Chapter 1

It was one of those mornings when nothing really seems to matter.

Even Rex, my generally loyal German Shepard was giving me one of those looks that made me feel guilty.

Guilty for not taking him out for a walk.

Guilty for forgetting to get his favorite canned meat at the super market.

Guilty for throwing out his rubber bone by mistake when I was falling down drunk.

I figured it was probably a good thing my on again, off again sometimes girlfriend Roxy was down in Florida with some jerk banker from Wall Street. She had let me know in no uncertain terms what she thought about my often discussed "commitment issue". I hoped she forgot to put on the sun screen and had already gotten a nice burn from the Florida sun.

The empty bottle of scotch stared at me from under the sofa and I knew it was the last one from the case I bought only a couple of weeks ago. Someone must have been stealing my booze. That made me smile because I knew for a fact nobody got near my booze locker without me knowing about it. Twenty odd years in the Marine Corps teaches one the proper priorities.

My name is Anthony Sorrento. I guess I should say Master Gunnery Sergeant Anthony Sorrento retired for almost three years now.

I sighed and slapped on my running shoes and grabbed Rex's leash. I don't think I have seen him jump up and run to the front door as fast since the time accidently bumped into the blonde down at the lake in Central Park with the stuck –up French poodle. That poodle could certainly run fast but old Rex cornered her behind the rowboat house and by the time the blonde and I got there he had already finished his business and if he was a smoker, he would have lit one up to celebrate.

The blonde whose name was Simone was hitting me on my arm like I had done the dirty deed myself and tearfully asked me about Rex's medical history. I figured it was a good time to invite her up for a quick drink and we both woke up the next morning with sizable hangovers and a pair of dogs in dire need of walking. After that incident, I was careful to keep Rex on his leash because I didn't want to be hit any doggie tailored paternity suits. Simone turned out to be married to some Admiral who had snared her as his retirement years "Trophy" wife.

Rex and I headed out for the run around the reservoir and he was scouting the area for any interesting looking female dogs with that air of needing male canine company. I was sort of proud of Rex who had a lot more success in that area than me. Not that I was shy around women or anything like that but I had been married twice already and each time I managed to find the most beautiful "Wicked Witch of the West" with back-stabbing in-laws and advice on getting a good divorce lawyer. Not that I was anywhere being in what could be called the one-percent category. In fact, I was probably more down in the bottom twenty percent of income makers due to a lazy attitude toward work that was acquired after a quarter century of government work.

I weighed myself before we headed out the door and saw I was still heading into minus status on my "fighting" weight range. I think that was more due to my steady diet of scotch and water and a fear of restaurants that had plagued me since I got food poisoning in fucking Majorca. I would like to point to my exercise program as the reason for my slender appearance but I knew that was all bullshit because I was terrible about schedules. The scotch might be bad news for my brain cells but it was working wonders for my waistline.

Rex and I were working our way around the Reservoir running counter clockwise just the way I like to go much to the disgust of the indoctrinated clockwise runners. There were no pretty young things with female dogs in tow so Rex and I did our standard three laps and called it quits over by the picnic tables in the shade. A couple of homeless people were looking for scraps but they gave us a wide berth no doubt due to some unfortunate incidents with dogs. I was still somewhat out of breath because the booze was not helping my respiratory system at all. It was a good thing I had given up the cigarettes that I had smoked for almost the entire time I was in the Marine Corps. I had gotten hooked on the things when I got them for free with our rations and they seemed to fill a void when things got tough.

Now if you were wondering what I did for a living, I would have to be honest and tell you I wasn't even certain on that score myself.

I never really had a nine to five job after getting out of the service. I guess you could say I was sort of a "gofer". My specialty was finding people and things and it paid real nice if you were good at it. My highest paying job was finding a warehouse of some high class oil paintings that got knocked off the docks by intentional accident. It was strictly an amateur caper that almost made me laugh at the lack of security. I could tell the boys in blue were not laughing because the stuff was headed to the museum downtown. The dame that hired me told me there was no money in the budget for contracting my services but she put me on a promise to deliver her goodies if I located the missing paintings and a guarantee of a ten percent "finders" fee for their safe return.

In all honesty, I have to admit I was ready to devote some time to the project just for the promise of hanky-panky for success. It was a bit of shock after I found the missing paintings to discover that they were valued at just north of ten million and that my check would be for slightly over a million bucks of tax-free income. I made sure to get the tax angle in writing because I didn't want any IRS crap down the line about this or that change in the regulations.

I had learned from previous difficulties to never trust a "Suit" with more than one pen in the pocket.

The best part of that whole deal was Phoebe.