Silent Thunder by Loren D. Estleman

painting over the fireplace of Proust in his riding clothes.
    “Do you suppose he and Ernest Krell know each other?”
    “Qué?”
    I turned around. “We’re awfully Old Country suddenly. I didn’t hear any of that in the car.”
    “Sorry. Places like this bring out the peón in me.”
    “You were never a peón.”
    He shrugged again. “My father rolled cigars in a window in Havana.”
    “If I ever meet a Cuban whose father didn’t roll cigars in a window, I’ll buy him one.”
    He smiled briefly. He had very white teeth that transformed his face.
    I had time to smoke a cigarette before Proust strode in from the back, pulling off his riding gloves. He smelled of sweat and leather.
    “Our other guest is late,” he told Romero. “Have you eaten today? Pollard?” The pair nodded.
    I said, “I could go for a sandwich.”
    Proust turned his watery eyes on me. “Still the fucking smartass, aren’t you?”
    “I guess that means no sandwich.”
    “What’s your business with the Thayer woman?”
    “Never heard of her.”
    “Romero and Pollard followed her to your office.”
    “I lied.”
    He opened a cabinet with antlers for handles, sprayed seltzer into a glass, and filled it with bourbon. He was still holding his gloves in one hand.
    “When they called in to report I told them to bring you here.” He drank deeply. “Somebody wants to meet you.”
    “Why didn’t Thayer send for me himself?”
    He slammed down the glass, splashing whiskey, and swung on Romero. “Which one of you told him?”
    “We didn’t.”
    The simple dignity of the statement made Proust back up. “How’d you guess?” he asked me.
    “Detective lessons cost money.”
    He fingered the gloves. He wanted to slap me with them. He swallowed the urge, along with the rest of the bourbon.
    “Doyle Thayer isn’t in the habit of leaving his office during working hours to talk to cheap private detectives. What made you think it’s him?”
    “You get these little beads on your upper lip when the subject is money,” I said. “Thayer’s got all of it in the Heights that the politicians haven’t sniffed out. Speaking of working hours, how come you’re not at the office?”
    “I’m on vacation.”
    “Under suspension, you mean. When’s your preliminary?”
    “September first. The whole thing’s a joke.”
    “Eleven counts is hilarious, all right,” I said. “Long date. Figures. Constance Thayer’s comes up in three weeks. But she’s only up for murder.”
    “So you are working for her.” You could smell the canary on his breath. Also bourbon.
    “I’m working for her, yeah. That’s what you wanted to find out. Can I go?”
    “What are you doing for her?”
    I looked at Romero. “You were wrong. He didn’t want to talk to me.”
    “I’m wrong a lot,” he said.
    I jerked a thumb at Pollard. “What about him? I know he speaks because I heard him yesterday.”
    Pollard creaked his uniform. “You may hear me once too often, creep.”
    “Leave us alone, will you?” Proust said. Romero hesitated. “I’m not going to shoot him, for chrissake.”
    The pair left.
    Proust stood slapping the gloves against his leg for a moment. Then he flipped them on top of the cabinet. “Have a seat.”
    I sat in a wingback chair with cowhide upholstery. It was as stiff as a trampoline.
    “Drink?”
    “I never drink before six.”
    “Bullshit.” He refilled his glass. The seltzer bottle stayed put. “Let’s not beat around the bush. We hate each other’s guts and always have.”
    “Who’s beating around the bush?”
    “What we got here is a tramp who tanked up on booze and drugs and filled her husband full of lead. Not unusual these days, except the husband’s father happens to be Doyle Thayer Senior, who employs half the population of the city I work for and pays taxes for the other half. Makes the police look bad; couldn’t even protect one of its wealthiest citizens.”
    “The police are bad.”
    He let it pass. “On top