Down for the Count: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Ten) (24 page)

BOOK: Down for the Count: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Ten)

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And then Shelly spotted me. He reached for his unlit cigar while the woman behind him gagged.

“You had a message,” Shelly said, plunging his hand in his pocket. “Got it right here. Almost forgot when you came in and started to taunt me. See what happens when you do that?”

The woman behind him sounded like she was trying to down a whole orange.

“Spit, spit,” Shelly said to her over his shoulder as he chomped on his cigar and looked in his pockets for the message. He found it and grinned as he handed it to me.

I flattened the crumpled sheet and tried to read Shelly’s scrawl.

“Marion Morrison called me?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “If my name were Marion and I was a guy, which I am, I’d change it to Jim or—”

“Shelly,” I suggested. Then I asked, “And I’m supposed to get to the Alhambra Arms right away?”

“That’s what he said,” Shelly agreed. “You ask me, I wouldn’t meet guys named Marion in hotels.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, heading for the door. I didn’t bother to stop and tell Shelly that Marion Morrison was the real name of an actor named John Wayne.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

This edition published in 2011 by
MysteriousPress.com
/Open Road Integrated Media

180 Varick Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com