Denton - 01 - Dead Folks' Blues Read Online Free PDF Page B

“What, Walter, you waiting for your shot?”
    “No, jerk off, just curious. That’s all. If anybody’s waiting for a shot at her, it’s probably you.”
    “Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not. And no, she’s not divorcing him. But he’s into some bookies, and they’re starting to make threatening noises.”
    “What for? I mean, what’s his game? Ponies? Football?”
    “You know, I forgot to ask.”
    He spewed out something that sounded like disgust. “Some detective.”
    “Hey, give me a break, I just talked to her this afternoon. Haven’t had a chance to formulate my strategy.”
    “Well, I hope you come up with a better strategy for him than you do racquetball.”
    “Okay, buddy, that’s it,” I said. “I’ve taken as much of this as I’m going to take. Prepare to eat rubber.”
    He laughed, stood up, turned his back on me. “Loser serves?”
    I bounced the ball a few times, cocked my elbow, and let one fly. It wasn’t a bad serve, but Walter had no trouble getting to it. His return was a little weaker, though. Maybe he was getting tired, too. I made it to the ball just as it was waist high, then cross-armed it hard. It hit the left wall, bounced into the back wall, then headed toward the floor. I dodged as Walter streaked by me and, with a loud grunt, caught the ball and sent it flying toward the ceiling.
    I caught it on the return and managed to send it back to him. We had a pretty good volley going, the best one of the day. A thought flashed through my head that this was fun,and that I was going to hate to see it end no matter who got that point.
    My right foot hit a puddle of sweat just as I was lunging toward the right wall. Something in my ankle gave way; pain shot up the outside of my right leg all the way to my hip. I felt myself becoming airborne, and the next thing I knew, I slammed into the hard wooden floor, facing the ceiling, wondering which way was up.
    Walter’s face appeared above me, an apparently genuine look of concern on his face. “You okay?”
    I tried to focus on him and take a mental inventory of my physical state at the same time. My head took a nasty bang, but I figured it was more or less intact. The ankle, though, was another story. If I were lucky, it was only sprained.
    “Nothing a heart transplant won’t cure.”
    Walter grinned, reached out a hand to me. “Hell, boy, you can’t replace what you haven’t got.”
    I let Walter pull me up until I was firmly on my rump. I could see the ankle was swollen through my jock sock. I gingerly pulled down the thick cotton.
    Maybe it wasn’t too bad. A little red, swollen, but no exposed bone splinters, no streaking, not too much purple and yellow. And the pain was beginning to throb down to a gentle agony.
    “Help me up, man. I need to get some ice.” I grabbed his hand, and he pulled me up on my good leg.
    I threw my arm around his shoulder—guys can do that when they’re physically wounded—and let him help me into the locker room. One of the attendants got me a high-tech, chemical ice bag, and I sat on a bench, sweat still cascading off me, nursing the leg.
    Walter stripped down for his shower, then wrapped a towel around his waist and sat next to me.
    “That’s going to be sore tomorrow.”
    “You asshole, it’s sore
now.
”
    “You going to be okay?”
    “Yeah,” I said, moving the bag around a bit. “You know, it’s funny. I was wondering how I could approach Fletcherwithout his suspecting why I was really there. Now I’ve got a reason.”
    Walter looked at me strangely. His expression was one I couldn’t come anywhere near reading.
    “Yeah,” he agreed. “Maybe you need to go have that looked at.”

By seven that evening, I knew I was going to have to have the leg X-rayed. The pain wasn’t severe, but the swelling remained, and the ankle was stiffening up. I’d broken an ankle playing soccer in high school, so I had an idea of what might be going down.
    I was only kidding when I told Walter that