Free Bullet River (The Garbage Collector 2) by Dani Amore Page A

services.
     
    I figured no one back in Michigan would miss the Garbage Collector. It might also be enough time to let the lawyers cool down and reconsider arranging any payback for yours truly. Cooler heads would realize just how bad an idea that could turn out to be.
     
    I was honest with the old Italian folks, though. Even though there was a private investigator’s license in my wallet with my real name, I didn’t show it to them. I also didn’t tell them I was known as the Garbage Collector and that my specialty was collecting undesirables: people who skipped bail, blackmailers, runaways, thieves, and miscreants in general.
     
    Not to sound egotistical, but the folks liked me.
     
    Hey, first time for everything.
     
    •
     
    My Heineken was empty, so I paddled to the shallow end of the pool with my free hand, slid off the lounge chair, and used the steps to climb out of the pool.
     
    The reflection in the apartment’s sliding glass doors caught my eye. Not bad. You couldn’t make out the slight gray at the edge of my temples, and the silhouette of my body was good enough—broad shoulders, narrow waist, dimmed scar on my shoulder, and the old bullet wound in my leg.
     
    A beauty contest trophy would never be in my future, but I didn’t have a problem with that. I had once rescued a former beauty queen who’d gotten hooked on crack and was being abused by her drug-dealing boyfriend. Her family hired me to bring her back, which I did. She went into rehab and is doing fine now. But in my opinion, that whole beauty-contest industry can really fuck people up.
     
    The big towel with the University of Florida logo went around my waist, and I padded into the apartment. It was a simple set up: a single great room broken up into a small living room with a couch and television set, and a dining room with a blue dining table and four chairs. The kitchen was next to the dining area. It was small: a fridge, a stove, a dishwasher, and sink. A few cupboards. There was a hallway off the kitchen that led to a small bathroom with a shower, and further on, two bedrooms—one a bit bigger than the other. The smaller bedroom had two twin beds, and the bigger bedroom had a Queen.
     
    I was sleeping in the big bedroom.
     
    The empty beer bottle went into an empty six-pack case. I pulled two more beers from the fridge, changed out my swim trunks for a pair of cargo shorts, and walked down to the small dock.
     
    There was a boat hoist but no boat. Just a kayak locked to the dock’s support posts. I worked the combination, sprang the lock, and freed the kayak along with its carbon fiber paddle.
     
    I lowered the kayak into the water, sat on the edge of the dock, and held the vessel steady with my feet. I lowered the beers into the little hatch behind the seat, then lowered my ass into the kayak.
     
    I pushed away from the dock and paddled out into the middle of the Estero River.
     
    The river had become quite a surprise for me. In Michigan I’d spent most of my time in powerboats roaring across vast stretches of lake, usually for a destination, never just to enjoy the water itself.
     
    Now the tide was going out, so I was naturally pulled away from the dock toward a large, sweeping bend in the river.
     
    I glanced over my shoulder; the large house was still visible over the top of the mangroves lining the bank. It looked especially impressive from the river.
     
    Wind ruffled the surface of the water and bent the tall reeds back toward the river bank.
     
    I popped off the cap of a beer and drank half of it in one long pull, set it between my legs, grabbed the paddle, and leaned forward.
     
    The kayak shot ahead with a smooth, balanced power. I paddled all the way down to where the river opened up onto the Gulf of Mexico. The trip took me twenty minutes. I celebrated by draining the rest of my first beer and opening the second.
     
    I took a more leisurely paddle on the way back, upstream, aided by the fact that the tide had