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

detective named Burrough.” I let three seconds of silence tumble down the line. “There’s more to the story.”
    “Figured there would be.” He didn’t sound curious.
    “I don’t need to tell the cops any more than they ask, but do you want me to come up there first and bring you up to code? It doesn’t tell over the phone.”
    “Not tonight, okay? I got arrangements to make starting early tomorrow, and I don’t know when they’ll let me have the—have Dee-dee.” He breathed again. “I got to call her mother. I don’t mind telling you I’m not looking forward to it.”
    “Sure. Can I come see you tomorrow when it’s done?”
    “Am I still paying you?”
    “Not if you say no.”
    “We’ll talk about it. Call first. I got to the end of the month to be out of here, but I don’t think I can stand it that long. There’s no furniture, and everywhere I look she fills the space. Shouldn’t, she hasn’t lived here since she was little. You know?”
    “I don’t know, but I can guess.”
    “Thanks for that.” He sounded sincere. “First fucker tellsme he knows just how it is gets the high hard one straight in the mouth.”
    I said nothing. That seemed to be expected.
    “I got one credit card I didn’t max out,” he said. “I been saving it. Think I’ll blow it on a hotel room. That old sleeping bag’s not much to put between the floor and these old bones.”
    “The suites at the new Hilton aren’t bad.”
    “It’s too close to the new ballpark. I never did forgive the club for giving up on The Corner and selling out to a fucking financial institution. I lost my eighty-four Series bonus in that whole S-and-L deal.”
    “You should’ve stuck with baseball.”
    “Tell that to my arm. Sooner or later everything you depend on goes away.” He swallowed something. “Call. I’ll tell you where you can find me.”
    “Sure you want to be alone tonight?”
    “Sure as hell. I don’t expect to be again for a long time.”
    His voice was getting guttural. I said okay and got off the line. When I got back on it to check for messages, the connection was still open. I heard air stirring in an empty room. When I tried again after a minute the dial tone came on, so he must have found the cradle with the receiver finally.
    Dusk was crumbling in. I shut down the plant and put wheels under me. In a little while Greektown came up, always open, the bluebottle and pink popsicle lights of the tribal casino spilling out of Trappers Alley, an appropriate name if ever there was one, and beyond it the rotting hulk of 1300 Beaubien—Detroit Police Headquarters—rising like a ruined redoubt from the fog that prowled in from the river when the mercury slipped. I found a spot for the car and went inside to make my offering.

TEN
    I found John Alderdyce in his office, glowering at a plastic bucket collecting drips from a reservoir stagnating in the crawl space between his ceiling and the floor above. No rain had fallen for two weeks, but at 1300 it’s always monsoon season. Eighty years of indifferent use, with two decades of corruption at city hall, had turned a proud local landmark into a leaky hut in Thailand. Overhead, the entire seventh story was deserted, evacuated by order of a former chief because of rotten ventilation, sagging plaster, rats, black mold, and pigeon filth.
    “I like what you’ve done with the place,” I said.
    He gave up trying to stare a hole through the bucket and started on me. “You hear where they’re planning to put us now?”
    “Belle Isle? They’re shutting down the aquarium. Everyone gets a window.”
    “The Michigan Central Depot. It’s ten years older than this dump, with bats.”
    “Use them instead of the silhouette targets. Ten or better to qualify.”
    He pointed a scarbound knuckle at the school clock on the wall. “Your watch is fast.”
    “I thought I was cutting it kind of close.”
    “That’s what I meant. I had the arrest report all typed, with blanks for