of these women can lay charges, and there’s no record of who they bought the documents from in the first place.”
    Bernie turned back to his machine and ran a few more cross-checks. He shook his head. “Not much more, but it sure as hell smacks of a scam to me.” He turned away from the machine and tilted his chair back, squinting up at his partner. “So whaddya think, Hawk? Any ideas as to how we could use something like this to publicize Blue Knights, get to some of these women before they hand their bucks over to some con artist?”
    Adam thought he needed a stiff belt of Scotch, even though it was only ten in the morning. “I’m with you. I think these ladies would’ve been smart to hire us before they turned bundles of cash over for investment purposes, but as for publicity, you’re on your own,” he growled.
    Bernie reached for his coffee. “Maybe Janice can think of a few new advertising schemes. Television would be the way to go if we had the bucks. Maybe we could get one of the talk shows interested, go and be interviewed, mention Blue Knights a few times. Hell, we’d be snowed under with work.” He gestured at the other chair. “Have some coffee and sit down. You get on my nerves looming over me like that.”
    Adam wanted nothing more than to go back to his own office, shut the door and disconnect the intercom and the phone. He sat instead. He knew his partner. Bernie had something on his mind besides advertising, and they might just as well get it over with.
    â€œWhat I was wondering was, whaddya think about Sameh Smith now you know her a little better?” Bernie took a noisy gulp of coffee and wrinkled his nose. “Damn, this stuff’s cold.” He got up and dumped it and then poured himself more from the coffee machine set up in a corner ofhis office. “Personally, I’m a big fan of Sameh’s, Hawk. I haven’t seen Frances as relaxed and happy for months as she was Saturday night, and her and Sameh are gonna go shopping together this week. You know how long it’s been since Fran agreed to leave the kids with a sitter?”
    Adam had some idea. He’d watched helplessly as Bernie and Frances struggled with the reality of Corey’s handicap. After the initial shock, Bernie seemed to adjust somewhat, accepting the situation, but Frances was another matter. At first she’d marched relentlessly from one specialist to another with her son, demanding a cure. When each gave her the same diagnosis, the same heartbreaking prognosis, she changed tactics.
    For