I looked at my cell phone. Buford had called. I punched the redial button. He answered right away.

“Sanford called,” Buford said. “He says you got your Army problem cleared up,” he said.

“Yes, I did with his help. I can’t thank you guys enough.”

“You earned it. I’ve got to clear out of here. The mob knows where I live and who I am now. Hell, the whole fucking world knows who I am and what I look like. Reporters and cameras all over the place.”

“Maybe Sanford can shoo them off.”

“Yeah. Well, anyway, I’m out of here. Want to buy a mansion? Real estate’s way down.”

“Where will you go?”

“Offshore. I can run my business just as easily from some island. I never did get face-to-face with most of my clients anyway. And Serena can get that year-round tan she’s always wanted.”

“And you can be closer to your money.”

“Right.” He laughed for the second time since we’d met. “Thanks for everything, Stan. If I ever need somebody found, I’ll call. Do I owe you any money?”

“No. We’re good. Keep in touch.”

There goes my perpetual retainer, I thought. I knew it was too good to be true.

I didn’t want to get drunk tonight, so I paced myself and used the time to update the files on the Overbee case. There were no files on the Jeremy Pugh case, it being a personal matter, so I wrote entries in my journal to capture for posterity all the relevant times and events. Maybe I’ll write a book some day.

Chapter 31  

I got home at about nine o’clock. I was hungry. A pizza slice or something edible might be in the freezer. I had a surprise waiting.

Bunny sat on the stoop in front of my door, a big grocery bag on the sidewalk next to her. She gave me that doe-eyed look. I knew she was playing me, and it was working.

“Can I come in?”

“What for?” I wasn’t about to give in right away. I intended to be strong.

“I brought groceries. I can fix you some supper.”

Strong, my ass. I am one weak son-of-a-bitch. The combination of the woman I want and a home-cooked meal was too much. My resolve collapsed.

“Come on in,” I said with a heavy sigh.

We went into my apartment, and I tossed the cane in a corner and collapsed on the couch.

“I’ve had a day,” I said.

“You can tell me about it after I get this going.”

She took a bottle of wine out of the grocery bag and opened it. Wine? I don’t drink wine. But my only jug of bourbon was at the office. So, I lit a cigarette and sipped the wine.

She unloaded the rest of the groceries. “I thought you quit smoking.”

“Not in months with an ‘R’.”

She got supper going on the stove and came over, pushed me onto my side against the back of the sofa, stretched out beside me, and began unbuttoning my shirt. She took the burned-down cigarette out of my mouth and stamped it out in the ashtray. The kiss she followed up with was to die for.

“The Spoiler,” I said.

“What?”

I said under my breath, “Two stones that pass in the night.”

“What?”

“Nothing, Bunny. Just thinking out loud.”

“Now you can tell me about your day,” she said, cuddling up and kissing my chest.

“Oh, nothing special,” I said. “Just your typical boring, routine day in the life of a private investigator.”

I lit my last cigarette ever and settled in.

From the Author

Thank you for reading On the Street Where You Die, the first in the Stanley Bentworth Mysteries series.

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Al Stevens, 2015

About the Author

Al Stevens is a retired author of computer programming books. For fifteen years he was a senior contributing editor and columnist for Dr. Dobb?s Journal, a leading magazine for computer programmers.

Al lives with his wife Judy and a menagerie of cats on Florida?s Space Coast where he writes by day and plays piano, string bass, and saxophone by night.