Amos Walker: The Complete Story Collection by Loren D. Estleman Page A

“You saw these guys before they pulled down their ski masks?”
    “Not enough before. They were just guys’ faces. I didn’t much look at them till they went for the guns. The trigger was my height, maybe ten pounds to the good. His partner gave up a couple of inches, same build, gray eyes.” I described the getaway car.
    “Stolen,” guessed the sergeant. He stood and slid a glassine bag containing the wallet into the side pocket of his coat.
    Alderdyce nodded. “It was a market job. The girl was the finger. She’s smoke by now. Dope?”
    “That or numbers,” said the sergeant. “He’s a little pale for either one in this town, but the rackets are nothing if not an equal opportunity employer. Nobody straight carries cash any more.”
    “I still owe a thousand on this building.” Butch’s upper lip was folded over his chin. “I guess I’d be dumb to pay it off now.”
    “The place is made,” the sergeant told him.
    “Yeah?” The counterman looked hopefully at Alderdyce, who grunted.
    “The Machus Red Fox is booked into next year and has been ever since Hoffa caught his last ride from in front of it.”
    “Yeah?”
    The lieutenant was still looking at me. “When can you come down and sign a statement?”
    “Whenever it’s ready. I’m not exactly swamped.”
    “Five o’clock, then.” He paused. “Your part in this is finished, right?”
    “When I work, I get paid,” I said.
    “How come that doesn’t comfort me?
    I said I’d see him at five.
    The morgue wagon was just creaking its brakes in front when I came out into the afternoon sunlight and walked around the blue-and-white and a couple of unmarked units and a green Fiat to my heap. I was about to get in behind the wheel when I stopped and looked again at the Fiat. The girl Dave Tillet had called Rena was sitting in the driver’s seat, staring at the blank cinderblock wall in front of the windshield.
Three
    I opened the door on the passenger side and got in next to her. She jumped in the seat and looked at me quickly. Her honey-colored hair was caught in a clasp behind her neck, below which a kind of pony-tail hung down her back, and she was wearing a tailored navy suit over a cream-colored blouse open at the neck and jet buttons in her ears, but I recognized her large smoky eyes and the just slightly toowidemouth that was built for grinning, although she wasn’t grinning. The interior of the little car smelled of car and sandalwood.
    She snatched up a blue bag from the seat and her hand vanished inside. I caught her wrist. She struggled, but I applied pressure and her face went white and she stopped struggling. I relaxed the hold, but just a little.
    “Dave’s dead,” I said. “You can’t help him now.”
    She said nothing. On “dead,” her head jerked as if I’d smacked her. I went on.
    “You don’t want to be here when the cops come out. They’ve got your picture and they think you fingered Dave.”
    “That’s stupid.” Her voice came from just in back of her tongue. I didn’t know how it was normally.
    “It’s not stupid. He was expecting you and got five slugs from a twenty-two. The cops know where you work and pretty soon they’ll know where you live and when they find you they’ll book you as a material witness and change it to accessory to the fact later.”
    “You talk like you’re not one of them.”
    “Get real, lady. If I were we wouldn’t be sitting here talking. On the other hand, if you set up Dave deliberately you wouldn’t be here at all. It could just be you’re someone who could use some help.”
    Her lips twisted. “And it could just be you’re someone who could give it.”
    “We’re talking,” I reminded her. “I’m not hollering cop.”
    “Who the hell are you?”
    I told her. Her lips twisted some more.
    “A cheap snooper. I should have guessed it would be something like that.”
    I said, “It’s a buyer’s market. I don’t set the price.”
    “What’s the price?”
    “Some