Free Reilly 02 - Invasion of Privacy by Perri O'Shaughnessy Page B

that?"
    Terry wore a look as cold as the landscape outside the windows, and didn’t answer.
    "What’s this all about?"
    Terry opened the front door, and said, "If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out of here right now."
    "What did I do?"
    "Only ruined my life."
    "Is this about the case? Maybe I can fix it."
    "It’s too late," Terry said calmly, neatly guiding her out. "You’re not getting out of this." A mountain of hate rose behind her yellow eyes. She shut the door in Nina’s face.
    For the last two years, Paul had worked out of a small office on the third and top floor of a building just off Ocean Avenue in Carmel. Big Sur, to the south, and Monterey, just over the Carmel Hill, added to his client base.
    The office had one thing to recommend it. The main window overlooked the neighboring courtyard of the Hog’s Breath Inn, a restaurant and bar where he spent much of his free time.
    Paul kept the shade up at the window above his desk while he punched numbers and letters onto his keyboard and skimmed the information on his video monitor, even though it made it a little harder to read. He didn’t like desk work much, but this project had to be done on the computer.
    His client, a biotechnology firm in San Jose, needed to find someone, a reported computer nerd who had recently set up a home page of his own on the World Wide Web. The nerd called himself der Fliegel, the Fly, and had loads of info to share on a certain proprietary formula. Paul went searching for tiny bug-tracks in cyberspace.
    While he searched, Paul looked down at the Hog’s Breath courtyard, where tourists in shorts mixed with local business types. He checked his watch and dreamed of lunch, a thick steak with home fries, coleslaw maybe—no, how about a Caesar salad, crunchy and tart.... There were some attractive women down there. One dark-haired girl with pale white skin, wearing a halter thing that showed off her magnificent breasts, sat cross-legged, disconsolate, alone. Should he quit now and go down early?
    A guy in a white T-shirt with tattoos up to his armpits sat down next to her and put his hand on her delicate white knee. A shame, but now he gazed upon a tall, golden Californian who had just walked in, swinging her purse, her narrow ass swinging along in rhythm.... The Hog’s Breath was a great place to unwind after work and meet women, and, of course, it was owned by his favorite steely-eyed movie actor.
    Now and then Clint did show up at his restaurant, soft-spoken and mellow, shaking hands with the locals, asking how the steak was tonight, if there was anything they needed. Once, about a year before, when Paul was working late in his office, Clint came in with a few friends and opened up the place just for them, lit the fireplace in the middle, and they all settled down to talk and laugh.
    Paul had met him once, while Clint was still the mayor of Carmel, at a chamber of commerce reception. Clint had an inch or two on him, but he slouched a lot, and he was getting downright elderly. He had the dignity of a senior statesman, the big hands of a wrestler. He said, "How are ya, Paul?" in that soft, almost sinister voice of his, and Paul said, "I really liked that scene in The Dead Pool where you—" but Clint was being pushed gently forward to meet his next wellwisher.
    Paul didn’t really envy Clint. He liked his freedom, and Clint didn’t seem to have much of that—but he would have liked to sit down with him some night over a couple of bourbons and talk with him about the Dirty Harry movies, how much he loved them but how full of crap they were, the police procedures a joke.
    At one time Paul had worked in San Francisco as a homicide detective, and he’d always wanted to tell Clint that Inspector Callahan would have been out on his ass in about twelve seconds with that attitude, like Paul had been.
    The computer beeped, pulling Paul back into the present. "You have been idle too long," the screen said. He took one more