Free Voodoo Eyes by Nick Stone Page A

a knockout if she hadn’t looked almost permanently pissed off. The first time Max had seen her – a year before – he’d attributed it to anger at the possibility that she would be waiting tables for the rest of her life. Then she turned around and he saw what was probably the cause of her unhappiness. Her ass. High, pert, bulbous and firm, it was one of the finest asses he’d ever seen. It was barely contained in the knee-length black skirt that she wore. Men would stop in the street and stare at that ass and then moments later they’d be sitting at the restaurant. It was a customer magnet. He felt sorry for her. He tried not to look at her ass, but he couldn’t help himself, so to compensate he was as friendly as possible to her and always left a generous tip. It only made her scowl harder.
    Joe had followed Max’s eyes.
    ‘You still God’s Lonely Man?’ said Joe. He’d ordered picadillo a la criolla with a side of boiled green bananas and a mixed salad.
    ‘Of course.’ Max nodded. He’d been single since Hurricane Tameka. Not that he’d exactly been inundated with offers. In fact, the only women who looked at him twice were prostitutes he accidentally made eye contact with.
    ‘What else is going on with you – in the bedhopper business?’ Joe asked.
    Max told him about Emerson Prescott and what had happened at the Zurich Hotel. Liston howled with laughter when Max got to the part about the DVD. He laughed so hard neither of them could eat until he’d stopped.
    After Joe had recovered, they picked at their food and watched people idle by on the street, making occasional comments on the pageant of freaks. No one seemed in a hurry. Opposite, half a block down, a young kid with a pudding-bowl haircut was playing electric guitar and singing ‘Brown Sugar’ with a heavy Spanish accent. A small crowd had gathered and were tossing coins into an upturned baseball cap and filming him on camera phones.
    Then Max saw Joe’s expression change. The humour drained out of his face and his eyes moved to Max’s right, over his shoulder, fixing on something behind him.
    ‘What are you lookin’ at?’ Max asked.
    Joe didn’t answer. He glanced at Max. He looked puzzled and worried, like he’d just seen something he didn’t believe or understand. His eyes moved back over Max’s shoulder.
    Max turned around. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
    ‘What did you see?’
    ‘Some creep,’ said Joe, glancing over Max’s other shoulder, at a point past his neck.
    ‘Which one?’
    Joe chortled.
    ‘It was the strangest fucking thing,’ he said. ‘I just thought … Forget it. Carry on.’
    Max went back to Emerson Prescott, to trying to understand what the fuck it was all about, but Joe wasn’t listening. His troubles were refusing to time out.
    ‘Joe,’ said Max. ‘Why don’t you tell me what’s up? What am I gonna do – apart from listen? You were willing to go up against the department just yesterday. Risk your livelihood. You asked me to help and I did. And I’d do it again. You know that. So why don’t you just tell me what’s up? I’d tell you.’
    Liston looked at Max for a long moment.
    Then he put his cutlery down, wiped his mouth on a napkin and rested it near his plate.
    ‘They say the best way to keep a secret is to tell no one. And this is one I’ve been living with longer than I’ve known you. I haven’t even told my wife – and I tell her everything,’ he said.
    ‘Except this?’
    ‘That’s right. Does the name Vanetta Brown ring any bells?’
    Max’s immediate thought was, No. But in the back of his mind, there was a faint chime of recognition.
    ‘The name sounds vaguely familiar.’
    ‘Well—’ Joe started and stopped. His eyes suddenly moved back to scanning the crowd behind Max.
    As Max was about to turn and look around again, a thunderous boom reverberated right behind him, very close, close enough to deafen him. It was a huge sound, that of a shot being fired