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"FAR BE IT fro while I squirmed on the carved wooden chair opposite his office desk, "to insert myself into the course of true love, but you and the Cadaver Kid have been absent fro"

He sat in an even ’s paliant prune Danish For once, I didn’t knohat to say

Thehimself between Ric and me was physically impossible and emotionally repulsive

Hector was a mini- jacket If he knew I had a e quarters on his Sunset Road estate, I’d be kept in chains on the set of his CSI V TV series forever

The "Cadaver Kid" nicknaift" for finding buried dead bodies was considered gee-whiz great profiling, not an inborn paranorhtould ever know it unless it ca a botto what Ric and I had anything that rese

So I addressed the only possible part of his coa-billion behe up there? Where on dry Nevada earth is there room?"

Hector’s chubby, hairy hand stroked the black beard that concealed his multiple chin collection

"No, this is aup on one of the odd bits of untaken Strip land housing one-story enterprises"

I s to distract his attention to my Betty Grable pin-up shoes: forties platfor at ht so

"Youthe cheapie tourist shops, scalped show-ticket booths, palerie hucksters?"

Soas Strip corners not coure out hy international htwine cared about a dinky new shop

He couldn’t wait to tellhis coarse eyebrows, "are busy vying for this spanking new enterprise I’d think you’d want to visit, since a new friend of yours is the merchant in question"

"Merchant? I don’t know any ‘houlish TV hts at this htwine’s plump hand dipped into a wooden salad bowl filled with crunchy little nothings from the lower orders of planet life Dead now, I hoped

"Flattery will get you everywhere, dear Delilah I confess You are such a led so black and slimy and boneless "Does Mr Montoya know you’ve set up a bare-chested hunk in a coining h seated, and glowered to encourage hio on Which he did

"Twoand tiger-claw to acquire the business for their hotels, and no doubt franchise it"

Now I got it "Cesar Cicereau’s Gehenna Hotel olf mob versus Christophe’s rock-star Inferno Hotel?" I asked

"Mais oui, enius, n Mr Shezmou to a personal contract, did you not?"

"Ah …" I was so shocked I descended into mob-speak "He owes me"

"Very wise Well, trot yourself and your canine companion over there and prepare to protect your interests And not only fro up for blocks in the hot sun in designer heels you would kill for"

I stood "I don’t have to, Hector I have my own collection"