THE NEXT MORNING Max woke up with the phone ringing in his ears.
It was Joe. He was all apologies. He said he’d been too busy to work on the stuff Max had asked for.
Max told him he needed to talk to Clyde Beeson. Joe said that was the main reason he was calling.
Beeson had been found dead in his trailer. Forensics estimated he’d been there at least two weeks. His pit bull had eaten away one leg and was working on the second when the cops had broken down the door. Although the postmortem report had yet to confirm it, it looked like suicide. Beeson had opted out with his Magnum.
Max took the news quietly, bitterly disappointed that he hadn’t had a chance to have a detailed talk with Beeson about the case that had ruined his life.
He wasn’t surprised that Beeson had died bad. He’d had it coming. He’d scored impressive results and made a small fortune off the back of them, but he’d pissed off a lot of people along the way; Max had been one of them, Joe another. He’d come within a hair of ruining their lives. They’d come within a hair of killing him.
Max had loathed and despised him.
“Anything you want to say about the late Clyde Beeson?” Joe asked.
“Yeah. Adiós, motherfucker.”