Read Online Hangman by Michael Slade - Free Book Online Page B

Hangman to my attention. At ten o’clock in the morning on November 1, fifteen days before the peril I find myself in tonight, I sat in our storefront office on the west side of Main, staring through
    LAWYERS
    KLINE & SHAW
    stenciled backwards on the reception-area window, while outside the flotsam and jetsam of Vancouver’s skid row ebbed and flowed, to and fro, from the cop shop across the street and the courthouse kitty-corner. Halloween, as always, would be good to the law business, so there I sat, waiting by the phone for legal aid to throw some new cases my way.
    Yes, I said the “west side” of Main.
    I suppose you’re thinking, The East End kid made good. No doubt you recall me saying Main Street marks the divide between the affluent West Side and where I grew up. Well, the divide isn’t that marked. The west side of Main is still skid row, so what I saw passing by as I gazed out was the grungy client base of Kline & Shaw. Junkies, boozers, hookers, strippers, con men, and such. The Needle Exchange was just up the street, so hypes by the handful jitterbugged by on their way to swap outfits against HIV. The ambulance parked out front said another had died. A nut we called the Windmill churned his arms near the courts, whirling them frantically in an effort to keep people away, shouting “Mother lovers!” at the top of his lungs. A crackhead was down on her hands and knees in front of our door, checking cracks in the sidewalk for crack others may unknowingly have dropped. Ethan had to sidestep her to open the door.
    “Another uneventful day at Kline & Shaw,” I said as he entered.
    “Any calls?”
    “Nope.”
    “No million-dollar mortgage?”
    “Just a mountain of bills in the mail.”
    “Where’s Suzy?”
    “Sick.”
    “Not again. How am I to function without a good admin?”
    “She wants a raise.”
    “Don’t we all.”
    “She’s working to rule.”
    “No, she’s not. The rule is we start work about nine a.m.”
    “I was here. Where were you?”
    “I stopped by Mom’s. Her toilet was plugged. It took Roto-Rooter to clear it.”
    “I wish they’d clear the pipeline to legal aid. All I want is a six-month trial from a big Halloween murder.”
    “Move to Seattle.”
    “Why?”
    “The Hangman,” Ethan said. With that, he dropped the morning tabloid that was nestled under his arm onto Suzy’s desk.
    “Hangman Lynches Woman,” blared the headline.
    “Leg Cut Off in Hangman Game,” teased the subhead.
    “By Justin Whitfield,” accredited the byline.
    Our local paper had picked the story up from the Seattle Star.
    “I’ve read it,” Ethan said, and disappeared into his office.
    People find it hard to believe Ethan and I share space. We’re not partners—we’re associates. Partners combine incomes and jointly pay the bills, then split profits equally. Associates keep what they each make, after jointly paying the bills. Either way, Ethan and I are an odd couple. Ethan’s blond and skinny, a runt of the litter, with disheveled hair above eyes bleary from too much time spent boozing in the Blarney Stone after work. When he’s stressed, one eye twitches. Not from lack of rest, but from a mild case of Tourette’s syndrome. Me, I’m as different from him as black is from white. I wish I could say I am handsome, but I’m not. That is unless your taste runs to Mike Hammer tough. Survival through high school saw me in the gym, boxing muscles into my physique and roughing up my baby face in the process. My hair’s dark and short. My eyes look mean. And it’s a look I use to advantage in court. Spooking witnesses is the name of the game. But does that mean there’s no beauty inside the beast?
    Mike Hammer.
    Cool name.
    I must read one of those books.
    What Ethan and I have in common is the East End. He was raised there by his mom; I was raised there by Gram. We met at Lord Strathcona. We endured Britannia High. And we were two grubby-faced urchins surrounded by West Side silver spoons