Double Dealer by Max Allan Collins

Author:Max Allan Collins [Collins, Max Allan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

11

NICK LEANED OVER TO OPEN THE DOOR FOR SERGEANT O'Riley, who hopped into the Tahoe for the ride to Marge Kostichek's. As they rolled across town, O'Riley made a point of studying the features of the SUV. “Nice ride,” he said at last.

Nick nodded.

O'Riley shifted his beefy frame in the seat. “Lot better than those for-shit Tauruses they make us drive.”

Stokes refused to rise to the bait. Though the crime lab unit had helped Homicide solve numerous cases, O'Riley and many of his brethren referred to the CSIs as “the nerd squad” behind their backs. Harboring a feeling that down deep O'Riley longed for the good old days when a detective's best friend was a length of rubber hose, Nick asked, businesslike, “What was that address again?”

Pointing up ahead, O'Riley said, “Two more houses—there on the left.”

Pulling up in front of a tiny bungalow with peeling pale yellow paint and two brown dead bushes that needed removing, Nick parked the Tahoe facing the wrong way. The whole neighborhood looked as though it could use a coat of paint and some TLC. The scraggly grass was almost as brown as the bushes, and as they got closer Nick could make out where the stoop had started to draw away from the house, as if making a break for it. With O'Riley in the lead, they walked up the cracked-and-broken sidewalk and the two crumbly concrete stairs, the detective ringing the bell, then knocking on the door.

They waited—no answer.

O'Riley rang again, knocked again, with the same lack of success. O'Riley turned to Nick, shrugged elaborately, and just as they were turning away, a voice blared from behind them.

“Well, you don't look like Mormons!”

They turned, Nick saw a squat woman in a hot pink bathrobe and curlers.

“We're with the police, ma'am,” O'Riley said, holding up his badge in its leather wallet. “We'd like to talk to you.”

Waving an arm she announced, as if to the whole neighborhood, “Better get your asses in here then, 'cause I'm not staying outside in this goddamn heat!”

With arched eyebrows, Nick looked at O'Riley and O'Riley looked at Nick; whatever unspoken animosity might been between the cop and the CSI melted in the blast-furnace of this woman's abrasive personality. Nick followed O'Riley back up to the house and through the front door, glad to let the cop take the lead.

Little eyes squinted at them; her curlers formed a grotesque Medusa. “Don't just stand there! Close the damn door. Do I look like I can afford to air-condition the whole goddamn city?”

“No, ma'am,” O'Riley said, the idea of a rhetorical question apparently lost on him.

Closing the door, Nick moved into the pint-sized living room next to the king-sized detective. Looking around, he couldn't help but feel he had just stepped into an antique mart—and a cluttered one at that. A maroon velvet chaise longue stood under the lace-curtained front window. Next to it, a fern stretched toward the ceiling, threatening to outgrow its pot. The room also contained two

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