Fort Worth Nights: A Collection of Cody PI Stories by Reasoner, James

I had been given: tall, lean, gray-bearded, wearing a baseball cap with a broken bill. He had a fishing rod in one hand, a pint bottle of whiskey in the other. Standing beside him, hands tucked into her hip pockets, was the girl who had been sitting outside the bar. I sighed as I put on the brakes and brought my car to a stop. I had been worried about the bartender hearing things he shouldn't; looked like I had been concerned about the wrong person. The walls of the bar were thin and the door had cracks around it. The girl could have heard Kemper mention McCrory's name. I cut the engine, got out, and took my fishing gear from the back seat. I hadn't parked too close to McCrory's station wagon, and now I strolled toward the bank a good sixty feet from his position. Even that was crowding him, a little. Feeling his eyes on me, I looked up, smiled, and nodded to him. Then I got down to the business of fishing. I could hear an occasional low murmur of conversation between McCrory and the girl, but I pretended not to pay any attention to it. Half an hour went by. My feet began to get cold. Forty-five minutes . . . Bad day for fishing. Nothing was biting. When I had been there an hour, McCrory started sauntering toward me. "Bitch of a day, ain't it?" he said with a grin, rubbing his hands together. He had left his rod with the girl. "Sure is," I nodded. "Having any luck?" He shook his head, reached into his jacket. I had seen him stash the bottle there earlier. "Guess the fish just