Free The Great West Detective Agency by Jackson Lowry Page A

to steal away any additional view. Her hair was a blond mist around her lovely face, and she glowed with an inner light unlike anything he had ever seen. Or rarely seen.
    â€œYou should have introduced us so much sooner. I am disappointed in you. Never have I met a man like him. And I do mean
man
.”
    Lucas’s spirits sank at such unexpected news. She and Otto had hit it off well, contrary to what he had expected.
    â€œHe’s not the politically connected man he claims.”
    â€œWhat’s that? He never said he was in politics. He’s in investments.” Carmela pouted a little. “I am not sure he meant money. He trades in information. What a curious concept, though if anyone can do it, Otto can.”
    â€œInformation,” Lucas repeated. That was exactly Little Otto’s staple.
    â€œSo gentle for such a large man.”
    â€œI’ve seen him tear a man’s arm off and beat him with it.”
    â€œOh, Lucas dear, you exaggerate so. Otto is nothing like that. When he’s with me, he’s nothing like that at all.”
    Telling her he had seen Little Otto vent a bull-throated roar and do that very thing—it had been the man’s left arm—did nothing to advance his own worth in her eyes. Even if he found the cheating gambler and paraded him past her, she wouldn’t notice. Her infatuation with the shaved-headed giant was too great.
    Otto had better deliver the promised information.
    Carmela stood and whirled about gracefully, giving him a light peck on the cheek.
    â€œYou are such a dear friend. Could you see to having a bottle of wine sent? Some food, also. Breakfast seemed so long ago.”
    â€œI’m sure you were hungry soon after, too.”
    â€œAh, yes, yes we were,” she said, a dreamy look coming into her eyes that matched what Lucas had seen on Little Otto’s face.
    Lucas stepped back and gave the singer a long, longing look and then left, knowing his chance with her had passed. It was a waste of his time and honeyed words even to speak with Carmela until Little Otto had drifted out of her life, and he would. The worlds of each barely intersected, and he had been the one point of contact. Lucas doubted disappearing would be the reason the pair stopped seeing each other—he had served his role, but it had been one of contact, not one of renewing affection. Carmela would continue on her triumphant tour, and Otto would revert to his chair at the back of the Merry Widow, a spider in the center of a web, transmitting information from all over Denver to him.
    â€œLefty,” he called on his way out. “She wants something to eat. Pigs knuckles or maybe the hard-boiled eggs.”
    â€œShe asked for those?”
    â€œNot the three-month-old eggs. Something fresher.”
    â€œThere are some only a couple weeks old. For some reason, I can’t get anyone at the bar to eat them.”
    Lucas almost stopped to tell Lefty to fetch real food for Carmela, then contented himself with a jaunty wave as he passed through the front doors out into the increasingly cool fall weather. If the songstress had her sights set on Little Otto, so be it. Amanda Baldridge was hardly an ugly hag. Finding her puppy dog would garner some respect in her bright eyes, not to mention the possibility of real admiration for his cleverness. That she had already paid him well elevated her mien in his eyes.
    He worked through the streets, touching the brim of his hat to the ladies and feeling better by the minute. By the time he reached Capitol Hill, his outlook was bright and confident. Even the flea bite had stopped itching.
    Lucas looked around as he walked among the politically powerful. Finding who had power and who did not proved too easy for him. The “I have power” attitude was never put into words, because actions dealing with those around them conveyed it like a king’s crown tipped at a jaunty angle. Anyone seeing the crown knew the