Free Mike Reuther - Return to Dead City by Mike Reuther Page A

Appraisal of Twentieth Century Naturalist Authors.
    I continued to run my light over the table. Finding nothing of interest, I began to leaf through some of the books. Three more letters were concealed between the covers of some of the volumes. Each of the letters had been sent to Hampton from Ivy League schools. I took time to read all three. They were all form letters advising Hampton that he had been turned down for each of the teaching positions for which he’d applied. Apparently Ocyl College fell short of his academic standards, and he was now setting his sights on bigger things. Or maybe he just wanted the hell out of Centre Town. I didn’t have much of a clue how these prissy academic types contemplated wiping their rear ends let alone considered their next career moves. What was clear was that Hampton had started knocking on the hallowed doors of the big Ivies, and finding them less than eager to embrace him into their snooty embraces, was now working his way down to the less exclusive schools.
    After replacing the letters back inside the books I sat back on the couch and listened to the rain. The couch was a sturdy job that swallowed me up into its deep-cushioned comfort. For the longest time I just sat there in the dark moving my light around the room as I listened to the rain pound off the roof. What had started earlier in the evening as drizzle was now a full-fledged storm. I welcomed it. Though I’d been back in Centre Town for only a couple of months, the rain still sounded strange after all those years in the arid Southwest.
    Albuquerque. Long hot nights patrolling that desert boom town. Sipping cold beers at the Mexicali Cafe after work. The warm summer breezes off the desert reaching me on the restaurant’s patio as Juanita, the slim waitress with the coconut skin and the high husky laugh, brought me another beer. Above me a galaxy of stars sprinkled across a sky of black velvet looked close enough to touch. Hell. I could have retired in that southwestern haven. But then…A little Mexican boy, the scurrying of drug dealers through rooms of a house and the cacophony of Spanish voices…the barrel of a gun pointed at me, and the blast of gunfire.
    “Who’s there?”
    A dark figure stood on the staircase landing just off the hallway across the room.
    “You stay right there,” he said in a quivering voice. The figure moved uneasily down the steps and into the hallway. I was on my feet, but it was just as well I didn’t make a run for it. In the next instant I was bathed in light and staring at the butt end of a revolver.
     
     
     
    Chapter 5
     
     
     
    “You’re an intruder sir.”
    It took me about five seconds to realize the worst I might get out of this was a verbal lashing. The guy was out of his element. That was for damn sure. He was trying hard to keep his voice from faltering , and it was all he could do to keep both his bony hands around the puny .22 pistol he had trained on me.
    He was this thin, almost emaciated guy with a sallow complexion and a little brush mustache. The red bathrobe he wore fell to just above the scrawniest pair of chicken legs I’d ever seen. All in all, I guess you could say he was a pathetic version of David Niven. If not for the gun I might have walked across the room and slapped him silly. It took some will power to keep from doing just that. I was convinced the twit didn’t have a clue about how to use a firearm.
    “Identify yourself sir.”
    He had gained some control of his voice , but it was plain he would have much rather been in front of a class discussing the symbolism behind Moby Dick than holding a gun on yours truly. He held the gun so tightly that the knuckles on his hands had turned white. Right then, I decided to see how far I could push him.
    “What’s it worth to you?” I asked.
    The chicken legs buckled for an instant, and it seemed to take all his strength in his hands to keep the gun steady.
    “I could shoot you sir. You are, after all,