When Old Midnight Comes Along by Loren D. Estleman

Author:Loren D. Estleman
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

* * *

“God, that felt good.”

We were riding down in the elevator. I asked if a favor for a friend was worth losing his job.

“Since when are we friends?”

“Since the last time you tanked me for obstruction of justice. You could have had me broken in Lansing, but you forgot. You never forget anything.”

“That’s one of the things I regret not forgetting.”

“Not an answer to my question.”

He toggled his big head on his big neck, cracking bones. “I lost a shot at chief of detectives and twice the amount of my current pension for worse reasons. I’ve been looking for an excuse to tell that son of a bitch to screw himself since the day I signed on. What have you dug up, besides an ugly piece of expensive jewelry?”

I filled him in on what White and Oakes Steadman had said about Marcus Root.

He remembered the case. “I know Steadman. We worked with Allen Park on a protection racket the gangs were working both sides of the line. I wouldn’t trust him as far as the end of my arm. Probably why the staties recruited him. You can expect a crook to be untrustworthy. Legits are a crapshoot.”

“What about White?”

“Fellow cop. Also a crapshoot. What else?”

“Paula Lawes may have known Root.”

“Based on what?”

“Don’t crowd me, John.”

The doors opened. We walked through the drafty lobby. Ernest Krell paid us no attention from his pedestal.

Out in the parking lot, Alderdyce unlocked his car by remote. It was a silver Mazda, that year’s model. He dumped the box into the backseat, scraped nonexistent dust off his palms, and faced me. “What happened to ‘I don’t have to scribble on a blotter’?”

“Not the same deal. This was a personal promise, in return for information. I’ll throw some expense money your way.”

“Not if it’s Lawes’s.”

“If this clears him, it won’t bend your almighty principles.”

“Maybe not, but it’d chafe my ass. I’ve spent too much time not liking him to change my tastes.”

I shook out a cigarette and speared it in the corner of my mouth. I didn’t light it. Cigarettes are good for many other things besides destroying your lungs. “Then I’ll put it on my account.”

He laughed. You don’t want to hear John Alderdyce laugh. “You couldn’t cover my gas. Anything else?”

I thought about the low-rider I’d dusted off my tail. There was no sign of it in the lot or the street that ran past it. I hadn’t expected one, but I’d been wrong before when I thought I was in the clear.

I said nothing. I didn’t know why, except that it was my headache. He had enough on his mind, beginning with filing for unemployment.

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