Read Ting-A-Ling for Free Online

couldn’t see in. As I drove around the building I noticed someone had smashed all the glass tubes on the neon ‘CASEY’S’ sign above the entrance. With the exception of a set of tire tracks leading to the silver Mercedes parked at the back door the half acre parking lot didn’t have so much as a footprint spoiling the pristine snow cover. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and although the sun was glaring off the snow, the temperature remained a balmy minus three on the Fahrenheit scale.
    I followed the tire tracks up to the backdoor and pulled alongside the Mercedes. I think I could have fit two of the Mercedes in the trunk of my Lincoln. I climbed out and placed my hand on the sleek silver hood next to me. It was cold and had to have been sitting there for at least an hour. There was a short trail of foot prints leading to the back door marked ‘Employee’s Entrance’ . A shovel rested against the brick building and the concrete pad in front of the door looked to have been recently shoveled. Someone named Peaches had spray painted his name across the buff colored brick. Amazingly no one had bothered to steal the security camera mounted above the door.
    I pushed the buzzer and waited. I heard what sounded like distant banging from inside, then footsteps approaching from the other side of the door.
    “Who is it?” a deep voice growled from behind the metal door.
    “Dev Haskell. I’ve got a three o’clock appointment with Renee Paris.”
    There seemed to be the murmur of brief conversation coming from the other side of the door, but when it opened there was only one person standing there. I adjusted my gaze downward. Renee Paris looked a good deal shorter and a lot uglier than his driver’s license had indicated, which was a real accomplishment.
    He looked me up and down, then stuck his head outside and looked around, I guess to make sure I was alone. “Humpf,” he mumbled, then glanced around again before he closed the door behind me. The hallway was dark with the exception of some light oozing out a doorway maybe twenty feet away. Paris headed off in that direction while I attempted to let my eyes adjust from the bright outside. “You coming?” he called over his shoulder just before he walked through the lit doorway.
    I hurried to catch up and entered an industrial kitchen area. There were at least half a dozen, large aluminum caldrons sitting on a massive stove over low burners. Each caldron was partially covered by a flat, metal lid slid halfway across the top. The caldrons looked to hold about five gallons and something was slowly bubbling in each one. You could just make out the sound of a soft boil, like a distant brook rippling. The scent was rich, almost tangy and my mouth began to immediately water.
    A large metal table, maybe ten feet long stood alongside the stove and was littered with cooking debris. Onion skins, garlic skins, empty spice containers, a couple empty flats that had apparently held tomatoes and empty packages of butter and brown sugar were scattered all over. Large, sharp chef’s knives with black handles and white plastic cutting boards lay amidst the mess.
    Opposite the stove was a long aluminum sink with water running out of the tap and a cloud of steam rising up off a stack of industrial sized frying pans. The sink gurgled and there was a half filled bucket beneath it on the floor catching a steady drip from the drain.
    “So?” Paris said accusingly, like I was already wasting his time. He leaned back against the metal table, folded his arms across his chest and sized me up. Apparently charm wasn’t his strong suit.
    “Mr. Paris.”
    He gave a single cold nod, like a cop or a pissed off school principal. I felt like I was standing before him having to ask forgiveness for somehow being foolish and growing taller than he was.
    “Mind if I call you Renee?”
    He shrugged, then said, “Whatever,” sounding like he really couldn’t be bothered. His attitude rankled me. A