Free The Bad Kitty Lounge by Michael Wiley Page A

job makes you human, not a drunk.”
    â€œProblem is, those were my best days.”
    â€œJust don’t make that kind of good day a habit.”
    â€œMmm,” she said. She didn’t sound certain but she added, “Thanks for bringing me in, Joe.”
    â€œNot a lot of people would thank me for getting them into a mess like this.”
    â€œYeah, I know,” she said. “But thanks.”
    I exited from the Kennedy at Ohio Street, drove to Orleans, and searched for a parking space. At the curb I looked at my watch. It was 3:35, and I was five minutes late for my date with Eric Stone.
    I dialed the phone once more.
    Corrine answered. The slight hoarseness of her voice tugged at me, though I’d heard it thousands of times. It relieved me in ways that three inhaled breaths didn’t.
    â€œHey,” I said, “I tried you earlier.”
    â€œI got your message. I’m glad you’re okay.”
    â€œStan Fleming’s leading the investigation.”
    â€œYeah?” She sounded only vaguely interested.
    â€œYeah. I’m supposed to stay out of it. He’s warned me.”
    She laughed. “That’ll make a difference.”
    â€œWhat are you up to?”
    â€œI’m teaching a class on winter mulching at the Botanical Garden. Nothing very exciting.” She ran a landscaping business and made things bloom while I worried about them dying.
    â€œIt gets me excited,” I said.
    Her voice got warm. “What excites you about mulch?”
    I cradled the phone close to my neck. “It’s not the mulch. It’s
you
and the mulch. I fantasize about you and mulch.”
    â€œYou’re kind of weird, Joe.”
    â€œYou do that to me. You want to have dinner tonight?”
    She gave that a moment. “With you, or with you and the kid?”
    The kid. “With me and Jason. If you want to wait for the weekend, it could be just us.”
    â€œI’ve got plans tonight.”
    â€œBecause I asked if you wanted to have dinner with Jason and me?”
    â€œNo, because I’ve got plans.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œBut this weekend?”
    â€œYeah,” I said. “I’ll call.”
    Her voice softened again. “Take care of yourself until you do.”
    Hundreds of couples had conversations like that. The trouble was, we weren’t a couple anymore.
    I rode the elevator to Eric Stone’s office at 3:40. Lakeview Commercial and Residential Real Estate Development, or LCR as most people knew them, had an office suite on the twelfth floor of a white-faced office tower. The reception area had plush gray carpet and paneling that passed as teak. The receptionist buzzed Stone to tell him I was there.
    The corridor to Stone’s office took me past a glass-walled conference room. Inside, two women stood by a conference table and argued. One was in her late seventies at least, thin and dressed in a tight red skirt and jacket. Her hair was auburn, pointing at bronze, and she’d drawn on a thin line of red lipstick. The other was Greg Samuelson’s wife, Amy. The glassdeadened the sound of their argument. The older woman felt my eyes on her, and she and Amy Samuelson stopped talking and stared at me. Amy Samuelson looked embarrassed, but the other woman’s gaze was hard, like she’d never experienced embarrassment in her life.
    I stepped close to the glass and exhaled steam on it. Amy Samuelson’s mouth fell open.
    Then, from behind me, a woman’s hand reached past my shoulder, and her index finger drew a little heart on the steamed glass.
    The skin on the woman’s hand was tan, though the sun hadn’t shined solid in Chicago since Labor Day. Her fingernails glittered like semiprecious gems. I turned and saw the rest of her. She looked like she was in her mid-thirties but with a lot of wear. She had wheat-brown hair, tinted blond, and wore tight jeans and a little shirt that showed belly on the