A Marked Man. Stella Cameron

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      “Okay by me,” Max said, jiggling the chair while Bobby made a grab at his shirt and got off a weak blow to the belly. “Do that again and you’ll be there a long time. What’s on your mind about Annie? Spit it out and let’s get it over with.” Suddenly, with a force that stole his breath, he wanted to rattle the creep’s teeth. “She doesn’t say anything negative about anyone, so what’s your problem?”

      “Whooee! That pretty girl got to you. She’s the first woman I loved, the only one, that’s my problem. Now she’s behaving like she can’t even see me. That’s also my problem.”

      “Then get lost. She’s not interested in you.”

      “I’ll get out when I’m ready. Annie Duhon owes me and she knows it. There’s things you can’t set right, but you can try.”

      Max began to haul the man and his chair upright.

      “You should have made it with her when she was sixteen,” Bobby jabbered and grinned. “Man, she was something else.”

      Max let the chair sag again. “That was what? Thirteen years ago? You’d better get a life and move on.”

      “I gotta life and I like where I am. All I want is a little respect. I suffered. And I helped her out big-time, too. But seeing her around here lookin’ like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth is something I can’t take. My folks never forgave me for bein’ with her. She’s dirty, that one. Soiled.”

      He would drop the man on the floor and beat the crap out of him. Max felt it coming.

      “She’s soiled,” Bobby yelped. “But I’m still gonna take her back. I’ll forgive her because she was young and adults interfered. I was an adult, too, but they didn’t let that count.”

      “Are you telling me you were over eighteen and having sex with a minor?”

      “Drop the fancy talk,” Bobby all but screamed at him. “I know why she’s afraid to let on she still loves me. I’m not talkin’ about that. But I am counseling you to find fresh meat.”

      “I think I’m going to kill you,” Max said, deadly quiet.

      Max let go of Bobby’s shoulders and he crashed to the floor, the back of the chair splintering around him. As he fell, his head slammed into the counter.

      “Tell Ellie I’ll be by to settle up on this chair,” Max said to Wazoo, stepping over Bobby who scrambled to extricate himself and rubbed his head at the same time. “And you didn’t hear a word he said here. Got that?”

      “You can bet your pride and joy I do,” she replied. She set a small pistol on the counter and crossed her arms.

      Chapter Nine

      Rather than turn right as soon as he was outside Hungry Eyes and appear to follow Annie, Max went to the left. He walked briskly, not so much as glancing at his car when he passed. Bobby wasn’t sitting near the windows and there was a good chance he had no idea the Boxster belonged to Max. The car was better where it was while he circled out of the square. He went around the block to look for a rear access to the dead-end alley beside Joe Gable’s law offices.

      He wasn’t about to accept an obscene attack on Annie. He didn’t believe Bobby, but he did think the man should be watched. Maybe what had been said would come up when Max reached Annie—if he did. Maybe it wouldn’t. Her safety was his main concern, that and getting an explanation for what really happened on that piece of land in St. Martinville.

      When he felt it was safe, he called Spike and asked him to have an officer check on Wazoo at Hungry Eyes. He kept the explanation short, but did mention Wazoo’s pistol.

      He could leave the square without being seen from the café. That was the easy part. Finding and entering the alley from the blind side wasn’t so easy. When he did reach a spot where he could see the backs of Hungry Eyes, the Gables’ house and Joe’s offices on the other side of the alley, a tall brick wall confronted him and he figured out that it enclosed a stonemasons’ yard between him and the back entrance he needed to reach.

      At least there shouldn’t be anyone on the masons’ premises. He hoped.

      After backing off to get a run at the wall, Max sprinted and leaped to grip the coping on top. He thought he might fall back but his sneakers found purchase on the bricks and he crawled up until he could sit on the wall. In the murky area on the other side, he made out close-packed stacks of stone slabs.

      He couldn’t get it out of his head that Bobby might decide to go after Annie.

      Peering into the darkness, Max let himself down on the other side of the wall and found his way across the crowded lot to another wall on the other side.

      Once again he squared off, jumped and hunkered down on top. Bingo. Hungry Eyes stood to his left with the section that contained two apartments on the upper floor, one Annie’s, the other empty, stretching back at a rightangle.

      A small guesthouse, tucked into the corner of the rambling garden, looked empty and the Gables’ house was also in darkness.

      He heard a door fly open behind him. Over his shoulder, at one end of the workshop, he saw a rectangle of light at the end of the masons’ building with the dark shadow of someone standing there, peering around the stonemasons’ yard. He should have considered the possibility of a guard in the building.

      Max slowly flattened his body on the wall.

      His heart thundered.

      He didn’t need to be apprehended while climbing into Annie’s backyard at night.

      “There ain’t no way out,” a gruff voice called and the man in the doorway stepped into the yard. “Put your hands up and walk into the light.” The figure raised a weapon and Max rolled his eyes. Obviously the man had heard movement outside but he hadn’t seen Max, or anyone else. If an intruder were armed and desperate he would have a clear shot at the guard.

      Slithering as quietly as he could, Max dropped onto soft earth on the other side of the wall and ran swiftly, hunched over, beside a wooden fence that closed the garden off from the alley. He didn’t have to go farther than the gate for the information he needed. Through a gap in the slats he could see a dull shine on the hood of Annie’s Volvo.

      Before he could change his mind, Max went to the door below a single illuminated window in the upstairs apartments and knocked lightly. She’d never hear that. He rang the bell and winced at its grating buzz.

      This time he waited, staring at his feet, one hand braced against the door. He strained for any sound from inside but there was nothing—until a cat meowed. Max smiled to himself. Even if Annie wouldn’t come down for him, she still might feel she wanted to get the cat.

       Don’t say good night, Irene. Don’t you run up those stairs.

      If Annie did come for the cat, surely she wouldn’t ignore Max at the door. He had to be clearly visible through amber glass panes in the top half.

      Ten minutes later he gave up on Irene saving him and rang the bell once more. He’d allowed for all of this and sworn he wouldn’t leave until he saw Annie. He pressed his right forefinger into the bell and СКАЧАТЬ