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Authors: Loren D. Estleman
Tags: Historical
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of?”
“They can’t throw me out of this one. I own half of it.” Ance put out his cigarette. The little blond waitress had brought his eggplant and milk. “Kubitski doesn’t know me. He’s just repeating what he’s heard around headquarters. I’m sixty-two next month. Three doctors told me two years ago if I didn’t quit smoking and lose weight I’d never see sixty-five. I buried one, but three of a kind’s a hand I’d bet on any day of the week. Does that sound like I look forward to climbing mountains and getting the shit kicked out of me in saloons?”
Doc shrugged. The cheese tasted fine.
“Kubitski say anything else?”
“He said you were disbarred.”
“He say why?”
“No.”
“I was standing up for this little scroat on a charge of first-degree criminal sexual conduct.” The bail bondsman spoke between forkfuls of moussaka. “It was outside my specialty, but the scroat’s old man was a friend. First day of testimony the prosecutor asked the victim to identify her rapist, and she pointed right at the punk sitting next to me at the defense table. Only it wasn’t my client, it was a kid we had doing errands at the office who looked a little like him. Well, the judge got all bent out of shape over it. It was his evidence tipped the board of review against me. Some of my colleagues had been trying to do that for years.”
“I think Perry Mason pulled that trick once.”
“Perry’s judge wasn’t an asshole. He was lucky that way.”
“It doesn’t seem like enough to get you thrown out of the profession.”
“Well, a lot of old shit got dragged out at the hearing. Point is, you measure your success by how many enemies you’ve made. I play dirty, son. Life ain’t baseball.”
“I found that out.”
“Fuck that.” Ance chewed and swallowed. “You keep looking behind you, you bump into what’s in front of you. Think I’m bitter? Hell, disbarment was the best thing ever happened to me. All the money in this town that isn’t in the mayor’s personal investment company is in dope, and I represent more drug dealers than Parke-Davis. They pay their bills. In their business it’s a good habit to get into if you don’t want your creditors cutting off your dick and shoving it down your tonsils. The clients that come through outnumber the jumpers twenty to one. Everything else is a tax loss. When I was a lawyer I’d’ve killed for odds like that.” He drank his milk and whisked away the moustache with a knuckle. “So you don’t get your picture on a bubble-gum card. Life don’t serve all the courses.”
“Does that mean I’m hired?”
“On approval. You handle cops okay, but handling cops is the smallest part of the job. Show me how you do in heavy shit and maybe we’ll talk about making it permanent.”
“What do I do first?”
“Get the tip.” Ance stood and took his overcoat off the hook.
Chapter 8
D OC HAD RETURNED S PENCE’S cab and ridden a bus into town. He and Ance took a taxi to Inkster. On Michigan Avenue they got out in front of a block of two-story yellow brick buildings sheltering a Kid Koin Laundry, a used furniture store, and a health spa with a rear entrance under a blue awning and a sign reading WE EMPLOY ONLY AMERICAN MASSEUSES.
“Need a back rub?” Doc asked.
“That’s about the only thing they don’t rub here. We’re home.” Ance led the way around the side of the building.
That side bore a ten-foot cartoon of a coin wearing a cowboy hat and drawing a pair of six-guns. One of its booted feet decorated a steel fire door. Stopping there, Ance glanced around the unpaved parking lot and sorted through a dozen keys on a ring the size of a softball. “No sign of the crate. Taber’s sleeping one off again.”
He unlocked the door, and they entered a narrow hallway paved with broken linoleum that ran the length of the building. It smelled like a bus station.
Near the end was another steel door painted to look like wood with a
“They can’t throw me out of this one. I own half of it.” Ance put out his cigarette. The little blond waitress had brought his eggplant and milk. “Kubitski doesn’t know me. He’s just repeating what he’s heard around headquarters. I’m sixty-two next month. Three doctors told me two years ago if I didn’t quit smoking and lose weight I’d never see sixty-five. I buried one, but three of a kind’s a hand I’d bet on any day of the week. Does that sound like I look forward to climbing mountains and getting the shit kicked out of me in saloons?”
Doc shrugged. The cheese tasted fine.
“Kubitski say anything else?”
“He said you were disbarred.”
“He say why?”
“No.”
“I was standing up for this little scroat on a charge of first-degree criminal sexual conduct.” The bail bondsman spoke between forkfuls of moussaka. “It was outside my specialty, but the scroat’s old man was a friend. First day of testimony the prosecutor asked the victim to identify her rapist, and she pointed right at the punk sitting next to me at the defense table. Only it wasn’t my client, it was a kid we had doing errands at the office who looked a little like him. Well, the judge got all bent out of shape over it. It was his evidence tipped the board of review against me. Some of my colleagues had been trying to do that for years.”
“I think Perry Mason pulled that trick once.”
“Perry’s judge wasn’t an asshole. He was lucky that way.”
“It doesn’t seem like enough to get you thrown out of the profession.”
“Well, a lot of old shit got dragged out at the hearing. Point is, you measure your success by how many enemies you’ve made. I play dirty, son. Life ain’t baseball.”
“I found that out.”
“Fuck that.” Ance chewed and swallowed. “You keep looking behind you, you bump into what’s in front of you. Think I’m bitter? Hell, disbarment was the best thing ever happened to me. All the money in this town that isn’t in the mayor’s personal investment company is in dope, and I represent more drug dealers than Parke-Davis. They pay their bills. In their business it’s a good habit to get into if you don’t want your creditors cutting off your dick and shoving it down your tonsils. The clients that come through outnumber the jumpers twenty to one. Everything else is a tax loss. When I was a lawyer I’d’ve killed for odds like that.” He drank his milk and whisked away the moustache with a knuckle. “So you don’t get your picture on a bubble-gum card. Life don’t serve all the courses.”
“Does that mean I’m hired?”
“On approval. You handle cops okay, but handling cops is the smallest part of the job. Show me how you do in heavy shit and maybe we’ll talk about making it permanent.”
“What do I do first?”
“Get the tip.” Ance stood and took his overcoat off the hook.
Chapter 8
D OC HAD RETURNED S PENCE’S cab and ridden a bus into town. He and Ance took a taxi to Inkster. On Michigan Avenue they got out in front of a block of two-story yellow brick buildings sheltering a Kid Koin Laundry, a used furniture store, and a health spa with a rear entrance under a blue awning and a sign reading WE EMPLOY ONLY AMERICAN MASSEUSES.
“Need a back rub?” Doc asked.
“That’s about the only thing they don’t rub here. We’re home.” Ance led the way around the side of the building.
That side bore a ten-foot cartoon of a coin wearing a cowboy hat and drawing a pair of six-guns. One of its booted feet decorated a steel fire door. Stopping there, Ance glanced around the unpaved parking lot and sorted through a dozen keys on a ring the size of a softball. “No sign of the crate. Taber’s sleeping one off again.”
He unlocked the door, and they entered a narrow hallway paved with broken linoleum that ran the length of the building. It smelled like a bus station.
Near the end was another steel door painted to look like wood with a
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