Free Indigo Slam: An Elvis Cole Novel by Robert Crais Page B

could guilt him into cooperating.
    Wilson Brownell looked past me, and his eyes widened. The bald guy with the bowling-ball paunch was standing in the swinging doors, frowning at us. Brownell’s face hardened and he stepped close to me. “Do everybody a favor and get your ass out of here. I’d help you if I could, but I can’t, and that’s that.”
    He turned away but I turned with him. “What do you mean, that’s that? Didn’t you hear what I said about his kids?”
    “I said I can’t help you.” Wilson Brownell’s voice came out loud enough so that the kid on the floor peeked out at us.
    Two men had joined the bald guy in the swinging doors. They were older, with thin gray hair and windburned skin and the kind of heavy, going-to-fat builds that said they were probably pretty good hitters twenty years ago. The bald guy pointed our way and one of the new men said something, and then the bald guy started toward us. Brownell grabbed my shoulder like a man grabbing a life preserver. “Listen to me, goddamnit.” His voice was a harsh whisper, lower now and urgent. “Don’t you mention Clark. Don’t even say his goddamn name, you wanna walk outta here alive.” Wilson Brownell suddenly broke into a big laugh and clapped me on the shoulder as if I’d told him the world’s funniest joke. He said, “You tell Lisa I can get my own date, thank you very much! I need any help, I’ll give’r a call!” He said it so loud that half of British Columbia could hear.
    I stared at him.
    The bald guy reached us, the two new guys still in the swinging door, watching through interested eyes. The bald guy said, “I don’t know who this guy is. He just walked in here.”
    Brownell kept his hand on my shoulder, letting the laugh fade to a grin. “Sorry about that, Donnie. I knew this guy was coming by, and I shoulda told you. He’s a friend of mine.”
    I glanced from Brownell to Donnie, then back to Brownell, wondering just what in hell I had walked into.
    Brownell shook his head like, man, this was just the silliest thing. “This guy’s wife has been tryin’ to set me up with this friend of hers for three months now. I keep sayin’, what on earth am I going to do with a new woman when I’m still in love with my Edna?”
    Donnie squinted the ferret eyes at me like he was deciding something. “What, are you a mute or something? Don’t you have anything to say?”
    Brownell was looking at me so hard that his eyes felt like lasers. I shook my head. “Nope.”
    Donnie made his decision, then glanced back at the two guys in the swinging door, and shook his head once. The two guys vanished. “You know better’n this.”
    Brownell said, “I’m sorry, Donnie. Jesus Christ.”
    The tiny eyes flicked back to me, and then a smile even smaller than the eyes played at the edges of his mouth. “C’mon, I’ll show you the way out.”
    I followed the bald guy out, got into my car, and drove to a Seattle’s Best Coffee, where I bought a double-tall mochachino and sat there feeling confused, a more or less natural state. I had flown to Seattle expecting some difficulty in dealing with Wilson Brownell, but nothing like this. Wilson Brownell seemed stark raving terrified to mention Clark’s name. In fact, Brownell seemed not only terrified of me but also of his fellow employees. Maybe there was something to it, or maybe Brownell was just a goofball suffering from some sort of paranoid psychosis. Goofballs are common. I could sit here and guess, but all I would have are guesses. I needed to ask Wilson Brownell, and there were only two options: I could shoot my way back into New World and pistol-whip the information out of him, or I could wait and ask him when Wilson left work. The C-SPAN Lady had said that Brownell got home between five-thirty and a quarter to six, which meant that he probably left work between five and five-fifteen. It was now forty-three minutes after two, giving me two hours and twenty minutes to fill, and I