Stress by Loren D. Estleman Page A

“Well, what did he want?”
    “Wanted to know was I missing any boats New Year’s Eve.”
    “We were closed New Year’s Eve.”
    “That’s what I told him. Only a damn fool’d be out on the lake after Christmas. Hit a chunk of ice and play Titanic .”
    “What’d he say?”
    “Wanted to know about my employees. I said, ask away, I ain’t got but three. He asked about you most.” He wiped off the nozzle with the rag.
    “I guess you told him I’m your best worker.”
    “I don’t lie to cops. I said you got in trouble once but you was up front about it when you put in for the job. Been clean ever since so far as I know. He asked what kind of trouble. I said I think assault, some kid rap. He said he’d be back after he checked it out.”
    “Fucking cops. They got no imagination. Every time something goes down they go to the fucking books.”
    Pinky’s scowl reminded him of Neptune’s. “He comes back, you answer his questions. And watch your fucking language. In Grosse Pointe only the customers swear.”
    “Why’d you have to tell him about my juvie?”
    “He asked.”
    “Shit.” He lifted a bucket and tossed the sponge inside.
    “Maybe you ought to be grateful he didn’t ask about the gas.”
    “What gas?”
    Pinky set down the rag and spray gun and mopped his palms on his denimed thighs. Although he was shorter than Russell his hands were nearly as big, with knuckles the size of ship’s bells. “I drained the tank on every boat Christmas week. January second Everett and I pulled them up on the dock and carried them to storage. One of ’em sloshed when we lifted it. The Maybelline . Tank was damn near half full.”
    “So you missed one.”
    “No, I drained it all right. Everett didn’t know nothing about it and neither did Pete when I asked him yesterday. Did you gas up that boat and take it out?”
    “ Hell, no. New Year’s Eve I was home sucking on a reefer and listening to Wolfman Jack.”
    “I didn’t say New Year’s Eve. Cop said that. It could’ve been any time between Christmas and the second.”
    “I don’t even like the water.”
    Pinky rose from the low stool, listing slightly when at his full height. One leg was shorter than the other due to some bone that had been removed from his knee along with several ounces of shrapnel, a souvenir of his tour aboard the Hancock. “Well, be ready to tell that to the cop.” He steadied himself against the counter as he worked his way behind it. Although he took a rubber-tipped cane to work every day he seldom used it.
    Russell scrubbed the big lakeside window, put on his jacket, and went out to dump the bucket into the lake. When that was done he carried the first of a row of propane tanks from the dock to the side of the building and filled it from the big tank. He forced himself to put his brain on suspension while he performed these menial chores. He had topped off the last of the portable tanks and was on his way to the storeroom to dispose of the empty boxes there when he spotted the gray Plymouth parked at the edge of the lot in front of the building. Looking at the twin whip antennae mounted on the rear fenders, Russell wondered why they didn’t just go ahead and paint PIG on all four sides. He wondered too how they managed to make their vehicles materialize in select locations without anyone noticing them approaching. He swore the spot had been empty five seconds earlier.
    The pig was standing inside the storeroom when Russell entered through the door from the dock. The man was black—which threw Russell, although he knew there were black officers with Detroit—coarse-featured, and obviously well built beneath his charcoal suit and tan topcoat. Russell might have taken him for some kind of athlete if he hadn’t spoken to Pinky or seen the unmarked police unit outside. He looked to be in his early twenties and wore his hair in the understated natural that had begun to spread through the black middle class after the shock of