Free Texas Tango: A Flint Rock Novel by Glenn Smith

appropriate suggestions to Murphy.   She told Gina, as Flint wiped his prints from the Sig Sauer, that he was leaving the gun she had loaned him as if Bill Murphy had used it.   Flint pressed Murphy's right finger tips on the handle, then let it drop to the floor near the gurney.
     
    Gina said she would hear from them when they could call her.   They slipped out the back door as the first car arrived with flashing blue lights and a loud siren.
     
    The back gate to Gina's garden was locked.   Flint found a ladder inside a potting shed.   He leaned it on the gate, climbed up and saw that he could stand on the wall where the gate was attached.   It was a long jump to the ground on the outside, but he was sure he could manage.   Ava was suddenly there, on top of the eighteen inch wide wall, hanging on to him.
     
    "You stay here while I drop down," he suggested.   "Then I'll catch you when you drop."
     
    "You sure?” she asked.   “I weigh nearly 120 pounds.”
     
    "Exactly right for your height," he assured her.
     
    Flint eased himself over the edge of the flat topped wall.   Facing the wall, he lowered himself until he was hanging by his fingertips.   His feet were still five feet from the ground.   He pushed out from the wall as he let go.   Ava gasped.   But he stayed upright.   Then he backed up close to the wall, not quite touching it, both hands extended up.
     
    Ava was in excellent condition.   She worked out five days a week.   She followed Flint's example, making it look easy.   She was wearing a knee length skirt.   Her feet and his hands found each other.   He eased her down and out from the wall a few inches so she didn't skin her knees.   When she let go, she walked her hands down the wall.   Flint took his hands from her feet, put his arms around her legs as she slid down his body.   Her feet were five inches from the ground when she stopped going down.   Her eyes were looking straight into his.   Then her tongue was in his mouth.   Her eyes closed.  
     
    They would have stayed in the clinch longer, but getting out of that area was essential.   Ava reached in her purse for her mobile phone to call a taxi.   She gave her full attention to rummaging, suddenly realized she had picked up Mary's purse in the house instead of her own.   There was no going back.   Mary's phone was locked.   Flint put his phone in her hand and she called, spoke quietly.   She led Flint for a two block walk and saw the Mercedes taxi.   A few minutes later they were back at the Bristol.
     
    Ava unlocked the door to her room, stepped inside expecting Flint to follow given their accidentally erotic yard escape.   So he did.   Twenty minutes later Ava was asleep, more relaxed than she had ever felt in her life.   Flint had a shower, redressed so he could go to his room for clean clothes, stepped out and closed her door, heard it click as it automatically locked.   He could see the entrance to his own room.   The door opened.   An expensively dressed man in his forties came out of the door.  
     
    Flint instinctively turned to face Ava's door, pretended to be unlocking it as if it were his room.   The man walked past Flint, gave no sign of recognition.   Flint waited till the man was about to disappear, then he followed.   At the front desk, the man turned in a key, walked out front to a taxi.   Flint asked the desk attendant what the immaculate looking man had been doing in Flint's room.
     
    "Oh no, my dear fellow.   He could not have been in your room.   He is a distinguished guest.   He always stays in the same room here.   He comes four or five times a year, tips very well.   We save the suite on the top floor for him."
     
    "You mean the bridal suite?"
     
    "We use it for that too, but we call it the executive suite.   This man will be the next prime minister of Pakistan.   He is very brilliant."
     
    Flint thanked the attendant, went to his room.     Nothing seemed to be