Read Online Motor City Blue by Loren D. Estleman - Free Book Online

chorus to a scene that was dyed-in-the-wool American. It was an area that spawned a mindless, disorganized brand of violence, and once every few years, as it had less than a mile south of here not long ago, it spawned a Cass Corridor Strangler, who killed for a time and then faded into terrifying obscurity. But you could still hear good jazz in the right bars.
    I parked next to a hydrant heaped high with rusty snow in front of the store, where I could keep an eye on the car through the window, and went in, easing my way past a knot of sullen-looking black youths in scuffed Piston warm-up jackets who were sharing the same twisted cigarette in front of the entrance. My nerves tingled as I did so. I’m no more prejudiced than the next guy, but I tighten up whenever they band together like that.
    It was one of those places where you had to tip the guy at the counter fifty cents before he’d let you in. In this case he was a bony young black seated on a high stool behind a display of latex breasts and plastic phalluses. He had an afro you could lose a shoe in and invisible eyes behind mirrored glasses and needle tracks all over his mahogany wrist where it stuck out of his cuff as he reached for my two quarters.
    “Cold out there,” I ventured.
    “So’s the world, man.”
    A philosopher. His accent was Mississippi straight up with a Twelfth Street twist. I left him to ring up the alloy in a big, old-fashioned register and began browsing.
    The place had everything the well-dressed degenerate could want. It was stocked primarily with books and magazines, from near-legitimate classics like A Man With a Maid and The Story of O to the more contemporary Hot Snatch and Anal Delight , with covers featuring various sexes and species engaged in provocative pursuits which, according to the title splashes, only hinted at the literary and pictorial treats to be found inside, shrink-sealed in plastic. But miscellaneous grunts and squeals that seemed to emanate from everywhere and yet nowhere, and a sign made to resemble an interesting anatomical pointer, indicated that a peep-grind “with sound!” was available in the back for the admission price of one dollar. There were the usual revolving wire racks containing the kind of greeting cards you didn’t send Grandma at Christmas time, the standard bin filled with fifteen-minute reels of Super 8 film with titles like A Lesson From Miss Dove and Blowing Wild — not the one starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck—and, beneath the glass counter near the entrance, a fascinating collection of gadgets, among which was a device which, its tag pledged, would Increase the Size of Your Organ in Minutes, an ingenious contraption with a glass tube and a vacuum pump that seemed ideal for rescuing golf balls from mud puddles.
    The only other customer in this part of the store was a heavy-set businessman-type, black, with a brown cashmere overcoat buttoned over his spreading middle and a sprinkling of gray in his kinky, receding hair. He seemed oblivious to everything but the fag corner in the back, where a study of the photographs on the covers of the magazines, in the proper order, provided a crash course on how to get along with your fellow man. A sales executive, I figured, killing his coffee break in a way his fellow employees never suspected.
    It wasn’t the dank hole the folks in the suburbs had in mind when they formed their Sunday morning decency leagues to keep pornography out of their neighborhoods. Fluorescent tubes in the ceiling shed plenty of light over the merchandise, and the tile floor shone beneath a seal of fresh wax. The plate glass window was spotless. You’ll find stores like it in any shopping center. The only difference is the stock.
    The snowbird behind the counter was dividing his attention between a convex shoplifters’ mirror in the corner and a paperback in his hands. I caught a glimpse of the title when he shifted it to turn the page. Catch-22 . That was like finding