“Ha!” I told Julius. “You’re quite happy being a loafer, you tolerate being a detective when you absolutely have to be!”
Julius made a gesture then that was for my sight only. Mable’s forehead wrinkled to show how perplexed he was by Julius turning him down. He badly wanted to give Julius some of his newfound money. “At least let me buy lunch,” he offered. “Whatever you want, it’s on me.”
“Agreed.”
Julius ended up ordering a four hundred dollar bottle of Bordeaux that he had had his eye on for a while. While this might’ve tapped out Mable before, it was peanuts for someone who was about to be a new millionaire.
It was a leisurely lunch which didn’t end until four o’clock. As Julius took a taxi back to his townhouse, I told him if Mable wanted to hand him more money, Julius should invite him to one of his poker games. “Within weeks you’d have him stripped clean.”
Julius smiled at that.
“I didn’t think you’d be lounging with him until four,” I said. “We’re going to be cutting things close.”
Julius took out his cell phone so he could talk to me without the cab driver thinking he was nuts.
“What is this about, Archie?”
“I have you booked on a seven-thirty evening flight to London. First-class. Then for the next three nights I’ve got you in the best suite the Claridge has. The suite’s got plenty of bedrooms. How many you and Lily use are up to the two of you. Then the two of you are flying home together, with Lily upgraded to first class also. This is costing me a bundle.”
“You mean me a bundle,” Julius said, an annoyance straining his voice.
“Uh-uh. It didn’t cost you a cent. Only me. I earned the money playing online poker. So don’t worry, as tempting as it was to empty the bank accounts of some British Petroleum executives, I didn’t do any illegal hacking to get this money. What I did instead was turn an introductory twenty dollar sign-up offer into over eighteen grand so I could afford this. And I didn’t hit my target until seven this morning. Anyway, we’ve got to get you home to pack. Lily’s expecting you.”
Julius sat back considering all this. Finally he nodded. “Thank you, Archie,” he said.
“Don’t mention it. And don’t worry about leaving me behind. I don’t want to interfere with you and Lily over the next three days. I’ll be fine. I have a lot of data to analyze with this last case and a lot of work to do in using all that to adjust my neuron network. I’ll keep myself well busy over the next three days.”
Julius smiled slightly, maybe with a touch of melancholy. “Archie, while it may only be three days, I’ll miss you.”
“Same here, boss.”
The End
Other Works by Dave Zeltserman
Other Books by Dave Zeltserman
Husk
The Tenth Wish
The Boy Who Killed Demons
The Interloper
The Julius Katz Collection
Julius Katz and Archie
Monster
The Caretaker of Lorne Field
21 Tales
Small Crimes
Pariah
Killer
Outsourced
Bad Thoughts
Fast Lane
Blood Crimes
Morris Brick thrillers written as Jacob Stone
Deranged
Crazed
Malicious
Cruel
Unleashed
About the Author
Dave Zeltserman is the award-winning author of 20 crime, horror and thriller novels, and numerous short stories. His novels have been named by the Washington Post, NPR, WBUR, American Library Association, and Booklist as best books of the year, and his crime novel SMALL CRIMES has been made into a Netflix original film starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. He also writes the Morris Brick crime thrillers under the pseudonym Jacob Stone.
Copyright Information
Julius Katz and Archie
Copyright, 2011 by Dave Zeltserman
All rights reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Characters, incidents, places and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No portion of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.