Cliff Walk: A Liam Mulligan Novel by Bruce DeSilva Page A

you hold the leash.”
    Sensing his opportunity, Brady started pulling again. Each time he did, I grabbed the leash to stop him from dragging Peggi down the sidewalk, and she repeated the series of commands I’d shown her. Before long, Brady was walking nicely with her, too.
    “How do you know so much about dogs?” she asked.
    “I studied up a few years ago when my wife and I bought a Portuguese water dog pup that I named Rewrite,” I said. “When we broke up, she didn’t want him, and with my crazy hours I couldn’t take care of him. Had to give him away. I really miss that crazy little guy.”
    Our walk had taken us back down Thayer Street. As we passed Andréas, I suggested we pop in for a drink.
    “What about Brady?”
    “We’ll take him in with us.”
    “I don’t think they allow animals.”
    “They make an exception for service dogs,” I said.
    I pulled sunglasses from my pocket, slid them on, gripped Brady’s leash six inches from his collar, and groped toward the bar door. Inside, the maître d’ took me by the elbow and led us to a booth. As we settled in, Brady scooted under the table, rolled over on his back, and started tugging on my shoestrings. When the waiter came, I gave him a Stevie Wonder head bob and remembered not to read the menu. We ordered, and within a few minutes he returned with a Samuel Adams for Peggi, a club soda for me, and a raw hamburger patty with water on the side for Brady.
    “So,” she said, “are you really this nice, or are you trying to pick me up?”
    “Neither. The truth is, I’m working, Peggi. I need your help. I’ve got some questions about your boss.”
    “Oh.”
    “Yeah.”
    She stared at me for a moment before saying, “You really do like Brady, though, right?”
    “Sure do. I like his owner, too.”
    “Why are you interested in my boss?”
    “I think he might be involved in something bad, Peggi.”
    “How bad?”
    “The kind of bad that rapists and murderers look down on.”
    “Oh, my God!”
    “I could be wrong about this. All I’ve got so far are suspicions.”
    “And you want to know if I can confirm them?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Well, I can’t. I mean, I always thought he was a little creepy, but nothing like that.”
    “Do you have access to his computer?”
    “His office desktop, sure.”
    “Does he have a laptop?”
    “He does. He usually carries it around with him, but sometimes he forgets and leaves it in the office.”
    “Do you think you could look through his computer files without getting caught?”
    She fell silent for a moment, thinking it over. “I guess I could,” she said. “What would I be looking for?”
    “Video.”
    “What kind of video?”
    “You’ll know when you see it.”
    Peggi checked her watch. “The office is empty now,” she said. “We could go over there and take a look.”
    “I probably shouldn’t go with you, Peggi. If someone walked in on us, you could say you were working late, but my presence would be hard to explain.”
    “Okay.”
    “Here’s my card,” I said. “Call me if you find something.”

 
    14
    That evening, I stretched out on my Salvation Army mattress and cracked open the new Michael Connelly novel to see how Harry Bosch would solve his latest caper. Maybe I’d learn something I could use. Wouldn’t be the first time.
    My apartment was on the second floor of a crumbling three-story tenement house in the city’s Italian section of Federal Hill. It wasn’t much, but since my breakup with Dorcas, it was all I could afford. Besides, I felt at home in this working-class neighborhood of store clerks, hairdressers, and bus drivers raising big, close families. People here had a history of keeping their priorities straight. In 1933, Federal Hill voted to repeal Prohibition by a total of 2,005 to 3.
    Angela Anselmo, the single mom who lived in the apartment across the hall, was cooking something spicy again tonight, the aroma seeping through the inch-wide crack at the bottom of my