Sinister Heights by Loren D. Estleman

couple. I might of busted her nose once. Put a bump in it anyway. She had two black eyes for a week and didn’t go out. That wasn’t my idea, I mean the not going out; she didn’t want people to ask questions because the answers would get me in trouble. She loves me all right. Or she did.” He sucked hard on the filter, got mad at it and tore it off. The butts in the tray were unfiltered Pall Malls. He took in a double lungful of full leaded, tried to blow it out his nose, and coughed. He was still sniffling. “I’m a rotten son of a bitch.”
    â€œYou hit her the last time?”
    He nodded. Then he laughed, a short bark full of self-hate. “The joke is it wasn’t all that hard. Not nearly hard enough to raise a welt. I guess it was just one feather more than the pile’d hold. I’d give up drinking if she’d come back. I miss her even more than I miss Matt. Is that bad? I love that kid more than I love me. When I loved me.”
    â€œYou’re bargaining in the wrong direction. She might come back if you give up drinking, or maybe she wouldn’t. I never met her, she might be smarter than I’m giving her credit for. It still wouldn’t be enough. You’d have to start talking to someone.”
    â€œYou mean a shrink? I thought of that. I can’t afford it and I wouldn’t go to the one that works with the union. It’s like using a toilet on a plane. Everyone knows where you’re going.”
    â€œThere are good ones that will work with you on their fee. I know a few around Detroit. I could give you some names.”
    â€œMaybe everyone’d be better off if I just blew my brains out.”
    â€œIt’s a way out,” I agreed. “You’ve certainly got the firepower upstairs.”
    He looked at me the way he had just before he took his swing at me. Then he took a drag and let it out with the smoke. “You’re a detective, all right. You find the magazines in the back of the closet?”
    â€œThey wouldn’t interest me unless they told me where your wife went. Just for argument, though, you should lock up the piece. It might be a start.”
    â€œConnie was always after me to get rid of it. I only bought it when I got involved in the union. You meet some types that just knowing you own one makes you feel better, even if you don’t keep it with you. I don’t guess it matters what I do with it now.”
    I poked my stub into my empty and let it fall. It spat when it hit the dregs. “That’s the trouble with you pity bugs. You never follow one line of thought to the end. First you’re going to reform, then you’re going to clock yourself, then you’re right back where you started. Why don’t you buy another case and drown yourself in it?”
    â€œWhy don’t I punch you through the back of that fucking sofa?”
    â€œI think you found out that’s not as much fun as you thought.”
    He gave that some consideration. Then he nodded, laid his stub on top of the heap, and drank the rest of his beer. He made a face, as if the beer was flat, but it was just another crying jag. When it was over he wiped his nose on his sleeve and said, “I’m a piece of work. What makes me think I’m worth some cop digging a bullet out of my skull? Did you mean that about giving me the name of a shrink?”
    â€œIt’s not like getting fitted for glasses. You’d have to keep going back. And you have to want what he has to peddle. The good ones don’t like just drawing their pay.”
    â€œI’d do it for Connie and Matt.”
    â€œForget it then. If it’s not for you it won’t take.”
    We sat saying nothing for a while. Cars began to go by outside. People were coming home from work, leaving the job at the office or the plant, looking forward to dinner and the tube, or not looking forward to a band concert at the kid’s high school, or