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Authors: Loren D. Estleman
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in probate work, but if you’re a friend of a friend and have twenty thousand to spare he’ll make you the proud parent of a brand new black-market baby. If you’re hot he’ll sell you a complete new set of identification for a grand. What’s wrong with Iroquois Heights? I’ll tell you what’s right with it. There isn’t as much of it as there is of Detroit.”
Someone raised his voice in the living room. The wall shook. Glass crashed. I pushed through the swinging door a step ahead of the girl.
Papa Broderick was half-sitting on a pedestal table canted back against the wall on the other side of the television set. A black porcelain vase lay in six pieces on the floor at the foot of the table. Bud stood glaring at his father with his fists clenched. The newscaster straightened with exaggerated dignity, tugged at his jacket, and touched a handkerchief to his mouth. It came away stained.
“Damn it,” he said, “I’m going on camera again in four hours. If my lip’s swollen—”
“Say that again and I’ll make sure of it!” Bud was seething.
“You’re not doing a whole hell of a lot of good here, Mr. Broderick,” I said. “Why don’t you tell Miss Royce you’re sorry for what you said about her and let’s you and me take the air?”
His colorless eyes flicked from face to face and lighted on my forehead. “I don’t owe her any apologies.”
Bud glared at me. “How come you know so much about what he said?”
“You’re a very fast young man with your fists and a gun when it comes to the girl. What’s to know?” I was looking at Broderick. “Let’s you and me take the air.”
The newscaster handed Bud his editorial face, the one he reserved for crime and urban blight. He was against them. “You two deserve each other. Just don’t ever call me and expect me to put up bail.”
Having delivered this devastating blow he left us. Poor Sandy Broderick. His whole livelihood was balanced on a dial the size of a beer coaster.
I glanced at the TV. Lucy was trying to get Ricky to agree to move to a larger apartment and not having much luck. The laugh track was in hysterics. I found my hat and coat and turned to Bud.
“This won’t take, but the windmill hasn’t been built that I can pass up.
The girl can take care of herself in spite of you, and maybe even in spite of me too, sterling defender of the weak and oppressed that I am. She’s got your gun in her pocket if it came to that.”
His eyes went to Paula, then to the bulge in the left leg of her slacks.
She said, “The gun’s mine. It’s registered to me.”
“Who are you?” Bud demanded of me for the second time. I paused, considering. I had a joke for it this time too, but Broderick’s exit had ruined me for snazzy curtain-closers. I said nothing and vanished into broad daylight on a puff of smoke and a sneeze.
Thinking that that was the end of it.
9
I T RAINED ON Christmas Eve as predicted.
I turned out the lights in my little tin office on West Grand River and watched it come down, streaking the thin frost on the window and making the lights of the city run. A close friend had presented me with a bottle of twenty-four-year-old Scotch for the holiday and I was quietly knocking the head off it with a glass I kept in the desk for emergencies. That close friend and I having the same name in common. I had bought it with that part of Sandy Broderick’s thousand left after satisfying my landlord, Detroit Edison, Michigan Bell, and the ready-to-wear emporium I commissioned all my clothing from in Greektown, minus a bone to the savings account just to keep the service charges from eating it up. Not counting a routine credit check at courtesy rate for a medium-size agency I sometimes do business with on the East Coast, I hadn’t worked in a week, not since leaving Paula Royce’s place in Iroquois Heights. Nobody has any use for private heat at yuletide. Husbands ditch their mistresses to spend the holidays with their families,
Someone raised his voice in the living room. The wall shook. Glass crashed. I pushed through the swinging door a step ahead of the girl.
Papa Broderick was half-sitting on a pedestal table canted back against the wall on the other side of the television set. A black porcelain vase lay in six pieces on the floor at the foot of the table. Bud stood glaring at his father with his fists clenched. The newscaster straightened with exaggerated dignity, tugged at his jacket, and touched a handkerchief to his mouth. It came away stained.
“Damn it,” he said, “I’m going on camera again in four hours. If my lip’s swollen—”
“Say that again and I’ll make sure of it!” Bud was seething.
“You’re not doing a whole hell of a lot of good here, Mr. Broderick,” I said. “Why don’t you tell Miss Royce you’re sorry for what you said about her and let’s you and me take the air?”
His colorless eyes flicked from face to face and lighted on my forehead. “I don’t owe her any apologies.”
Bud glared at me. “How come you know so much about what he said?”
“You’re a very fast young man with your fists and a gun when it comes to the girl. What’s to know?” I was looking at Broderick. “Let’s you and me take the air.”
The newscaster handed Bud his editorial face, the one he reserved for crime and urban blight. He was against them. “You two deserve each other. Just don’t ever call me and expect me to put up bail.”
Having delivered this devastating blow he left us. Poor Sandy Broderick. His whole livelihood was balanced on a dial the size of a beer coaster.
I glanced at the TV. Lucy was trying to get Ricky to agree to move to a larger apartment and not having much luck. The laugh track was in hysterics. I found my hat and coat and turned to Bud.
“This won’t take, but the windmill hasn’t been built that I can pass up.
The girl can take care of herself in spite of you, and maybe even in spite of me too, sterling defender of the weak and oppressed that I am. She’s got your gun in her pocket if it came to that.”
His eyes went to Paula, then to the bulge in the left leg of her slacks.
She said, “The gun’s mine. It’s registered to me.”
“Who are you?” Bud demanded of me for the second time. I paused, considering. I had a joke for it this time too, but Broderick’s exit had ruined me for snazzy curtain-closers. I said nothing and vanished into broad daylight on a puff of smoke and a sneeze.
Thinking that that was the end of it.
9
I T RAINED ON Christmas Eve as predicted.
I turned out the lights in my little tin office on West Grand River and watched it come down, streaking the thin frost on the window and making the lights of the city run. A close friend had presented me with a bottle of twenty-four-year-old Scotch for the holiday and I was quietly knocking the head off it with a glass I kept in the desk for emergencies. That close friend and I having the same name in common. I had bought it with that part of Sandy Broderick’s thousand left after satisfying my landlord, Detroit Edison, Michigan Bell, and the ready-to-wear emporium I commissioned all my clothing from in Greektown, minus a bone to the savings account just to keep the service charges from eating it up. Not counting a routine credit check at courtesy rate for a medium-size agency I sometimes do business with on the East Coast, I hadn’t worked in a week, not since leaving Paula Royce’s place in Iroquois Heights. Nobody has any use for private heat at yuletide. Husbands ditch their mistresses to spend the holidays with their families,
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