Loren D. Estleman - Amos Walker 17 - Retro by Loren D. Estleman Page B

was a bad decision.”
    “Ever hear of a fighter named Curtis Smallwood?”
    He nodded. “The Black Mamba. He was way before my time.”
    “Mine too. So how come you heard of him and I didn’t?”
    “I’m a student of the art.”
    “What’s your name?”
    “Joseph Sills.”
    I grinned. “Jersey Joe?”
    “I’m from Philadelphia.”
    “The Philly Kid.”
    “I prefer Joseph Sills.”
    “I’ll look for it on the bill at Cobo.”
    “Look fast. I plan to make my stake and get out while I can still do simple arithmetic.”
    “What then?”
    “Open a restaurant.” He finished stacking his cart and peeled up the tablecloth.
    On my way past the reservation stand, the hostess asked me if I’d had a pleasant meal. She had a big woman’s sense of fashion: strong colors, minimal makeup, and a bright scarf coiled loosely around her neck.
    “Tell you after the next course.”
    I went back up to Garnet’s room and found the hallway not as quiet as it had been. A gang of bellmen, black-suited security, and Wayne County Sheriff’s deputies in uniform were gathered in front of the room, whose door stood wide open. There were more inside, clustered around the Japanese housekeeper. She looked like an imported doll in a crowd of G.I. Joes. The tallest of them, a slick-haired forty in a suit blacker than all the rest, bent over her like a question mark to hear her broken English. She shook her head and spotted me.
    She pointed. “Him.”
    Shadows fell over me from all sides, like lowering clouds. The tall man who’d been asking the questions straightened, looked at me, and crooked a finger.

THIRTEEN
    T he tall man’s name was Hichens. He was a captain with the plainclothes division of the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department, whose jurisdiction covered everything at the airport not claimed by Washington. His suit was black enough to swallow galaxies. It looked as if it went on all of a piece, shirt, tie, and all, and zipped up the back. He had an ordinary sort of face, memorable only for its bleak eyes and hairline that went straight across the white marble forehead without a peak or a part. His hair was as black as his suit and glistened like a roll of unexposed film. I didn’t know you could even buy Brilliantine anymore.
    He ran six foot seven in loafers, and one look told me no one had ever asked him if he’d played basketball in college.
    “Ever play basketball in college?” I asked him.
    He worked his lips and held up a business card. It had an eagle with spread wings on it, overlaid with gold foil. “Who’s Aaron Williams?”
    We were seated on either side of a gray steel desk in a gray office in the Smith Terminal, a holdover from when the sheriff’s department ran all the security at the airport. The walls shone with fresh paint, without decoration except fora rectangle of paper the size of a bedsheet, spelling out the suspects’ rights. It was where they stripped and searched suspicious passengers.
    “Door-to-door hack,” I said. “He tried to sell me a sports package. I gave up sports when the Tigers moved out of the old ballpark.”
    “The maid says you told her you were Williams.”
    “She jumped to a conclusion. I told her Williams was the name.”
    He flicked the card a couple of times with a finger. Then he put it down and picked up my wallet. “Where’d you get the star?”
    “I used to serve summonses. Back then the department handed them out like plastic whistles.”
    “A long time ago. Now you can lose your license just for flashing it around. I think I’ll just hang onto it.”
    “Not without a warrant, and not until you quit the county, join the state police, and work your way up to lieutenant. My ticket belongs to Lansing.”
    He tapped each corner of the wallet against the desktop, rolling a square wheel. “I guess you read a book. Come across anything about the fall for impersonating an officer of the law?”
    “I memorized it. In order to find me guilty you have to show I