Free Loren D. Estleman - Amos Walker 17 - Retro by Loren D. Estleman

stroked him gently, milked out six messages, hung up, and broke a pencil. Five of them were from Lance West, asking me to call him back. He didn’t leave a number. When I remembered who Lance West was, I went down to the car, where I’d left Llewellyn Hale’s report on Delwayne Garnet, and paged through it on my wayback upstairs. I found his number on page fourteen and dialed it standing up at my desk.
    “Hello?” He sounded out-of-breath.
    “Delwayne, this is Walker.”
    “Sorry, friend. You’ve got the wrong number.” He hung up.
    I dialed again. I’d have used my gun butt on the buttons if I didn’t have to unlock the safe to get it.
    “Hello?”
    “Lance West, then,” I said. “Someone should have told you it sounds like the lead in a gay porn film.”
    “Walker?”
    “Sorry, friend. I must have dialed the wrong number.” I hung up.
    When the bell rang I was sharpening a fresh pencil. I sighted down the barrel, tested the point with my thumb, blew off the cedar shavings, and slid it eraser-end down into the cup. Then I picked up. “A. Walker Investigations.”
    “Damn it, Walker, this isn’t a game. Just answering to ‘Delwayne’ on an open line could be interpreted as an admission of my identity.”
    “No one’s listening, Lance. You called me first, remember? Also second, third, fourth, and fifth. Sixth, if you count this one. I didn’t think I made that big an impression.”
    “You didn’t. But I don’t know any other investigators in the U.S. I want you to take the job I offered you yesterday. You know the one.”
    “Hollywood call?”
    “What? Oh, money. I borrowed against what I’ve got coming this fall. Turns out my friends at Lost Galleon had a few doubloons lying around I didn’t know about. They like my work. Which translated means I come cheaper than Steranko.”
    “What’s a Steranko?”
    He sawed air in and out. “Do you always work this hard at not working?”
    “It’s still a police case, Lance.”
    “I’ll pay you a bonus at the end.” He breathed again. “Five thousand, if you deliver.”
    The mail slot in my door creaked and three envelopes dribbled to the floor. Real checks don’t come in envelopes with windows. “Put fifteen hundred in the mail. The clock starts when I cash it.”
    “I won’t be using the mails. I’m flying out in an hour.”
    “Flying out where?”
    “Detroit. I’ll be paying you in cash.”
    “What broke you loose? You’re still lukewarm here. The Washington spooks might throw a net over you just to keep in practice.”
    “I’ll take that chance. When I was growing up with my ear to the wall, I learned some personal information about my mother and father that might help with the investigation. I don’t want to tell it over the phone and I don’t want to wait four hours while you make the drive up here. Can you meet me in the dining room of the Airport Hilton at noon?”
    “There hasn’t been an Airport Hilton for years. It’s the Marriott now.”
    “Thanks for that. I may reserve a room. Is the hotel still attached to the terminal?”
    I said it was.
    “Good. I don’t plan to visit the old neighborhood or take in the sights. I’m keeping my return ticket in my pocket. One rotten whiff and I’m on my way to the gate. Will you meet me?”
    I said I would, and the connection broke. I used my freshly sharpened pencil to enter the time and place of the appointment, no name, on the Word-a-Day calendar. The word was
mesoblast
. I didn’t see me working it into a conversation any time soon.
    I returned the only non-Delwayne-related call I’d had waiting, and used the pencil again to note down the names of elusive witnesses to a tanker crash on the Jeffries Freeway the Monday before. It was an insurance job, easy in, easy out, goodfor a new set of radials for the car. I did a little sleuthing over the telephone, snared some unlisted numbers, left messages, and made appointments. Just to be prepared I broke a stack of blank