Southeast Asians almost never use chopsticks. If you go to Vietnam or Thailand or Cambodia, you never see a chopstick. Even in the boonies. They use forks and large spoons but when they come here and...
Something about the desk bothered me. I sat and touched the keyboard. The monitors didn’t respond. They powered up when I turned them on, but the screens showed only a bright blue field. I looked unde...
So ether or starter fluid wouldn’t confuse her? Budress smiled at Maggie, and offered his hand. She sniffed, then lay down at Scott’s feet. Not this nose. If I asked you to point out the orange tents,...
She said, This isn’t so bad. Thanks. I think. The money vibe came off her like heat—the Rock & Republic jeans, the Kitson top, the Oliver Peoples shades. Cole was good at reading people, and had learn...
She opened her car door again, but still didn’t get in. Out in the street some rich kid’s Firebird with a Glaspak muffler blasted past, wrecking the calm. She said, You go to school, you work hard, yo...
She glanced at Pike again. He doesn’t look like a detective. Pike’s head moved, just enough to acknowledge he heard her. His shades were so dark, they looked like twin doors to nowhere. He considered...
Scott parked in plain view by a gnarled podocarpus tree, nose to nose with the Jeep. He tucked the suspect sketch into his pocket, got out, and went to the edge of the slope. Cole and his buddies were...
Pike moved along the side of the house, looking into each window he passed, and checking for signs of tampering. The first room appeared to be a guest bedroom, and the next was the kitchen. The bedroo...
Pike had at least four minutes inside if the breach registered at a top private security firm. The duty monitor would run a system diagnostic to make sure the alarm hadn’t been triggered by a malfunct...
Pike glanced over at her again. What’s your name? She took off her glasses and frowned at him as if he were retarded. What are you talking about? What’s your name? I don’t get it. Is this some kind of...
Pike didn’t like this business about guns. He studied her face, trying to read her. Her eyes were light brown, almost hazel, but not. A vertical line cut the skin between her eyebrows, matched by a sc...
Pike didn’t believe he would find anything, but he had to check, so he did, ignoring her. Pike had learned this with the Marines—the one time a man didn’t clean his rifle, that’s when it jammed; the o...
People often die from love, and this is a secret we all keep, even from ourselves.
Louise Earle was credible, cogent, in full command of her faculties, and did not seem to be a person who would miss seeing a cop carrying a bag of funny money through her living room. Of
Lehder was a supplier? One of the fellas who popped up when the Cali and Medellín cartels fell. Little operations popped up all over down there, maybe thirty or forty of’m. Some of’m aren’t so little...
Khat runner. Check out these teeth. Fuckers get green teeth from chewing the khat. Ain’t this green rotten? Stop
It should die down in a few days. And if it doesn’t? Truly shrugged. Enjoy the idolatry. You earned it, my friend. You really came through for us. A tall thin guy from one of the national networks yel...
If a future judge excluded the watchband, he or she might also exclude all downstream evidence derived from the band. The downstream evidence was called fruits of the poisonous tree, under the princip...
I walked away. Too bad you couldn’t get a restraining order against negativity.
I stood with Sherman, watching them go, and wondered at Jonathan Green’s lack of concern. I was thinking that maybe he was crazy, or arrogant, or brimming with the fatal flaw of hubris, but you never...