American Detective: An Amos Walker Novel by Loren D. Estleman Page A

employment for life with his organization when they were released. His business manager was a convicted rapist, whose junkets on his superior’s behalf were made more complicated by his need to register himself as a sex offender everywhere he went. His personal security was unchanged from the circle of meat-brained weight lifters who’d protected him in the yard, and he retained the services of his disgraced lawyer as an unofficial legal consultant. His front man, who knew which fork to use at a formal dinner and never wore silk with tweeds, was a murderer; his responsibility was to pay the initial visit to an unlawful casino whose employees lacked union representation. According to legend, Ernesto Esmerelda carried a black steel toolbox containing a hammer and three-inch spikes, which he’d had to use only once to nail a reluctant manager’s hand to his desktop. After the story got around, the sight of the box alone tended to bring out the desired result. If Victor Cho was as stubborn about meeting with Watson’s shop stewards as Charlotte Sing had said, he’d have been wise to keep his hands off his desk when Esmerelda came calling.
    There is an Ernesto Esmerelda in every case, although often the name is less ethnic, and his choice of tools varies. He was my candidate for the unnamed representative who’d taken Hilary Bairn to task for his withdrawals from one of Watson’s private ATMs. He was a Cuban national, a member of a pre-Castro aristocratic family and a veteran of the Mariel boatlift, who’d smuggled himself back into the U.S. after deportation following his release from the state prison in Jackson. A garden-variety killer and strong-arm specialist fell fairly low on the list for attention from Homeland Security, which was more interested in Islamic terrorists this season.He would be a very old man on oxygen before INS got around to picking him up and sending him back. If it came to a firefight, Esmerelda was the one you took out first, if you were quick enough and not overconcerned with contracting a mortal wound in the doing. I was pretty sure we’d meet.
    What had started out as a simple business proposition with a little implied intimidation had taken a sharp left turn into organized crime. And wasn’t that always the way?
    I needed something in my stomach before I forced a meeting with Wilson Watson. There was a Burger King not far from the Hilton Garden Inn, and I fortified myself with a bacon cheeseburger, fries, and a full-leaded Coke on the way back to the office, where I looked up the number of the front he was using that year, a tool-and-die shop in Warren. The perky receptionist I got there had never heard of Watson, but took down my cell phone number without making any promises. I told her my business had to do with Deirdre Fuller. She asked me to spell both names.
    “Have you got a TV in the office?”
    She hesitated. “Yes.”
    “Turn it on, any channel. You’ll see it pretty soon.”
    After that there was nothing to do but swallow the bitter pill and call Darius Fuller. I had a little over two hours before I turned back into a church mouse and had to report to the head cat at the cophouse.
    “Yeah, man.” He sounded played out, and mellow from something that didn’t necessarily come in bottles. I asked if the police were there.
    “They left a little while ago. Nice boys, sympathetic. No guarantee they’ll stay that way.”
    “They ask about Bairn?”
    “Yeah. I told them the situation with Dee-dee; the fight,everything. Nice boys, didn’t bat an eye when I mentioned the two million. I don’t think either one of them was old enough to see me pitch.”
    “They hatch full-grown. Did you tell them about our arrangement?”
    “No. They didn’t ask.”
    “Want me to sit on it?”
    A long breath got drawn with a rattle in it. “Oh, who the hell cares? Give ’em what they want. They’ll be back anyway.”
    “Maybe not the same ones. It may be an inspector named Alderdyce and a