Free Jack Daniels and Associates: Snake Wine by Bernard Schaffer Page B

eye. The personal helicopter pad and armored SUV were being replaced by a used Hyundai issued to him by the taxpayers of Cook County.
    Jack reached under the table and gave him a light squeeze on the thigh, then whispered, "Good boy."
     
    She'd meant to stay and help him go through the boxes, really she had. She'd even kicked off her shoes and sat on the floor next to him, helping Joel sort through the reports one by one, making sure they specified which type of weapon was being examined. She caught him looking longingly at her stockinged feet a few times. That was a little weird, she thought. In the midst of checking the reports, her phone buzzed on her hip and she said, "I have to take this."
    "Jack, it's Miller," the captain said. "We found the phone."
    "Oh my God, you did? Send me the address!"
    "It's showing up off of Wentworth Avenue. I'm sending a squad car over there now."
    "Forget that," Jack said. "I'll take care of it."
    "You sure?"
    Jack looked at Joel Roth who was mournfully staring from the top of one of the files with a look that said, You can't be serious. Jack smiled gently and said, "It will be fine."
    "Let me guess," Roth said as Jack hung up the phone.
    "It's important. It's about Herb. I know where he is. Do you want me to go get him and drag him back to court so we can stop all this nonsense, or do you want to see what new and exciting ways we can find to piss off the judge and jury tomorrow too?"
    Roth sighed and said, "Fine. Go. I'll call one of the interns from the office to come help."
    "That's the spirit," Jack said as she slid her shoes back on. "I'm sure you have a few hot young college babes floating around who would love to come keep you company."
    Roth looked back down at the file and said, "I like mature women. Someone I can talk to."
    Jack patted him on the arm and said, "I appreciate what you're doing, Joel. I really do." She backed away to head out of the courtroom thinking, he's a good kid. It's gonna suck breaking his heart.
     

6.
    Wentworth Avenue was locked up with rush hour traffic. Soccer moms carting vans full of kids to dance classes and karate classes. They were being eyed up by smarmy executive types in eighty thousand dollar convertibles, the kind of guys who wore a Bluetooth earpiece and cranked up hard gangsta rap songs because they were just oh so gangsta.
    I picked up my phone and called Miller. "I'm almost there, Captain. My GPS says I'm a mile away. Is the signal still good?"
    "I just talked to Sparky. He said the phone shut down a few hours ago, but he's still able to get a signal off the remaining battery. He said that when you get there, tell me, and he'll remotely activate an alert tone on the phone."
    "He can do that?" I asked. "These phones today, Captain. I don't know about them."
    "It's amazing what a few million Chinese child slave laborers can accomplish, isn't it, Jack?"
    I hung up the phone and concentrated on the destination. It was nothing more than a GPS coordinate. In my mind, that coordinate became a tiny apartment with Herb's car parked out front, the one I'd find him playing house in with that little bitch whore. There was probably going to be some screaming, I thought. Maybe by me. I wondered if the Asian chick would try to put up a fight. Well, let her, I thought. Unless she knows kung-fu or something. In that case, I know Smith and Wesson.
    I pulled up to the exact coordinates and looked around. I checked my GPS again, making sure I had the right ones. Something was wrong. There wasn't even any cross streets at that location. It was just mid-block Wentworth Ave with nothing but a few small buildings and open stretches of browned out plots of land. I texted Miller the GPS coordinates and said: I'm here. Are you sure these are the right coordinates?
    I waited in the car, nervously tapping the steering wheel as I waited for his response. The first building was a dentist's office with parking in the back. There were only a couple of cars parked there,