Built for Trouble

Free Built for Trouble by Al Fray Page A

Book: Built for Trouble by Al Fray Read Free Book Online
Authors: Al Fray
Tags: Suspense, Crime, Murder
the coals again?” He stood up now and began to move toward the jeep.
    “Wait a second,” I said. “All I wanted to know was—”
    “Forget it, Mac. Let’s just forget all about it.” He gave me a sour look and climbed into the red jeep and rolled out onto the sand.
    When I turned back the cook had come over to the counter. He wiped his hands on the flour-sack apron and grinned.
    “Carl’s a little touchy about some things,” the cook said, and winked. “Exactly what was it you were interested in?”
    “Whatever I can find out about these two. Did you know them?”
    “Yup. Real well. How interested would you be?”
    “If you say anything worth listening to,” I said softly, “I’ll probably get excited and walk away without my change.” I nodded toward the five, four ones, and silver on the counter.
    The cook turned to the counter girl. “Alice, go on out back and pick up the papers blowing around,” he said.
    “But, Pop, I just picked them up a few—” She stopped as he thumbed toward the door, and then she gave me a pained look and went out.
    “This Natalie,” the cook said, leaning his elbows on the worn linoleum counter, “was really stacked. So was a couple of others hanging around the beach in those days, and I guess you’d say they were pretty bitchy. You know how things was, the war not long over and all. These babes were chasing around here on the strand at all hours of the night and swilling beer with the Marines from Camp Pendleton and doing their bit to keep the boys happy, as you might say. For free, just for kicks, and then Sawyer got an idea, I guess, because the next thing we knew this San Diego deal broke in the news.”
    “What San Diego deal?”
    “Well, seems that Sawyer figured out as long as these kids had ants anyway they might as well get a buck or so for their tricks. He took some pretty inviting photographs and he’d circulate around a convention down in Diego whenever a good one was there and he’d drum up some trade. A lay-for-pay deal, or at least that’s what they were able to prove. On her, I mean. Sawyer, he got the hell out and stayed out.”
    “You mean Nol—Natalie got caught?”
    He nodded. “Sure did. Right in the sack in a hotel room with a drummer from San Francisco or somewhere. When they began to make a noise about her being a minor, the salesman got scared and that’s when hell broke loose. He explained how he’d paid hard cash and this was strictly a commercial jump. They couldn’t find Sawyer but they sweated Nat out and she admitted it was a paying deal. Been down to half a dozen San Diego conventions, she had, along with some others from the beach here, but she didn’t give out no names. It was all hushed up in a hurry, but Nat didn’t never come around here no more, which I guess was best if you take it all the way around.”
    “And when was this? What year, what date?”
    “Can’t say exactly, toward the end of summer and ten—no, no it was eleven years ago. Eleven.”
    “I see.” He’d earned his dough, and I didn’t even look a second time at the money as I got up and turned away. It all figured now—that phony background about her old man having been a construction laborer and no permanent address while she was a kid. Nice. It cleared her of having to provide a detailed account of her early years. She could start with when she settled down in the midwest and took that lifeguard job. The long black hair instead of a short bob and the original honey color helped. And Nola Norton—that switch was necessary too.
    I got back into the Ford and drove north again. So now I had it. Had it, but what was I going to do with it? I’d started out to get a few thousand I thought I had coming on a publicity gag, but the water had gotten deep in a hell of a hurry. Of course she’d bumped Hank off—she had to; if he was shaking her down for big dough she’d have to pay or get him off her back another way.
    Hers was an unforgivable sin in

Similar Books

Soul Fire

Kate Harrison

The Magic Circle

Donna Jo Napoli

DEAD SEXY

Caitlin Falls

Billy

Albert French

Wings of Promise

Bonnie Leon

Freedom

S. A. Wolfe