Read The Manipulated (Joe Portugal Mysteries) for Free Online Page A

plant life in Madagascar, a significant element in a couple of my murder escapades. Leafing through, I’d come across a piece on cosmology, replete with theories about the universe and how it started and how it would end. It said there might be an infinite number of universes, each varying from the next by one little event or condition …
    Maybe there was one where Donna’s trip to China had gone exactly as planned. And maybe if I messed with the one I was in, somehow I’d screw up that other one and make things worse there.
    I’d had enough trouble dealing with one universe. Now I had billions to obsess about. Good going, Portugal.
     
    Next morning when I called, Alberta Burns was home, and she had a craving for pancakes.
    We met at the IHOP on Manchester Boulevard in Inglewood. They seated us at a corner table. Burns let the waitress pour coffee. I asked for tea. I received a pot of tepid water and a basket of teabags. I picked out an English Breakfast, removed it from its packet, started examining it.
    “What the hell are you doing?” Burns said.
    “Looking at the leaves.”
    “You’re supposed to get them wet before you tell fortunes.”
    I dropped the bag in my cup. I made sure the coast was clear, unpacketed another bag, ripped it open. “This stuff is like powder,” I said.
    “So?”
    “It’s the dregs of the dregs.”
    “Have coffee, then.”
    The waitress passed by, saw what I was doing, shook her head.
White people
.
    “Portugal,” Burns said.
    “Hmm?” I’d dumped the tea into my saucer and was poking it with my fork.
    “Does whatever you want from me have anything to do with your science project?”
    I pushed the whole thing aside and launched into the Donna Lennox story. By the time I was done, our food was there. When I finished, Burns told me—for the third or fourth time—that I was out of my mind.
    “Probably,” I said.
    “People misidentify people,” she said. “Trust me on this. I’ve interviewed dozens, probably hundreds of witnesses who swore they saw someone somewhere and turned out to be wrong. And ninety-nine percent of them were a lot closer than all the way across Staples Center.”
    “You’re probably right.”
    “Will you stop saying ‘probably’? Next time I’m going to whack you one.”
    “So you’re not going to help me.”
    She took a sip of coffee, made a face, put the cup down. “Even if you weren’t chasing wild geese here, you’re forgetting that I don’t work for LAPD anymore.”
    “And the minute you left the force, all your contacts there went up in smoke.”
    “A lot of them did.”
    “Fine.”
    “Fine?”
    “Yeah, fine. I just thought I’d ask.”
    “You have something up your sleeve, don’t you?”
    “Who, me?”
    “I can read you like a book, Portugal.”
    “Let’s change the subject. Tell me about your script.”
    “Why do I have the feeling I’m about to be manipulated here?”
    “Go ahead. Tell me. Last I heard, you and your partner, what was his name?”
    “Paul Witten.”
    “Right, you and Paul Witten, you had this idea for a TV show. All about a woman on the police force, written with all the authority a veteran of … how many years was it?”
    “Twelve.”
    “All the authority a twelve-year veteran of the force can muster. This Paul Witten guy, he’s pretty good, is he?”
    “Yeah. Hell of a writer. Portugal—”
    “But never had anything produced. Which means he doesn’t have any more contacts in Hollywood than you do.”
    “You shithead.”
    “You know, they could use a show like that. I mean, what was the last show about a lady cop on the streets? Sure, they have women on
NYPD Blue
, but everyone knows it’s really about Sipowicz and whoever his partner happens to be that season. No, there hasn’t been anything like that since that Angie Dickinson thing
Police Woman
, has there? And I always had the feeling it wasn’t exactly realistic.”
    “I say again: you shithead.”
    “Have I mentioned Donna