Summer Cool - A Jack Paine Mystery (Jack Paine Mysteries) by Al Sarrantonio

sighed. "Maybe this will help. You knew I'd tell you, anyway." He looked at Paine. "Looks like your friend's going around the mountain. Seems he thought he was doing his business in Cambodia for the old red, white, and blue, but in fact his little covert operation was unauthorized." Rader's stare was trying to make Paine give up. "Looks like he couldn't handle that, Jack, knowing he did the wrong thing for the wrong reason."
    "Thanks, Billy."
    "Jesus Christ! Don't you see the big picture? Mr. Clean Marine found out he was dirty and couldn't take it! That's all there is!"
    "Maybe," Paine said.
    "What are you going to do now?"
    "Find out why he's in Tucson."
    "Christ!" Rader stomped his foot like an angry horse, looked back at Paine. He reached into his pocket, took out a slip of paper.
    "Here," he said, handing it to Paine.
    Paine looked at it; on it was a name and address.
    Billy Rader said quietly, "That's the other guy in his unit. My friend at the Pentagon gave it to me."
    "Thanks."
    "You're an asshole, Jack." Rader began to walk away. "I'm gonna have me another look at that big telescope, then I'm going home. If you want anything, don't call me."
    He stopped, turned and smiled. "Go ahead and call me, Jack."
    "I will, Billy."

21
     
    T he address turned out to be a jewelry store on the edge of Tucson, an ornate little house at the end of a cluster of houses that stood out because there was a sign over the front door that said, “Enrique Quinones, Jeweler,” and because the house itself was painted turquoise blue. The trim was painted in silver, which made the place look like a large, square piece of Indian jewelry.
    When Paine asked for Quinones inside, saying, "Bob Petty sent me," the woman he asked, a walking advertisement for the place, with black hair pulled back and knotted, dark skin, almond eyes, Indian turquoise jewelry around her neck and on her ears and hands, said, "Sure, wait a minute," and went into the back. Paine stood in what should have been the living room, but which had been turned into a showroom, with glass cases, wall shelves with fluorescent lighting above them, a counter with a cash register, Navajo rugs on the floor. Easy listening music floated out from speakers behind the counter. An air conditioner purred softly in one window. Paine smelled Chinese food cooking somewhere in the back of the house.
    Quinones came out, holding a .44 Magnum at arm's length pointed at Paine. "Into the back," he said.
    Paine went in front of him, down a short hallway past the kitchen, where the saleswoman stood in the doorway looking at the two of them with alarm. Behind her, on the stove, a wok loaded with vegetables steamed.
    "Go out front, Maria, and take care of things," Quinones said.
    "But—"
    "Just go."
    She went, slowly, looking back at them.
    "Keep walking," Quinones said to Paine.
    They passed a bathroom, a closed door, a linen closet. At the end of the hallway was an open door into a dim room and Quinones pushed Paine ahead of him into it.
    There was a chair by the far window, and Quinones turned Paine, frisked him, and then sat him down in it. "Don't move your hands," he said. "Keep them on your lap or I'll blow your head off."
    Paine said, "You like Chinese food?"
    "Shut up," Quinones said, and then he jerked his hand forward, raising the butt of the Magnum, and hit Paine hard on the side of the head.
    When Paine came back, he heard voices. He was on a low cot or mattress on the floor, on his side, his hands tied behind him, trussed to his bound feet. It was almost dark. The side of his head he had been hit on faced the mattress, and it hurt.
    Someone snapped a light on in the next room, and Paine saw the outline of light around the door. He heard voices though the door, muffled but audible.
    "Why don't you just go away?" Quinones was saying. He sounded scared.
    There was a laugh, which sounded like Bob Petty's. "Sure," was Petty's reply.
    "I don't like it," Quinones said.
    Petty laughed again, a