Read An Inconsequential Murder for Free Online Page B

his overcoat’s pockets. A northerner was blowing in—his scarred shoulder told him so.
     
     
    Chapter 7 : Lombardo Visits a Laboratory
     
    Everything was white—the floor, the walls, the counters, the machines, the stools. Everything was clean, spotless, and immaculate. One could have expected the smell of formaldehyde or antiseptic but even the air was neutral, as if it too had been scoured clean.
     
    It was lunchtime so everyone had gone, but the person he was looking for was still sitting on a properly white stool at the far end of the laboratory in a space enclosed by glass walls. His white lab coat hung down nearly to the floor in a perfectly unwrinkled line. The only color on him, and in the entire place, was the light blue of his shirt’s cuffs and collar, and the light brown of his hair. His face was as pale as the counter on which sat the large, bulky microscope into which he was peering.
     
    Lombardo stood by the glass pane for a moment and then, while tapping on it, said the man’s name: “Casimiro.”
     
    “ Ah, Captain Lombardo,” said Casimiro without looking up, his voice muffled by the partition. “Your cigarette scorched voice is unmistakable. To what do I owe this disagreeable visit?”
     
    “ I need you to look at these,” said Lombardo holding up his handkerchief.
     
    Casimiro pulled his head away from the microscope and stared at the handkerchief in Lombardo’s hand. He got up and came through the pressurized door into the corridor. Without a word, he stopped in front of Lombardo and took a brief look at what Lombardo was holding.
     
    “ In my expert opinion, they are cigarette butts,” he said dryly.
     
    Lombardo ignored the sarcasm . “Casimiro, I need to know who has been smoking them.”
     
    “ Obviously not you, my friend. You only smoke the best.”
     
    “ Do I need to remind you…?”
     
    “ No, you don’t need to remind me. I know I still owe you. Leave them and I’ll see what I can do for you.”
     
    Casimiro had often told Lombardo that in his highly disciplined life, he only had one bad habit—he liked to gamble. On Saturday afternoons, as the football games were starting in Mexico, he would arrive at the Caliente betting parlor on Garza Sada Avenue, impeccably dressed in a blue blazer, gold and blue stripped silk tie, and gray trousers. He would stay there, sipping whiskey and sodas, eating very little or nothing at all, and betting heavily on every single game. During the American football season, he would do the same thing on Sundays.
     
    As he had admitted to Lombardo, he won and lost small fortunes each weekend.
     
    During a particularly bad lo sing streak, Casimiro had not gone to the Caliente betting parlor but rather to independent bookies and had bet large sums on the horse races in Tijuana in an effort to recover from his losing streak. He had gotten into an even deeper hole.
     
    When the bookie ’s bill collectors had come looking for him, Lombardo had called on some of the thugs that owed him favors to get them to back off. Casimiro had paid off his debt to the bookies but he was grateful to Lombardo for having avoided the beating Casimiro would have surely gotten.
     
    When Casimiro offered him half the money he had won in a football pool, Lombardo refused it and said that he only wanted three favors in return. He always put a number on the amount of favors he asked of someone because he believed that an open-ended obligation was comparable to blackmail or extortion.
     
    Lombardo handed Casimiro the handkerchief.
     
    “ Where do they come from?” asked Casimiro.
     
    “ Casimiro, don’t tell anyone you are doing this for me, OK? In fact, don’t tell anyone you are doing this, period.”
     
    “ Of course not. I would be fired if I did.”
     
    “ I’m not worried about your boss, I’m worried about the floosies you hang around with,” said Lombardo dryly.
     
    Casimiro laughed. “But seriously,” Lombardo continued, “I have a