Amos Walker: The Complete Story Collection by Loren D. Estleman
Authors: Loren D. Estleman
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me while his partner walked swiftly to a brown Plymouth Volare and around to the driver’s side and got in and then Gray Eyes let himself in the passenger’s side and they were rolling before he got the door closed.
Tillet fell then, crumpling in on himself like a gas bag deflating, and folded to the floor with no more noise than laundry makes skidding down a chute. Very bright red blood leaked out of his ear and slid into a puddle on the gray linoleum floor.
I ran out to the sidewalk in time to see the Plymouth take the corner. Forget about the license number. I wasn’t wearing a gun. I hardly ever needed one to meet a woman in a diner.
When I went back in, the counterman was standing over Tillet’s body, wiping his hands over and over on his apron. His face was as pale as the cloth. The telephone receiver swung from its cord and the metallic purring on the other end was loud in the silence following the shots. I bent and placed two fingers on Tillet’s neck. Nothing was happening in the big artery. I straightened, picked up the receiver, worked the plunger, and dialed 911. Standing there waiting for someone to answer I was sorry I’d eaten the chicken.
Two
They sent an Adam and Eve team, a white man and a black woman in uniform. You had to look twice at the woman to know she was a woman. They hadn’t gotten around to cutting uniforms to fit them, and her tunic hung on her like a tarpaulin. Her partner had baby fat in his cheeks and a puppy moustache. His face went stiff when he saw the body. The woman might have been looking at a loose tile on the floor for all her expression gave up. Just to kill time I gave them the story, knowing I’d have to do it all over again for the plainclothes team. Butch was sitting on one of the customers’ stools with his hands in his lap and whenever they looked at him he nodded in agreement with my details. The woman took it all down in shorthand.
The first string arrived ten minutes later. Among them was a black lieutenant, coarse-featured and heavy in the chest and shoulders, wearing a gray suit cut in heaven and a black tie with a silver diamond pattern. When he saw me he groaned.
“Hello, John,” I said. “This is a hike north from Headquarters.”
John Alderdyce of Detroit Homicide patted all his pockets and came up with an empty Lucky Strikes package. I gave him a Winston from my pack and took one for myself and lit them both. He squirted smoke and said, “I was eight blocks from here when I got the squeal. If I’d known you were back of it I’d have kept driving.”
John and I had known each other a long time, a thing I admitted to a lot more often than he did. While I was recounting the last few minutes in the life of Dave Tillet, a police photographer came in and took pictures of the body from forty different angles and then a bearded black Homicide sergeant I didn’t know tugged on a pair of surgical gloves and knelt and started going through Tillet’s clothes. Butch had recovered from his shock by this time and came over to watch. “Them gloves are to protect the fingerprints, right?” he asked.
“Wrong. Catch.” The sergeant tossed him Tillet’s wallet.
Butch caught it against his chest. “It’s wet.”
“That’s why the gloves.”
Butch thought about it, then dropped the wallet quickly and mopped his hands on his apron.
“Can the crap,” barked Alderdyce. “What’s inside?”
Still chuckling, the sergeant picked up the wallet and went through the contents. He whistled. “Christ, it’s full of C-notes. Eight, ten, twelve—this guy was carrying fifteen hundred bucks on his hip.”
“What else?”
The celluloid windows gave up a Social Security card and a temporary driver’s license, both made out to David Edward Tillet, and the picture of the blonde.
“That Rena?” Alderdyce asked.
I nodded. “She waits tables at the Peacock’s Roost, Tillet said.”
Alderdyce told the sergeant to bag the wallet and its contents. To me:
Tillet fell then, crumpling in on himself like a gas bag deflating, and folded to the floor with no more noise than laundry makes skidding down a chute. Very bright red blood leaked out of his ear and slid into a puddle on the gray linoleum floor.
I ran out to the sidewalk in time to see the Plymouth take the corner. Forget about the license number. I wasn’t wearing a gun. I hardly ever needed one to meet a woman in a diner.
When I went back in, the counterman was standing over Tillet’s body, wiping his hands over and over on his apron. His face was as pale as the cloth. The telephone receiver swung from its cord and the metallic purring on the other end was loud in the silence following the shots. I bent and placed two fingers on Tillet’s neck. Nothing was happening in the big artery. I straightened, picked up the receiver, worked the plunger, and dialed 911. Standing there waiting for someone to answer I was sorry I’d eaten the chicken.
Two
They sent an Adam and Eve team, a white man and a black woman in uniform. You had to look twice at the woman to know she was a woman. They hadn’t gotten around to cutting uniforms to fit them, and her tunic hung on her like a tarpaulin. Her partner had baby fat in his cheeks and a puppy moustache. His face went stiff when he saw the body. The woman might have been looking at a loose tile on the floor for all her expression gave up. Just to kill time I gave them the story, knowing I’d have to do it all over again for the plainclothes team. Butch was sitting on one of the customers’ stools with his hands in his lap and whenever they looked at him he nodded in agreement with my details. The woman took it all down in shorthand.
The first string arrived ten minutes later. Among them was a black lieutenant, coarse-featured and heavy in the chest and shoulders, wearing a gray suit cut in heaven and a black tie with a silver diamond pattern. When he saw me he groaned.
“Hello, John,” I said. “This is a hike north from Headquarters.”
John Alderdyce of Detroit Homicide patted all his pockets and came up with an empty Lucky Strikes package. I gave him a Winston from my pack and took one for myself and lit them both. He squirted smoke and said, “I was eight blocks from here when I got the squeal. If I’d known you were back of it I’d have kept driving.”
John and I had known each other a long time, a thing I admitted to a lot more often than he did. While I was recounting the last few minutes in the life of Dave Tillet, a police photographer came in and took pictures of the body from forty different angles and then a bearded black Homicide sergeant I didn’t know tugged on a pair of surgical gloves and knelt and started going through Tillet’s clothes. Butch had recovered from his shock by this time and came over to watch. “Them gloves are to protect the fingerprints, right?” he asked.
“Wrong. Catch.” The sergeant tossed him Tillet’s wallet.
Butch caught it against his chest. “It’s wet.”
“That’s why the gloves.”
Butch thought about it, then dropped the wallet quickly and mopped his hands on his apron.
“Can the crap,” barked Alderdyce. “What’s inside?”
Still chuckling, the sergeant picked up the wallet and went through the contents. He whistled. “Christ, it’s full of C-notes. Eight, ten, twelve—this guy was carrying fifteen hundred bucks on his hip.”
“What else?”
The celluloid windows gave up a Social Security card and a temporary driver’s license, both made out to David Edward Tillet, and the picture of the blonde.
“That Rena?” Alderdyce asked.
I nodded. “She waits tables at the Peacock’s Roost, Tillet said.”
Alderdyce told the sergeant to bag the wallet and its contents. To me:
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