Read Online King of the Corner by Loren D. Estleman - Free Book Online

like more than that.”
    “Somebody else’d put up the money if I didn’t. Their gripe is with the judges that set the bail in the first place. But the judges don’t come down to thirteen hundred. You get canned?”
    “I quit I decided to take the job.”
    “Yeah, well, I slept on it.” Ance struck out across Monroe against the light, holding out a palm as he stepped in front of a Buick with mismatched fenders. Brakes squeaked, the driver cranked down his window and shouted something that was lost under the rap beat that thumped out with it. Doc hung back while the car squirted past, its slipstream lifting the tails of Ance’s coat, then loped across.
    “Change your mind?”
    “Taber’s been with me four years. He fucks up plenty, but he’s taken a lot of stitches for me. I can’t just fire him. You should’ve called me before you gave up your job. I said last night I was wasted.”
    “Who says you have to fire him?”
    “They’re making drivers’ seats smaller and smaller. You won’t both fit.” They were in Greektown. The block was lined with restaurants and markets with five-syllable names on their signs. Ance grasped the brass handle of a wooden door with beveled glass panels.
    “I get it he’s always late picking you up,” Doc said. “Let me do that. He can go on taking stitches for you and I’ll do the driving.”
    The restaurant was a dimly lit rectangle with a bar and tall booths lining the wall opposite. Murals of the Parthenon and various other ruins Doc couldn’t identify covered all four walls and a fishnet hung in hammocks from the ceiling. A tiny waitress with blonde hair and blue eyes, not a Greek, showed them to a booth and left menus. At the only other table that was occupied at that hour, a waiter set fire to a dish of cheese soaked in retsina with a halfhearted cry of Opah! and smothered the flame quickly.
    “For five bills a week I’ll hire A. J. Foyt to drive me around. I need muscle. Taber’s not good for much else, but he’s good enough for that.” Ance studied his menu.
    “Who is Taber, anyway?”
    “Up till Old Numb-Nuts became mayor he was a Detroit police officer, a twenty-year man. Something about misuse of deadly force.” He summoned the waitress and ordered moussaka and a glass of cold milk.
    Doc asked for water and a dish of inflammable cheese. When the waitress left with their menus: “I’m in good shape. A third man would’ve come in handy in that bar in Tennessee.”
    “That’s old history. These days I don’t accept clients with out-of-state addresses. Except Toledo. Half my business comes from there.”
    “Beside the point.”
    Ance put away the glasses he had put on to read the menu. His eyes were that shade of gray that looked like coins in shallow water. “Your P.O. know you’re having this conversation?”
    “He said I could take the job.” Doc had decided not to mention the part about staying behind the wheel.
    “What’d he say about me?”
    “He said you’re a cowboy and that you must like running down jumpers or you wouldn’t get so many.”
    “Yeah, I can see why he gave you the green light.” He lit a cigarette.
    “You can call him if you don’t believe me. His name’s Kubitski.”
    “I know. I was there when you told Charlie. Just a second.” The waiter who had ignited the cheese at the other table arrived with Doc’s order. He looked more Arab than Greek. Before he could touch off the retsina, Ance tossed his burning match into the dish. The liquor went up in a sheet of orange and blue flame and the bail bondsman shouted Opah loud enough to make glasses ring behind the bar. “That’s how it’s done, Farouk,” he said as the flustered waiter fumbled the cover in place, extinguishing the blaze. “Tell your boss to hire the real thing if he wants to compete with Colonel Sanders.”
    The waiter served Doc and withdrew without a word. The cheese was charred at the edges. “How many restaurants have you been thrown out