Free Motor City Blue by Loren D. Estleman Page A

of a bourgeois little salon or family room or whatever the architects and real estate agents are calling the living room this season, complete with a baby grand piano in one corner and rows of leather-bound books arranged in unread elegance behind glass. Three arched doorways led into adjacent rooms and a thickly carpeted staircase wound toward the second story a short hike from the entrance. A Presto log burned blue in the fireplace. In another minute I expected Perry Como to stroll in singing “Home for the Holidays.” I wasn’t so far off.
    “Mr. Walker?”
    The beige carpet beneath my feet was so deep I hadn’t realized I was no longer alone until I heard the voice behind me. I turned to face the same arch of the same doorway I’d seen when I’d looked in that direction before. Her head didn’t start until two feet below that point. She was pink and fluffy and squeezed into a pink and fluffy dress that fit her like the casing of one of those tiny, expensive sausages they sell in the chain stores in packages of six that nobody ever buys. She had bluish hair carefully brushed and sprayed into soft-looking waves that framed a round, pink little face with a round, pert little nose and round, bright little eyes that sparkled from the depths of her plump flesh like glass buttons machine-punched into a throw pillow. Her Cupid’s-bow mouth was fixed in a rouge-tinted smile of greeting as she approached with dainty steps, making a journey out of the few yards that separated us.
    I admitted to the Walker part but said I wasn’t so sure about the mister. Up close I caught a scent, or rather the impression of a scent, of delicate toilet water, or maybe it was just her.
    “I’m Beryl Garnet.” A plump, moist little hand slid into mine, fluttered there for an instant, and was gone.
    I leered charmingly. “Parents play some awful tricks on defenseless babies, don’t they?”
    Her laughter tinkled as if the tin and crystal pendants of a Chinese mobile dangled in her throat. “You’re perfectly awful, Mr. Walker. And perfectly correct. But then I haven’t met anyone named Amos in over forty years.”
    “My father named me after half a radio show.”
    The pendants stirred again. “Shall we sit down?”
    We should and did. Beryl Garnet assumed a ladylike little pose on the edge of a Louis XIV or some such number chair with her tiny hands folded in her lap while I foundered in a maroon overstuffed sofa. By the time my keel had righted itself the maid was standing over me. The vow of silence was broken. Did the gentleman wish a cup of coffee? I looked at the two white cups painted with tiny flowers steaming on the silver tray in her hands, decided I couldn’t get enough grip on one of them to lift it without shattering it, and said no thanks. It should have been tea in the first place. My hostess fluttered a hand and the maid glided off.
    “May I smoke?” I kept away from my pockets. I’d been caught once too many times with a Winston in one hand, a flaming match in the other, and a big fat No staring me in the face.
    “Try one of these.” She opened a hand-worked wooden box on the glass coffee table between us and held it out. “They’re Turkish.”
    I selected one of the oval cylinders arranged inside and lit up. The tobacco had been mixed with shredded fiber from some sultan’s flying carpet. By the time my match was ready for it, a glass ashtray had appeared on the arm of the sofa. The maid seemed to operate by remote control.
    It looked as if it was up to me to open. I was gearing up for, it when the floor shook and a Great Dane the size of last month’s utility bill came bouncing into the room through the arch to my right and planted its huge paws on my shoulders with the light touch of a pair of battering rams. My teeth ground halfway through the cigarette. Through the smoke a great square head with hornlike ears and ivory teeth bared in a blue-black muzzle breathed hot air into my face with a taint of