You Can't Stop Me. Max Allan Collins

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СКАЧАТЬ smiles and laughs and loud talk and hugs and backs getting slapped. Predominantly white churches he’d attended since childhood had always seemed stiff and vaguely guilt ridden. And at this kind of church, the women, older ones anyway, wore hats! What the hell ever happened to white women in hats?

      Last out was a tall, slim, milk-chocolate woman in a fitted gray business suit and open-collared pink dress shirt under a gray vest. Her long black hair was battened down in tight cornrows, and she wore tiny silver hoop earrings that caught sunlight and glinted. That same sunlight made the woman squint, but her oval, black-framed glasses took up the battle, tinting darker against the brightness. When she glanced toward Harrow, she added a wide smile to her ensemble.

      She started toward him, and he met her halfway, next to a silver Toyota Camry that would prove to be hers.

      As she neared, her smile turned sly, and she said, “Not too often do we get a real, live TV star out here in the boonies.”

      “Waco’s hardly the boonies, Laurene.”

      “Maybe not. But I sure didn’t expect to see a Hollywood type like you turning up at a church.”

      “Outside a church. Wouldn’t want to risk lightning.” He grinned and extended a hand. “Good to see you. Really good.”

      She knocked the hand aside and gave him a big, warm hug. She smelled better than the flowers in the breeze.

      “Been too long,” Laurene said. “When was the last time, anyway?”

      He thought for a moment. “Probably that IAI conference in Dallas.”

      They were both members of the International Association for Identification, an organization made up of some seven thousand forensic investigators, examiners, techs, and analysts worldwide.

      “Doesn’t that seem like a lifetime ago,” she said.

      “Laurene, I’m sorry about Patty.”

      “I know you are. I got your flowers and the card. Meant a lot, J.C.”

      Laurene’s life partner, Patty Moore, had passed away not quite a year ago from cervical cancer.

      “I’m just sorry I couldn’t make it down here,” Harrow said.

      “It’s all right,” she said. “I know you’re a busy guy.”

      Harrow glanced around. “Can I take you for Sunday lunch or brunch or something?”

      “Sure. And I know just the place.”

      They walked two blocks to a Popeye’s Fried Chicken. She knew Harrow was a sucker for the onion rings. They shared a big basket of them and some hot wings and laughed about the prospect that food like this would kill them before some bad guy did. Seated at their little table by a window, the view obscured by restaurant adverts, they wiped off their fingers with paper napkins, and the talk turned serious, as if a switch had been thrown.

      “I should have got down here,” he said, hardly able to meet her eyes.

      “You didn’t know Patty that well.”

      “That’s not the point.”

      “What you wrote? On the card? It really did mean a lot, J.C. Hell…” She sighed, and her eyebrows flicked upward. “You understand loss better than most. But you know how it is—you shake it off, and get on with it.”

      “You do?”

      “Yeah. Sure.”

      “I, uh, checked up on you, kid. I know.”

      “You know.”

      He nodded. “I know. I know you went back to work less than two months ago.”

      “Come on, J.C. I needed time.”

      “Time to grieve.”

      “Right.”

      “I need you to level with me, Laurene.”

      “Why?”

      “We’ll get to that…if you level.”

      Laurene seemed to stare out the window, though she was really looking at a poster advertising buffalo shrimp. “I got to where I could barely get out of bed, J.C. Clinical depression, the medics call it. Damn near lost my job.”

      “Funny. I almost lost mine the other day.”

      The dark eyes sparkled. “You? How does a TV Guide cover boy almost lose his job?”

      “Haven’t you been watching the show?”

      Her half smile added up to a whole smirk. “Right, I’m gonna watch some jive-ass reality show, after I been out on the street all day and all night, busting bad guys in the flesh.”

      “Oh…well…I can under—”

      “J.C.!” Her laugher was sharp, little knife jabs of glee. “You can’t tell when I’m playin’ you? There is not a week goes by when I don’t time-delay your ass. Me skipping commercials doesn’t offend you, does it?”

      Now he laughed, embarrassed. “No. Not at all. Did you, uh…catch the show the other night?”

      “Yeah, I saw it. This is how they do the ratings now? Send the star door to door?”

      He leaned in. “Now I know you’re playing me, because, if you did see that show, you must already know why I’m here.” He locked eyes with her, and nothing jokey remained in her expression. “Laurene, I need a second-in-command. A second I can trust not to bullshit me, and let me know when I’m out of line.”

      She sipped Diet Coke through a straw; her eyes were not on his now. She was thinking.

      “You know what I’m asking, Laurene.”

      She sighed. Shrugged. “J.C., I have a job. A job I haven’t been back to for long, and probably shouldn’t risk.”

      “I don’t want you to risk anything, Laurene. But with your background and abilities, you could work anywhere. You’re damned good at what you do. But you are also underappreciated and underpaid.”

      “It’s ’cause I’m a local girl. But I like helping out where I grew up.”

      “I’m not asking you to leave Waco forever. But I am offering you a raise.”

      She stretched her arm across the table and put a finger to his lips. “I’m not worried about the money, Handsome. Long as there’s health. I learned the hard way what happens when you don’t have that kinda coverage.”

      “UBC treats its people well, far as perks go. They have a deserved rep for underpaying the help, but I will set your salary.”

      “Suppose I don’t care about coming back to Waco.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “I СКАЧАТЬ