Big Money (Austin Carr Mystery) by Jack Getze

tingles with the sensation of being watched.
     
     
    Maximilian Zakowsky
    Max squeezes into the shotgun seat of Jerry’s rumbling new silver Corvette. Max’s knees stretch the dashboard. His right shoulder bends the door glass. He feels like stick of gum in a shiny metal wrapper.
    Max contorts his upper body to reach the window button, uses his hand to tug on his left leg, squashing his nuts to make room for Jerry to work the Corvette’s floor-mounted gear shift.
    “Let’s steal a car quick,” Max says. “A big one.”
    Jerry guns the loud V-8 engine, racing the car’s four hundred horse powers like a NASCAR driver. Or a kid with a new toy. Max has known Jerry four years now and each one is the same. Fast cars and faster women. Only thing new is fancier suits and the big diamond earring Jerry wears since he started playing golf with those ex-pro football players.
    “You see something with New York plates, holler,” Jerry says. “Otherwise, I know a good spot on the other side of the tunnel.”
    Max points with his left hand, his index finger touching the Corvette’s windshield. “Pull into the bus lot one mile ahead, right by entrance to Parkway. Many New York cars park there. People take bus to Atlantic City casinos.”
    “Yeah? All right, let’s try it. Look for a Lincoln Town Car or a Caddy, some snazzy wheels. The chef at this place cooks for gourmets at the James Beard House.”
    Max grunts.
    “What’s the matter?” Jerry says. Jerry points the Corvette’s shiny silver nose toward the Garden State Parkway. The road rushes past like a black river of individual rocks, the sports car so close to the ground. Cold wind stings Max’s face.
    “Come on, Max. I know you. What’s the matter?”
    “We should hide, wait for this mark in his bedroom,” Max says.
    “The boss’s way is better.”
    “No mistakes when I catch the mark by surprise,” Max says.
    Jerry glances at him. “What the hell are you worried about? Not that bartender’s lucky kick?”
    Max breathes deeply. “Bartender was quick like a cat. Only a little lucky.”
    “Nothing like that ever happened before. A freaking fluke is what that was.”
    Maybe Jerry is right. “Is true. Max only get knocked down twice in whole life.”
    Jerry brakes at a red light, hits the right turn signal. Click-click. Click-click. The bus parking lot is just across the street. Max will be much happier in a bigger car. So will Max’s nuts.
    “I bet the other time you got laid out was from an elephant,” Jerry says.
    Max says nothing. Elephants usually nice. It was a big cat that brought Max to his knees many years earlier. A mean , smelly lion named Victor.
     
     

 
    TWENTY-ONE
     
    At the two-gas-station corner of Broad Street and Willow, a black or midnight-blue new Lincoln Town Car matches my turn. When I straighten out and accelerate, the Lincoln’s wide headlights perfectly mimic my Camry’s modest speed, holding exactly half-a-block back. Like I was towing the puppy.
    We’re traveling north on Highway 35, but I’m guessing my Friday evening just turned south.
    Figures I’m being followed. In two weeks’ time, Austin Carr has seen two lifetimes worth of threatened financial ruin, fights, beatings, fires, assaults and murder. Not to mention interrogations, accusations and obfuscations. I’ve been betrayed, befuddled and bewildered. Of course I’m being followed.
    I slide the Toyota over a lane and lock the doors. For the umpteenth time since Mr. Vic sailed for Tuscany and Walter sold my friendship for half a million dollars, I ask myself how violence and disaster so easily entered my life? Potential injury or death, a nonexistent love life and looming bankruptcy stalk my good humor like a trio of vultures.
    Just before the next intersection, I flip the wheel hard left, ducking in front of oncoming traffic and bouncing the Camry into a Burger King. A triple beef, triple cheese sounds awful, but I need a place to hide.
    All four of the