Read Witness To Kill (Change Of Life Book 1) for Free Online Page B

makin’ us take this . . what’d they call it . . . sensitivity trainin’. Jest a lotta public relations, y’ask me. Then after 911, everthin’
    got worse. Them feds come in . . . thinkin’ they run everthin’. Talk about not
    knowin’ right from wrong . . . them letter boys—”
    He stopped and smiled at her with a trace of embarrassment.
    “Don’t know why I’m ramblin’ on so much.”
    He continued in a brighter tone.
    “Got my girl, though, and my grandson like I said. Could
    spend some more time with ‘em I s’pose.”
    After a few more quiet steps he shook his head and added
    softly, “Doubt those youngn’s need this old dinosaur ‘round that much, ya
    know?”
    Without thinking about it, in a motion that felt supremely
    natural, she slipped her hand through the crook of his arm like he was her dad.
    “I’ll bet you’d be surprised about that.”
    Walking with the rumpled cop down one of the most dangerous
    streets on earth, Mary felt a moment’s respite, felt better than she could
    remember feeling since biking through the night air the night her roommate was
    brutally murdered. They stopped talking and tread over sidewalks that dropped
    toward the river, shaded by canopies supported by white and black curled iron
    lace.
    “So . . . Sherry! Sherry! My man!” An old black man sang out
    in a kidding voice. He talked while wiping the frosted glass of a door propped
    open by a bar stool. She could smell last night’s cigarettes and alcohol in the
    cold air spilling from the murky interior, piano notes plinked the same high
    key as the man’s voice.
    “‘Bout time, old boy! ‘Bout time! Gonna introduce me to that
    pretty little thing?”
    Sherry’s face brightened and he dismissed the man with a
    friendly shake of his head and smirk. They walked on and Mary could smell the
    bricks as shopkeepers hosed and swept outside their store-fronts, others bent
    over chalk-boards scrawling the day’s come-ons or arranging bouquets aimed to
    first capture the eyes and noses of the tourist hordes walking the Quarter’s
    uneven old walks—then to capture their money.
    “I ‘member readin’ in one’a the guidebooks they got fer down
    here,” Sherry continued, gesturing like a tour guide as they passed a knot of
    young women in shorts and t-shirts smoking and talking on a stoop.
    “Said the whole story ‘bout the success down here’n the
    Quarter’s pretty simple and always has been. It’s all ‘bout whettin’ people’s
    appetites . . . you know, whettin’ their natural appetites.”
    He nodded and grinned mischievously back toward where the
    girls were still gabbing in the sun. The afternoon’s frank light disclosed a
    waxy fatigue in the day faces of the night-girls, faces lacking the leaven of
    make-up, absent the veil of glamour and mystery waiting to cloak them like a
    healing fog with the coming curtain of night.
    “Then feedin’ ‘em.”
    “Sherry! Monsier Sherry!” In the next block a woman who
    looked like she could have been Mrs. Cloutier’s sister motioned a bouquet of
    red and yellow daisies at Mary from between a pair of saloon doors. “Prendre
    ces . . . s’il vous plaiit . . . por la belle mademoiselle.”
    He grinned and shook his head, touching the homburg with a
    two fingered salute of thanks. “Quarter usta be my beat, ya know.”
    He looked around proudly. As they strolled on he exchanged
    greetings and jokes, turned down small gifts and offers of hospitality like a
    popular local politician, like a giver of things . He gestured at points
    of interest and related little stories about the people and the area. The humor
    in the anecdotes came mostly at his own expense.
    “Spent mosta my cop career down here since I was a rookie,
    mosta my life actually, ya know? Then them feds moved in and set up shop.” He
    coughed bitterly. “Then I got farmed out to homicide. Spent mosta my life down
    here with these people.” He shrugged philosophically. “Course it’s