Read Online King of the Corner by Loren D. Estleman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Loren D. Estleman
Tags: Historical
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gridded-glass window lettered in black:
M. W. Ance
KNOCK BEFORE ENTERING
“What’s your advertising budget?”
Ance used another key and opened the door. “Strictly Yellow Pages and the county grapevine. You don’t get much off-the-street trade in this business.”
The office was square, well-furnished, and surprisingly neat. It contained a large pearwood desk with a leather top, a telephone and fax machine, a copier, and a complicated-looking coffee maker with a checkerboard of flashing colored lights atop a nine-drawer file cabinet. The rug looked expensive and too ornate for the room, and the desk was bunted up against the wall under a window overlooking the parking lot. Outside, a pickup truck bearing the name of a well-known construction firm on the door of the cab pulled up and a driver in dusty coveralls got out and went into the massage parlor.
“Dumb putz.” Ance was watching, too. “He owns the company. The feds have had that skin shop under surveillance for a couple of months. They think it’s one of the places where city contracts go to get fixed. Rumor is the company that owns the place is a subsidiary of our right and honorable mayor’s holding corporation. You’d think a construction boss would know better than to drive up in one of his own trucks.” He hung up his coat “Terrible what’s happened to corruption in this town. Under Cavanagh it had style.”
“How come you know so much about it?”
“Secrets are only secret from the people who want to know them. When you don’t give a shit, you hear things. That’s your first lesson.” He sat down at the desk and lifted the receiver off the telephone.
His was the only chair in the office. “Where do the customers sit?”
“At home. I work here. I don’t entertain visitors.” He dialed, took out a cigarette while he was waiting, then crumpled it and tossed it into the metal wastebasket next to the desk. “Maynard Ance. Any messages? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.” He hung up and wrote something on his calendar pad. “We got an appointment in Redford at two. You know the Kingswood Manor Apartments on Livernois? They’re down the street from Baker’s Keyboard Lounge.”
“I know Baker’s. Is that where the appointment is?”
“That’s where the transportation is. Apartment 612. If Taber doesn’t answer, tack a note to his door and bring back the bus. Here’s the extra set.” He opened a drawer and handed Doc a pair of keys attached to a miniature license plate.
“What do I do, compare numbers?”
“You’ll know it when you see it. Believe me.”
Doc opened the door. “A guy doesn’t get to do much sitting around this place.”
“One thing you won’t get working for me is hemorrhoids.” Ance put on his glasses.
Kingswood Manor was a quiet complex set back from the road with potted trees on the balconies and patios and a taxi stand in front. Doc paid the driver and went in through the main entrance. Finding the inner door locked, he studied the rows of mailboxes built into the wall and pushed the button next to R. TABER. When there was no answering buzz after his second attempt, he pressed another button at random. A buzzer sounded and he went through the door.
Sunlight slanted through a tall window at the end of the corridor on the sixth floor. When he knocked on 612, the door moved. He knocked again, then pushed it open.
The living room was large and took up most of the apartment, with a kitchenette to the left and a door at the back that he assumed led into a bedroom. Parts of a newspaper, or of several newspapers, lay in tents on a blonde pile carpet and a smell of stale tobacco hung in the air like shabby laundry. On a green vinyl Strato-lounger a man lay as if in state, with his stockinged feet on the swing-out footrest and his head on the cushioned back. He was a blocky, fortyish six feet and two hundred pounds in a white shirt and dark trousers with gray in his short rumpled brown hair and looked like a truck
M. W. Ance
KNOCK BEFORE ENTERING
“What’s your advertising budget?”
Ance used another key and opened the door. “Strictly Yellow Pages and the county grapevine. You don’t get much off-the-street trade in this business.”
The office was square, well-furnished, and surprisingly neat. It contained a large pearwood desk with a leather top, a telephone and fax machine, a copier, and a complicated-looking coffee maker with a checkerboard of flashing colored lights atop a nine-drawer file cabinet. The rug looked expensive and too ornate for the room, and the desk was bunted up against the wall under a window overlooking the parking lot. Outside, a pickup truck bearing the name of a well-known construction firm on the door of the cab pulled up and a driver in dusty coveralls got out and went into the massage parlor.
“Dumb putz.” Ance was watching, too. “He owns the company. The feds have had that skin shop under surveillance for a couple of months. They think it’s one of the places where city contracts go to get fixed. Rumor is the company that owns the place is a subsidiary of our right and honorable mayor’s holding corporation. You’d think a construction boss would know better than to drive up in one of his own trucks.” He hung up his coat “Terrible what’s happened to corruption in this town. Under Cavanagh it had style.”
“How come you know so much about it?”
“Secrets are only secret from the people who want to know them. When you don’t give a shit, you hear things. That’s your first lesson.” He sat down at the desk and lifted the receiver off the telephone.
His was the only chair in the office. “Where do the customers sit?”
“At home. I work here. I don’t entertain visitors.” He dialed, took out a cigarette while he was waiting, then crumpled it and tossed it into the metal wastebasket next to the desk. “Maynard Ance. Any messages? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.” He hung up and wrote something on his calendar pad. “We got an appointment in Redford at two. You know the Kingswood Manor Apartments on Livernois? They’re down the street from Baker’s Keyboard Lounge.”
“I know Baker’s. Is that where the appointment is?”
“That’s where the transportation is. Apartment 612. If Taber doesn’t answer, tack a note to his door and bring back the bus. Here’s the extra set.” He opened a drawer and handed Doc a pair of keys attached to a miniature license plate.
“What do I do, compare numbers?”
“You’ll know it when you see it. Believe me.”
Doc opened the door. “A guy doesn’t get to do much sitting around this place.”
“One thing you won’t get working for me is hemorrhoids.” Ance put on his glasses.
Kingswood Manor was a quiet complex set back from the road with potted trees on the balconies and patios and a taxi stand in front. Doc paid the driver and went in through the main entrance. Finding the inner door locked, he studied the rows of mailboxes built into the wall and pushed the button next to R. TABER. When there was no answering buzz after his second attempt, he pressed another button at random. A buzzer sounded and he went through the door.
Sunlight slanted through a tall window at the end of the corridor on the sixth floor. When he knocked on 612, the door moved. He knocked again, then pushed it open.
The living room was large and took up most of the apartment, with a kitchenette to the left and a door at the back that he assumed led into a bedroom. Parts of a newspaper, or of several newspapers, lay in tents on a blonde pile carpet and a smell of stale tobacco hung in the air like shabby laundry. On a green vinyl Strato-lounger a man lay as if in state, with his stockinged feet on the swing-out footrest and his head on the cushioned back. He was a blocky, fortyish six feet and two hundred pounds in a white shirt and dark trousers with gray in his short rumpled brown hair and looked like a truck
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