Past Due Read Online Free

why?”
    “Because I’m a sweet guy.”
    “You make it hard to want to help you, Carl.”
    “Nothing worthwhile is ever easy.”
    We stayed at the curb, me sitting, my head still in my hands, the nausea turning the edges of my vision pale, McDeiss still in his squat. We stayed there for a while until McDeiss said, “Know what I got a strange hankering for right now? Ossobuco. You ever had a great ossobuco?”
    “Do you mind? I can still smell the blood.”
    “Veal shank braised in a wine sauce till it melts at the touch. And then, at the last moment, the secret ingredient is added, the gremolata, minced garlic, chopped parsley, and a dash of lemon zest. There’s a place on Seventh that makes a killer ossobuco.”
    “Perfect for a homicide detective, I suppose.”
    “I’ll consider if the information you sought is worth pursuing.”
    “That’s all I can ask.” I paused for a moment, thought about what he had just said. “And maybe,” I continued, as if struck with a plan out of the thin of the air, “if you find something, we can discuss it over dinner.”
    “What a wonderful idea.”
    “There’s a place on Seventh Street I’ve been told about.”
    “Sounds intriguing.”
    “A little expensive, I’m sure.”
    “Yes it is,” he said, letting out a soft groan as his knees popped once again and he stood. “But worth every penny.”
    “You’ll keep me informed of what you find about Joey?”
    “Why?”
    “Professional interest.”
    “Don’t worry, Carl, one thing you can be sure of is that you’ll be hearing from me.”
    By the time I left the scene the coroner’s van had shown up, the body had been scraped off the tarmac, the arc lights taken down. The immediate scene had slipped back into the innocent darkness, but there was still the stain on the ground, still the remnants of what had been lying there not thirty minutes before. There wasn’t anything more I could do about Joey Parma’s legal problem—it’s amazing how quickly death cleanses the docket—but that didn’t mean he and I were through.

Chapter
4
    W HEN I CAME home from the crime scene I sat on the couch in my living room, too weary and sick at heart to even take off my jacket or loosen my tie. I sat in the dark, and listened to my breathing, and felt a bleak hopelessness fall about my shoulders like an old familiar cloak.
    My legal practice was failing for want of paying clients and my partner was thinking of bolting to greener pastures. My last love affair had ended badly, to say the least. I had been summoned to Traffic Court for a myriad of moving violations that were really, really not my fault. My mother, to whom I hadn’t spoken in a number of years, was drinking her life away in Arizona. My father was deathly ill, awaiting the operation that would prolong, but not save, his life. And worst of all, my cable had been cut off because I had fallen behind on my bill.
    And now Joey Parma had come to me for legal advice and had ended up dead. We had met at La Vigna, at a table in the back. His eye had been swollen, his hands had been sweaty. And at that back table, just hours before his death, Joey Cheaps had given me something. It was something I didn’t want, something I had no use for, but he had given it to me all the same. He had given me a murder.
    “This was twenty years ago,” said Joey Parma. He leaned forward, his voice was soft, he spoke out of the side of his mouth to ensure privacy. “An old buddy brought me in, told me to bring abat, sos I did. Nothing was supposed to happen. Just a little rough-up, is all. Three hundred for a rough-up. Some guy. Tommy something. I never knowed beyond that. He was coming to a pier on the river with a suitcase. There was supposed to be a boat or something waiting. But before he got to the boat we was supposed to take the suitcase. We was supposed to take the suitcase and teach the guy a lesson at the same time.
    “It was dark, deserted, cold as shit. The lights on the pier