Breacher (Tom Keeler Book 2) by Jack Lively (reading well TXT) 📕

maybe half a minute to elbow and shoulder my way through. Not too fast so that I drew attention. Not too slow that I’d be blocked by a bunch of intransigent bearded men. Just fast enough to cut through quietly to the other side. Once clear, I looked over to the opening. I was in time to see a flash of blonde turning the corner. A guy was following her, coil tube earpiece curling from his ear to his collar.

The blonde woman had Amber Chapman’s distinctive profile.

Forty-Two

Chapman looked different all dressed up. She had makeup on and was wearing a deep blue satin dress that hugged her figure, making the most of slim curves. Her hair was combed and shiny and pleated into layers, different than the last time I had seen her being ducked into a Port Morris police department cruiser.

I came around the corner and there were two options. One was a hole in the concrete wall leading to an outdoor area, smelling of barbecue. The other was the bathroom. No men’s room, no women’s room, just one room. A large enclosure with stalls on either side. The guy who had followed Chapman was standing at the door. A steady flow of bearded customers moved in and out of the stalls, beer soaked bodies either relieved or in need of relief, either hustling in with short steps on tight legs, or coming out, loose limbed and ready for more Alaskan.

I entered just in time to see Chapman closing the door to a stall halfway down the left side of the room. The guy at the door was openly examining everyone coming through it. I blanked him and went straight in. I tried the door next to Chapman’s but it was locked. A guy came out of the one just over, two stalls down from Chapman. I slipped in behind him, closed and latched the door.

The stall was thick plywood, sturdy and tall. But not quite tall enough to reach all the way. A three-foot gap remained between the top of the wall and the ceiling. I didn’t waste time contemplating my action, I guess I had already done that in the back of my mind. I stepped up on the toilet. From there it was only a short hop to get my hands gripping the top edge of the partition. I pulled myself up and over. Only took a second. Then I was rolling over the edge, high up. Gripping the partition with my knee and my arm and hand. Balanced up there like an acrobat. I could see down into the next stall, but not over into the room. Which was a good thing, because it meant the hard guy at the door couldn’t see me either.

The guy sitting on the toilet had a good-sized bald patch on the top of his head. I could see a beard below a reddened drinker’s nose. His remaining hair was thin and long, the strands pulled back into an aspirational pony tail. I swung down so that my legs were right above him, hands gripping either side of the stall. He had his pants around his ankles and wore a biker’s leather vest over a blue and white flannel shirt. The leather vest made a perfect landing spot for my feet. I said, “Don’t freak out, but I’m going to use your shoulders as a trampoline.”

The guy jerked and looked up at me. But, by then I had both boots on his shoulder. I said, “Hold strong and keep your mouth shut.” He sat up straight, on command. A real trooper. I used the guy’s shoulders to bounce up again, gripping the other side of the stall. Like before, I gripped the top edge and rolled over so that I was balanced up there, peering down into the next stall.

Chapman was below me, unaware. She was crouched in front of the toilet, fiddling with something. It was a piece of white paper, and she was folding it over into a tiny little package, pressing it with her fingers. She slipped the wadded paper into the narrow gap where flush tank meets wall.

Like a secret message.

And the first thought I had was that it might be for me. But the thought after that discarded the first and found it naïve and ridiculous, of course it was not a message for me. For all Chapman knew I was still in jail. I watched her finish the job of hiding her little message. She pulled her hand back and turned around.

I wanted to think about what I had just seen, but it wasn’t the proper time for thinking.

I leapt down, like some kind of jungle predator. Aiming to land just in front of her, clear of the door. Chapman was startled, which was not surprising. Anyone would have been startled, unless they were blind and deaf and even then, the vibrations might have freaked them out.

But most people would have been startled to the point of blind panic, what we call condition black, like a deer in the headlights. Shivering and shaking and recoiling. Maybe climbing up on the toilet in fear, like she had done way back in the Porterhouse Bar, when the bearded giant had attacked her. But not this time. This time, Chapman jerked up from a crouched position. But not innocently, like a surprised civilian in condition black. It was a practiced move. Meaning practiced in heels, not in combat boots. She came up with intent and aggression, like a trained fighter in condition orange, full awareness and knowledge, body reacting from repetition and drill.

Chapman hinged at the waist, transferring weight from her right heel up through her lithe body until the fist was coming at my throat with enough snap to take down a sumo wrestler. I couldn’t tell if she was going for the trachea or the carotid. Either way, Chapman was acting with intent, hair swinging into her face, obscuring her vision. The fist was