A Safe Place for Dying by Jack Fredrickson

Author:Jack Fredrickson [Fredrickson, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Contemporary
ISBN: 9781429996785
Google: -3WLY6pkhDsC
Goodreads: 433938
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2006-11-13T11:00:00+00:00

The sun was going down as I got off the expressway. I didn’t want to eat alone. I didn’t want to think alone. I swung by Leo’s. His Porsche was parked at the curb in front of his mother’s bungalow.

“Want to go get something to eat?” I asked through the screen when he came to the door. Then I noticed the silvery, geometric-patterned shirt and the light green slacks. Dress duds. “Going out, or merely planning to change a tire on a dimly lit road?”

“I just dropped Ma at church for Friday night bingo. Endora and I are going to the movies.” He opened the door and stepped out onto the concrete porch. He studied my face in the glow of the yellow bug light. “You all right, Dek?”

“Peachy. Why do you ask?”

“Because you look like shit. When’s the last time you ate?”

I thought back. “Lunch, but I left most of it. I’m on a new diet: the Bad Nerves Diet. I’m going to write a book about it and get rich.”

He turned around and held the door open for me. “You hit the jackpot tonight, pal: pork, sauerkraut, and dumplings. A Polish Happy Meal.” I followed him into the kitchen.

He pulled a big plastic salad bowl out of a cabinet, opened the refrigerator, and filled the bowl with the leftovers. He stuck a fork and a knife upright, like two flagpoles, into the big chunk of pork and handed the bowl to me. It must have weighed five pounds, and it was still warm. “Mind if we sit outside? You’re such a pig, and I won’t have the time to hose down the kitchen after you’re done.” He grabbed two bottles of Pilsner Urquell out of the refrigerator, and we went outside to sit on his front stoop.

He opened both beers and set one on the cement next to me. “Now tell Uncle Leo what’s ailing you, but talk straight ahead, toward the street. I don’t want your food on this two-dollar shirt.”

I ate and told him about the extra wires under the lamppost and the meeting with A.T.F. at the Bohemian’s. When I told him my theory that all the D.X.12 in Gateville was wired together, he set down his beer bottle so hard I thought I heard a crack.

“One switch blows it all away?”

“Could be.”

“Why hasn’t he threatened that, then?”

“I think he’s playing with them, stringing them along, one explosion at a time. A cat with a mouse.”

“Or because he thinks he can extract more total money if he does it a chunk at a time.” Leo looked off down the street. “At least you’ve passed it off to the Feds,” he said.

“I’m still on it. Stanley remembered part of a name from 1970, one of the electricians. The Bohemian wants Stanley and me to chase it down, paralleling Chief Morris and Agent Till.”

“That’s probably wise,” he said, taking a pull on the Urquell.

“No, it’s not. Using Stanley and me is like using Laurel and Hardy. I’m not equipped for it, and Stanley is supposed to be spending his time watching security at Gateville.

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