THE STREETS OF LAKE CITY

By LARRY PAYNE

PI Blake Tanner has been hired by Malcolm MacDonald to find out what happened to the Attorney's missing son. Little do they know, Tanner is about to make some very bad people, very uncomfortable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookRix
• Release date: Sep 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9783748793373

Book preview

Prologue

The man in black pushed through the revolving door of the Harbor Lights Club and stepped into the small, dimly lit lobby. Happy Days Are Here Again resonated down the stairs, filling the lobby with the festive song. Anderson Spangler’s mayoral campaign was in full swing and one of his biggest supporters, Attorney Jonathan Graber would be here in all his glory.

The man in black smiled and nodded at people as he made his way up the stairs to the second floor and he peered in the banquet hall. There he saw Graber, walking beside Spangler, smiling, shaking hands and working the crowd.

With a smile, the man in black turned and stepped back down the stairs and around the corner to the back of the staircase. He sat down in a nearby chair beside an end table and here he would wait. They always say good things came to those who wait. He smiled again and settled into his chair.

He watched two women, who he’d seen on many occasions working in the kitchen of the Harlor Lights Lounge, stride toward him, their shift obviously over. One sat down on a bench in front of him and waved at her friend as she stepped through the revolving front door.

She sat on this bench every night to wait for her daughter to pick her up, but not tonight. The man in black rose from his chair and leaned over to whisper in the woman’s ear. You don’t want to sit here tonight. Walk home.

The woman’s eyes grew wide with fear. She grabbed her work bag setting next to her on the bench and, without looking to see who spoke to her, hurried down the hall and out the back door.

The man in black heard a number of people come down the stairs and he rose from his chair, stepped under the staircase and peeked around the corner. Half of the group went into the lounge and the others left through the revolving door. Seeing the lobby empty, he hurried over and locked the revolving door, then stepped back to the staircase..

Thanks for coming, Jon, he heard from the top of the stairs and removed the .45 Smith and Wesson from the shoulder holster under his jacket.

Jonathan Graber reached into the inside pocket of his suit coat as he stepped down from the staircase into the lobby. Graber cursed and detoured into the lounge. He stopped at a cigarette machine near the door, dropped in a few coins and pulled the lever, releasing a pack of cigarettes. Graber stepped back into the lobby, opening the pack of cigarettes. He found the revolving door locked and moved to the glass door beside it.

The man in black moved quickly, ignoring the people in the lobby. He stepped up behind Graber and triggered the .45, point blank, at the back of the attorney’s head and was out the glass door as Jonathan Graber crumbled to the lobby floor.

Panic in the lobby was immediate and the man in black barely had time to slide through the double set of glass doors and out into the cool night air. He slid the .45 back into the shoulder holster, as he hurried around the corner of the building and into the open door of the black Lincoln that seemed to appear out of nowhere to the curb in front of him. The big car squealed off into the night as the panic-stricken crowd flooded out the door of the Harbor Lights Club. In all the confusion, no one saw the blinds slowly close on the second floor window in the apartment building across the street.

Chapter 1

Blake Tanner snaked his arm out from under the covers and slapped the top of the buzzing clock. He’d just used up the last of his self imposed quota of hitting the snooze alarm.

He poked his head out from under the blanket and looked into the hard stare of Max, his Rottweiler, sitting next to the bed.

Five more minutes, Max, said Tanner and threw the blanket back over his head.

Without warning, the blanket flew off the end of the bed clamped in Max’s big jaws and the Rottweiler ran out the bedroom door trailing the blanket behind him.

MAX! Tanner shouted and chuckled when he got a loud baritone answer from somewhere in the house.

The strong aroma of fresh coffee persuaded Tanner to swing out from under the sheet. He sat for a moment on the edge of the bed before sliding his feet into his slippers as he stood up and stretched before slipping into the robe that lay on the chair next to the dresser.

He shuffled down the hallway from the bedroom to the kitchen where Max was sitting, in all his glory, on the blanket near the back door.

Some friend you are, Tanner grumbled, as he poured the steaming black brew into the mug next to the coffeemaker. He carried the mug to the back door where Max sat squirming and looking at him in anticipation. Tanner barely unlocked and opened the door before the big Rottweiler squeezed past him and bolted outside and down the flight of steps.

Tanner stood at the back door sipping his coffee and smiling as he watched Max go through his morning ritual of flushing the rabbit from under the Lilac bush, chasing it at full speed across the yard and then crashing head on into the chain link fence as the rabbit scampered through it. Tanner had always wondered, after all these years, what Max would do if he ever surprised himself and caught that slippery rabbit.

Tanner stood sipping the last of his coffee until Max finally concluded the ritual by lifting his leg on the fence and then came charging back up the steps. The big Rottweiler nearly knocked Tanner over as he squeezed between Blake and the doorjamb. Tanner closed and locked the door and turned back into the kitchen, putting his empty coffee mug in the sink.

Tanner shuffled back down the hall to the bedroom, took a quick shower and then made the decision to change his usual business attire and put on a pair of khakis, a v-neck sweater and dug his pair of loafers out of the back of the closet. Finally, after making sure he was presentable, he slipped into the shoulder holster holding his .357 Remington, grabbed his brown leather jacket from the door knob of the closet and returned to the kitchen.

Tanner filled Max’s food and water bowls, unlocked his oversized dog door, and after taking a minute, Tanner decided to forego driving the jalopy and grabbed a set of car keys from the wall peg.

He left through the