Broken by Matthew Storm Page B

unsurprised that it turned out to be next to nothing. I was going
to have to settle for instant soup again. I put the water on to boil and made
myself a cup.
    I sipped
the soup as I plotted my next move. I needed to talk to Alan Davies. If he
didn’t know his family had been abducted, he needed to know. If he knew that
already, we were going to have a discussion about how telling lies has
consequences.
    Something
wasn’t sitting right with me, though. I thought about it as I sipped the soup.
I had the feeling I was missing a big old obvious clue somewhere, but my brain
was too fogged from alcohol abuse to work out what it was. I sighed. I’d figure
it out eventually. I almost always did.
    I
finished up the soup, fairly certain I’d be able to keep it down. I’d pick up
something more solid later on. It would be a nice change for my system, having
the chance to digest real food.
    Alan
Davies’s card was still in my pocket. I took it out and looked at the number,
then put it away. I wasn’t going to do this by phone. I’d go see him in person.
    My
clothes didn’t smell all that great, but I didn’t see much point in changing
them. I didn’t have anything else that was cleaner. I’d get some laundry done
one of these days. Or maybe I’d just burn all of my clothes and buy new ones.
That might actually be a better idea.
    Outside
I saw that the police had put up yellow crime scene tape around my yard. One
more thing for me to clean up, but it could wait. Todd’s Lincoln had been towed
away sometime during the night. I wondered if Davies knew about the hit yet. I
imagined it would have raised some questions when Todd didn’t show up for work
this morning. Or, more likely, Dan had called him last night and torn Davies a
new asshole.
    I had
just put the key in the Mustang’s ignition when I decided I wasn’t ready to see
Davies yet. That weird crying jag had been disturbing. I needed to see someone
else first.
    Pacific
Beach, or PB as it was known to the locals, was about ten minutes north of my
house on surface streets. PB was a place full of tourist bars, aging hippies, and
grifters. I had no use for it, but the person I needed to see would probably be
up there this morning. If she wasn’t, her staff would be able to tell me where
to find her.
    Molly
Malone’s dojo sat in a small strip mall about a block from the beach. The rent
on the place must have been astronomical, but I knew she operated the dojo at a
small financial loss. Molly had made a small fortune in her therapist’s
practice, and later as a self-help author. She ran this place out of her love
for karate, not to make a profit.
    I
spotted her standing in a corner of the dojo when I stepped inside. Molly stood
at exactly five feet tall and might have weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet,
provided she was also wearing an overcoat that was soaking wet. She was
speaking with a lanky man in a Hawaiian shirt and a scarlet-haired woman in a
leather jacket. That reminded me I had a leather jacket just like it hanging in
my closet at home. I could wear that one instead of the one with the bullet
hole in the arm. That might save me some awkward glances later.
    Molly
spotted me and her eyes lit up. She said goodbye to her visitors and came over
to see me. I braced myself for the hug I knew was coming. People just couldn’t
stop hugging me these days.
    She held
on to me for a moment and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “You look awful,”
she said, pulling back to frown at me.
    “Nice to
see you, too,” I said. I nodded at her guests. “Am I interrupting?”
    “No,”
she said. She smiled gently at the man in the Hawaiian shirt as he passed by on
his way to the door, the redhead trailing behind him. The man smiled sheepishly
back at her.
    “What
was that about?” I asked.
    “He
asked if I knew any place they could buy some good seafood.”
    I
winced. “First time you’ve heard that one?”
    “It’s
not the first time I’ve heard that one this