“Emily Braddock Carton!” he shouted. “What’s going on?”
“You were right when you said I was into something up to my neck, Steve. Now — just trust me. Briefly. You won’t be sorry. I got a few people for you to put through the wringer, a couple murders you can clear off the record, a mess of bloody details you’ll want to mop up.”
The tone of my voice got to him. “Where are you, Ed?”
I gave him the location of the bait camp.
“I’ll be right out,” he said.
“Cordon off the area, and bring plenty of help.”
“I intend to — and you’d better have explanations ready.”
“I’m loaded with them,” I told him.
I hung up, and remembered my promise to Ed Price of the Journal. I tried his home, his favorite bar, his office. He was working late.
“If your back itches,” I said, “join Steve Ivey. He’s on his way to see me.”
“Thanks, Rivers. I’m on my way.”
I swung the wet, flat money belt, enjoying the slap of it against my leg. “It’s a long story,” I said. “It began with a beautiful little doll who stands three feet tall.” I thought about it for a moment; then I said, “Unhappily, she had an ache inside of her to be as big as she imagined the rest of us...”
The LONG and the short of it.
I swung the wet, flat money belt, enjoying the slap of it against my leg. I had gone through a lot to get that belt. I had consorted with midgets and freaks. I had been lied to, framed, been offered the bribery of a beautiful but depraved normal-sized woman’s body. I had also been beaten senseless twice, another time left for dead, locked in the trunk of an abandoned car. And now I was home, free. “It’s a long story,” I said. I thought about it for a moment. “It began with a beautiful little doll who stands three feet tall. Unhappily she had an ache inside her almost as big as she imagined the rest of us to be.”