Downriver by Loren D. Estleman Page A

was. We had to tell our kids they couldn’t play with their black friends. Had to tell them it wasn’t the kids we were worried about. It was their parents.”
    “The robbers wore stocking masks and gloves. How do you know the one that got away was black?”
    “Salt and pepper? Not that week.”
    A jet canted in for a landing over the fence, making conversation impossible for a minute. The boy and girl went on digging in the sand and never looked up.
    “When did you close the case?” I asked when the roar had faded.
    “It was still open last I knew. But the snitches didn’t know nothing and the money never turned up and we figured it got laundered someplace, Mexico or someplace. You can only spend so much time on a thing, and we had a city to put back together. Did a rotten job of it too.”
    “What about a driver? They wouldn’t have left the getaway car empty with all hell breaking loose.”
    “Not so much as a treadmark. Investigating conditions weren’t ideal. Flak jackets and auto-rifles, quick and dirty, get in and out with your ass and whatever you can pick up running.”
    “The driver might have been a woman,” I said. “ The man DeVries suspects hung out with a hippie blonde.”
    “Age of Aquarius. Peace and love. Shit.”
    “Floyd.” Mrs. Orlander didn’t look up from her magazine.
    “Yes, Dottie.”
    “Who tipped them the armored car would be there?”
    “If you got a look at the security in those outfits you’d bury your money in a Mason jar. We couldn’t turn an inside man.”
    “Swell.”
    “Wish I could remember more,” he said, “but not too bad. DeVries was guilty as hell and we won’t count Jackson. Five hundred was a good average in my day.”
    “How’s your partner’s memory?”
    “Barney Drake? I heard he blew a vein in his head ten-twelve years ago. His daughter stuck him in a home in California or someplace. I bet they wash him every day and dress him up just like he was folks. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. I never worked with anyone so miserable in my life.”
    “Why work with him at all?”
    He spread the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and pointed at the web of flesh between them. “See that scar? Well, maybe you can’t so good anymore. Back in ’sixty-two this snitch we was questioning kind of hard behind the old Demosthenes Bar pulled a .45 and stuck it in Barney’s stomach and squeezed off. The punk just never carried, we weren’t ready for it. There wasn’t time to do anything but jam my hand into the action.
    After that we sent the sorry snitch to Receiving to get his jaw wired. I saved Barney’s cookies that night.”
    “Wouldn’t that make him loyal to you instead of the other way around?”
    “Hell no, it made him even more miserable to be with. But you give a man back his life, you just naturally want to hang around and make sure he doesn’t throw it away. I guess he’s grateful out there in the Piss-Your-Pants Home for the Terminally Fucked in Pasadena or wherever it is. Sorry, Dottie.”
    “You do the explaining when we send these children home swearing like muleskinners.”
    He didn’t hear her. He was looking at the twins, and his thoughts were as clear as the welts on his face. I said, “If they’re raised right they won’t stick you in a place like that.”
    “Five minutes alone with my department piece, that’s all I’ll ever ask them for.”
    He put on his hat. It was a dismissal, but I wasn’t ready to leave the spot. The sun felt good on my stiff neck. “City looking to expand the airport?”
    “Three years now. I’m the one standing in front of it. I bought this place out of my pension, cash on the barrelhead. First place we ever owned. They’ll meet my price or ’doze us both under.”
    “What’s your price?”
    “Sixty-five.”
    “You might get it. In Detroit they’d just invoke eminent domain and roll right over you.”
    “It’s why I left. That it?”
    I hesitated. “I’m curious about that