Mike Reuther - Return to Dead City Read Online Free PDF Page B

picture tube went white with snow then died to black.
    I fell back on the couch. The sudden quiet of the apartment was nice.  For the longest time I just sat there thinking of nothing in particular. A box fan on the floor across the room blew hot air across my face.
    And then, I was back in Albuquerque. We were breaking into a house. The drug task force. The front door of the house flew open and bodies scrambled through the living room, furniture toppling, the mad dash to flee and the chattering of Spanish voices. And then the gun held by a kid and trained on me.
    I woke with a start. Holding the glass with a single shaking hand, I poured myself three fingers of Scotch. The brown liquid rolled down my throat like a snake quivering into its hole. In a few minutes, the gunfire retreated from my brain, and another nightmare from the hot and arid Southwest had faded from my tortured memory banks. I poured myself another glass of the Scotch, took a sip, eyed it suspiciously, like a spurned lover considering a former mate, and brought the drink to my lips before lowering the glass. In disgust, I emptied the stuff from my glass back into the bottle. I got the hell out of there.
    Grand Boulevard was where you lived in Centre Town when you had achieved the country club set. It was a wide street of old Victorian homes, tasteful mountain stone mansions and wide sweeping lawns.
    Ron Miller lived in one of the grander versions of the street’s palaces, a large Tudor partly hidden from the avenue by a menagerie of trees. A broad driveway paved in yellow brick ran from the street to the side of the home. A dark-colored Porsche was parked outside the garage.
    A cab drive got me there. The cabbie was a shrunken old fart with an asthmatic cough, who talked nonstop about his forty years working in some machine shop. The only job before this he’d ever held or wanted. I just sat there in the back of the cab mostly ignoring his spiel. I was still a little shaky from my nightmarish afternoon snooze.
    “Yep,” he continued. “Still be there too. They made me retire. Said I was getting too old. What the hell did they know anyways?”
    “Life is a bitch,” I said without too much enthusiasm.
    We were just pulling up to a big iron gate left opened at the foot of the driveway.
    “Say,” he said, looking from me to the house. “You must have some important business to be coming here. This Ron Miller fella is one hotshot businessman.”
    I got out of the cab and took a five out of my wallet. “Yeah,” I said. “Me and Miller are gonna see about setting up some massage parlors. Miller thinks the business climate in Centre Town is just about right.
    The old fart sat in the cab staring at me. “Say,” he said. “Maybe you can get me a discount. My old arthritis has been flaring up lately.”
    I gave him a wink. “ Don’t k eep the meter running pal,” I said, tossing the five through the window onto his lap.
    Miller met me at the home’s massive double doors. He was wearing a dark-colored suit and looking like I’d just disturbed him from important matters. He was a roly-poly guy with a sort of Humpty Dumpty girth, I guess you could say. The oval glasses he peered through seemed to pronounce his roundness all the more. His face was as smooth and unlined as a baby’s behind.
    “What? No butler to answer the door,” I cracked.
    He wasn’t amused. “You’re not a reporter. Are you?” I said I wasn’t.
    “ I wanted to ask you about your brother’s murder,” I said.
    The big eyes behind the oval glasses blinked several times. I figured it was a nervous habit. The kind of nervous habit that could get under your skin.
    “Who are you sir?” he asked.
    I handed him one of my cards. He stared at it for a few moments then gave it back to me.
    “Can I come in?” I said.
    He shook his head. “No. That wouldn’t be possible. Besides, I have nothing to say.” He stepped back and tried to close one of the double doors , but I got my