"Mercedes Lackey - Small Print" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

Small Print
Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon

Lester Parker checked the lock on the door of his cheap motel room for the
fifth time; once again, it held. He checked the drapes where he had
clothes-pinned them together; there were no cracks or gaps. He couldn't afford
to be careless, couldn't possibly be too careful. If anyone from any of the
local churches saw him—

He'd picked this motel because he knew it, frequented it when he had "personal
business," and knew that for an extra ten bucks left on the bed, the room
would be cleaned completely with no awkward questions asked. Like, was that
blood on the carpet, or, why was there black candlewax on the bureau? Although
he hadn't checked in under his own name, he couldn't afford awkward questions
the next time he returned. They knew his face, even if they didn't know his
name.

Unless, of course, this actually worked. Then it wouldn't matter. Such little
irregularities would be taken care of.

His hands trembled with excitement as he opened his briefcase on the bed and
removed the two sets of papers from it. One set was handwritten, in fading pen
on yellowed paper torn from an old spiral-bound notebook. These pages were
encased in plastic page-protectors to preserve them. The other was a brand-new
contract, carefully typed and carefully checked.

He had obtained—been given—the first set of papers less than a week ago, here
in this very motel.



He'd just completed a little "soul-searching" with Honey Butter, one of the
strippers down at Lady G's and a girl he'd "counseled" plenty of times before.
He'd been making sure that he had left nothing incriminating behind—it had
become habit—when there was a knock on the door.

Reflexively he'd opened it, only realizing when he had it partly open just
where he was, and that it could have been the cops.

But it hadn't been. It was one of Honey's coworkers with whom he also had an
arrangement; she knew who and what he really was and she could be counted on
to keep her mouth shut. Little Star DeLite looked at him from under her fringe
of thick, coarse peroxide-blonde hair, a look of absolute panic on her face,
her heavily made-up eyes blank with fear. Without a word, she had seized his
hand and dragged him into the room next door.

On the bed, gasping in pain and clutching his chest, was a man he recognized;
anyone who watched religious broadcasting would have recognized that
used-car-salesman profile. Brother Lee Willford, a fellow preacher, but a man
who was to Lester what a whale is to a sardine. Brother Lee was a