“Speak up!” Alderdyce barked.
“I said okay.”
The back door shut with a bang, bringing a harplike tinkle of icicles tumbling from the eaves. I stood.
“There’s a burned-over lot across from Holy Redeemer needs a building for charity to work out of,” I said. “Know where we can find a carpenter who works for nothing?”
Nesto’s head came up with a grin on the front.
Alderdyce looked up at me from his seat. “Where are you going?”
“Out for a smoke. Your son’s coming in.”
I never knew what they talked about. The inspector didn’t volunteer anything and I didn’t ask. They weren’t alone together long enough to work out a lifetime of friction, so maybe it was just a cold polite conversation with nothing to show for it. Anyway I never saw any of them again. Except Alderdyce, of course.
THIRTY
A week or so later, with the weather warming up, I prised open the window to stir the sludgy air around the office and picked up the phone. I’d had my arms to the elbows in stale files all day. I was happy for the interruption and answered cheerfully.
“I’ve caught you in a good mood.”
It was a husky velvet voice, a female contralto, without an accent, not even American. I caught a chill from the window just then and swiveled my chair to turn my back to it. Then I decided having my back to a window wasn’t a good idea while I was talking to the person who owned that voice, and rolled out of the line of sight.
I said nothing.
“You’ve cost me a great deal,” the woman said. “I had time and money invested in Mexicantown. It isn’t as if I can write it off my taxes.”
I found my voice. “Where are you calling from?” The connection was too clear for comfort; none of the hisses and gurgles of a trunk call from overseas. We might have been in the same room. Even the same country was too close.
“I think something may have to be done about you, Mr. Walker. Not now; now’s officially then, thanks to you. But next time maybe.”
“I’m open to a retirement package.”
“Not you. A very disagreeable man I did business with once had a favorite aphorism: ‘If you can’t bribe him, kill him. If you can’t kill him, promote him.’ Meaning kick him upstairs out of the way. The man died in a Death Row infirmary, but the principle was sound. You won’t bribe, and you’re in a profession with no hope of advancement.”
“I’ll remember the advice,” I said.
“I felt sure you would. Good-bye, Mr. Walker.”
“Good-bye, Madame Sing.”
I could still hear that voice purring in my ear after the line went dead.
Charlotte Sing was an international criminal; but anyone who picked pockets in Detroit and Windsor could claim to be one. She was wanted on three continents, all capital crimes, and a couple of them had pulled me out of my orbit into hers. But three times doesn’t make you a pro, it just reduces your odds of survival by 30 percent—more in her case, because she didn’t live by the law of averages any more than she did all the others.
What her interests had been in the Mexicantown business I couldn’t guess and didn’t want to know. What I wanted was to get drunk: loud, silly drunk, singing and all. But I was out of liquor, and I was glad. Now even more than ever I needed to maintain my edge.
BOOKS BY LOREN D. ESTLEMAN
Kill Zone
Roses Are Dead
Any Man’s Death
Motor City Blue
Angel Eyes
The Midnight Man
The Glass Highway
Sugartown
Every Brilliant Eye
Lady Yesterday
Downriver
Silent Thunder
Sweet Women Lie
Never Street
The Witchfinder
The Hours of the Virgin
A Smile on the Face of the Tiger
City of Widows*
The High Rocks*
Billy Gashade*
Stamping Ground*
Aces & Eights*
Journey of the Dead*
Jitterbug*
The Rocky Mountain Moving Picture Association*
Thunder City*
The Master Executioner*
Black Powder, White Smoke*
White Desert*
Sinister Heights
Something Borrowed, Something Black*
Port Hazard*
Poison Blonde*
Retro*
Little Black Dress*
Nicotine Kiss*
The Undertaker’s Wife*
The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion*
American Detective*
Gas City*
Frames*
The Branch and the Scaffold*
Alone*
The Book of Murdock*
Roy & Lillie: A Love Story*
The Left-Handed Dollar*
Infernal Angels*
Burning Midnight*
*A Forge Book
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Loren D. Estleman has written more than sixty novels. He has already netted four Shamus Awards for detective fiction, five Spur Awards for Western fiction, and three Western Heritage Awards, among many professional honors. Burning Midnight is the twenty-second Amos Walker mystery. His recent novels include the Valentino mystery Alone, the historical novel Roy & Lillie about Judge Roy Bean and the famous actress and celebrity Lillie Langtry, and Infernal Angels, the twenty-first Amos Walker novel. He lives with his wife, author Deborah Morgan, in Michigan, where he has recently completed The Confessions of Al Capone, an epic novel of the iconic American gangster.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
BURNING MIDNIGHT
Copyright © 2012 by Loren D. Estleman
All rights reserved.
Edited by James Frenkel
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Estleman, Loren D.
Burning midnight / Loren D. Estleman.—1st ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN 978-0-7653-3120-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4299-4864-7 (e-book)
1. Walker, Amos (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Private investigators—Michigan—Detroit—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3555.S84B87 2012
813'.54—dc23
2012009366
e-ISBN 9781429948647
First Edition: June 2012
Burning Midnight Page 23