Sinister Heights by Loren D. Estleman

the spot on the windowsill where he scratched the number with a safety pin. He seen the car swing into the driveway and a woman pile out with a little kid that looks like his. The old man’s lost some sawdust out of his head since the Kaiser surrendered; if he’s got a kid he’s older than I am or dead. Either way he probably don’t visit. The old man’s smart enough to take down the number so he can put the cops on the case, but he’s fuzzy enough to forget all about it until I come along and remind him. He don’t even know what day he scratched it in the sill.”
    Jerrys tone was ripe with being impressed with himself. Pure dumb luck has done that to better men than he. I snuffed out my butt in the ashtray next to the telephone. “Who runs the shelter?”
    â€œBroad named Mrs. Emory Chapin owns it, that’s public record. She might run it or not. I could find out, but it’d cost you a lot more than two hundred. The fucking CIA should be so quiet.”
    â€œWhat’s the address?”
    He gave it to me. I didn’t have a pencil or even a safety pin, so I repeated it aloud, committing it to memory. There was a pause on his end then, and I knew the story had a kicker. I waited him out.
    â€œI got Mrs. Chapin’s address too,” he said. “Also her phone number.”
    I told him to hang on and went into the kitchen. I fetched a magnetic pad off the refrigerator and a pen and returned to the living room. “Okay, Jerry, I’m impressed. I’ll lay twenty on OSU next time they’re in Ann Arbor.”
    â€œLay it on me instead. I let a vice president at Ameritech pay for a Rolex I fished out of his kid’s skivvies last year. He’s good for an unlisted number every couple of months. You got a kid, Walker?”
    â€œNot yet. Probably not ever.”
    â€œGood. They’re a fucking Achilles heel.” He gave me the information.
    I wrote it down. “I’ll send you a check.”
    â€œSend cash.”
    â€œIt might get stolen.”
    â€œIt won’t. I told you, I don’t moonlight no more. Come back down to God’s country anytime you can’t stand the mosquitoes in Michigan.”
    He hung up. I didn’t hear of him again until a minister’s wife got frisked at the outlet mall for a pair of pantyhose she didn’t have on her and she sued for half a million. The mall let him go. I don’t know what his credit union clerk did to him, but a couple of months later the minister’s wife got nailed wheeling a display model gas grill out the door of a Montgomery Ward’s in Cleveland, and this time the charge stuck.
    It was too late to call Mrs. Emory Chapin. I went back to bed, woke up when the alarm clock clicked just before seven, drank two cups of coffee, and sat around reading the Free Press until eight. There was a long piece about neighborhood improvements in the Mexican community on Detroit’s west side; another ethnic group heard from, adding salsa to the baklava and cannolis and kielbasa and barbecued ribs aboard the groaning local table. It made me hungry, so I got up and made French toast.
    Before making the call I used the bathroom and set out a fresh pack of cigarettes and a book of matches. There was no telling how long I’d be charming Mrs. Chapin over the telephone before my shovel rang against metal.
    I got a putative female voice with a strand of barbed wire running through it. I pictured Jerry’s diesel job. She was only mildly abusive, but it was early yet and she hadn’t caught her stride. She knew nothing about shelters or any party named Constance Glendowning. I asked if I happened to be addressing Mrs. Chapin. She knew nothing about anyone who went by that name. She knew nothing about pretty much everything and made it plenty clear it was my fault for assuming otherwise. Just for the novelty of it I told the truth, that the Glendowning party was in line for an