Free Thicker Than Water (A Leo Waterman Mystery) by G.M. Ford

mirror and stopped walking. She turned to face me.
    “You don’t seem to be getting the message,” she said.
    “The bartender said…”
    She went shopping for angry but came back from the store with scared. “Bruce is an idiot. He needs to learn to mind his own business.”
    She caught me reading her anxiety and started walking again, faster now, heels clicking on the polished woodenfloor, veering left toward the Dutch door to the left of the reception desk. Checked luggage and coatroom.
    Not wishing to loom, I stayed at a nonthreatening distance as she retrieved a long, black wool coat and shouldered her way into it.
    Newly armored, she exchanged a few words with whoever handed her the coat, and then walked over and stood as close to me as personal space considerations would allow. “Do I have to call security?” she asked in a low voice.
    Up close and personal, she was about my age. Middle to late forties somewhere. She’d had work done. Good work. Expensive work. You had to look closely around the corners of the eyes and the backs of her ears to see the spiderweb traces. Fifteen more years, four excellent plastic surgeons, and she’d begin to have that startled “what the hell just happened?” look they get when modern medical technology has gone one step too far in its quest to stave off the ravages of time. But for now, the illusion was alive, well, and working just fine.
    Not only that, but she’d meant what she said about calling security. I could feel it. This was the only chance I was going to get so I went straight to it.
    “I’m really worried about a friend of mine,” I said.
    Apparently she didn’t share my anxiety. She turned and walked away.
    As for me, I stayed right where I was. Further pursuit would almost certainly result in answering pointed questions from square-headed people, so I just stayed put. Either the magic of human decency was going to work, or it wasn’t.
    She straight-armed one of the massive front doors and disappeared from view.
    I waited.
    A minute passed.
    And then two.
    Before the door swung open and Patty walked back inside with a look on her face that said her worst fears were confirmed. I was still standing there. Right where she left me. Not doing a thing that would give her an excuse to call security. She swallowed a curse and ambled in my direction, taking her time, making me wait.
    “What are you, the jilted lover?” she asked.
    “Not the way you mean it,” I said.
    “What way’s that?”
    “The way where I just can’t seem to get on with my life. Where I’m following her around, making an ass of myself. Stuff like that.” I shook my head and looked her in the eye. “Nothing like that.”
    “No?”
    “I skulked off into the bushes like a gentleman.”
    Her eyes crinkled at the corners. “Maybe you didn’t love her so much after all.”
    “Maybe I respected her choice,” I said evenly.
    We had a short staring contest. “Big, tall gal?” she asked.
    “Yep.”
    “Blonde?”
    “More like brown.”
    She shrugged. “You know women and their hair.”
    I said I did.
    “What’s your story?”
    I gave her the condensed version. No names, places, or dates.
    “Why would the mother come to you?”
    “I used to be a private investigator.”
    “What do you do now?”
    “As little as possible.”
    “Which explains her choice of partners, I guess.”
    “More or less,” I admitted.
    She walked away from me again. Out into the center of the lobby, to a pair of cowhide club chairs. Yee ha. She removed her coat and sat down on one of the former Guernseys. I wandered over and occupied the udder.
    “Your friend’s got trouble,” she said as I settled in.
    “This Teddy character?”
    “Yeah. Teddy Healy.”
    “Rebecca can take care of herself,” I said.
    Her eyes clouded. “Not with Teddy, she can’t.”
    “Why’s that?”
    She thought about it for a second. “He’s got a real nose for weakness. One minute talking to a woman, and he knows what