Strawman Made Steel Read Online Free PDF Page B

of
thirty-million throwbacks and no one saw a thing.”
    I tugged the corners of my mouth down.
    “Nobody saw a five-ton dumpster picked up
by a ten-ton rig and carried half-way across Manhattan in the dead of night,
and planted right outside Park’s busiest hotel.”
    He rifled through his desk drawers, hunting
for something. A sheen of sweat lay down the back of his thick neck.
    “Some of the graffiti on the thing had turf
tags. We narrowed it down to a square mile, and the rest was old fashioned
legwork.”
    He straightened up and turned, holding a
bottle.
    “There’s more than that dumpster smells.”
He said it to the bottle. He raised it to his lips, then pulled if far enough
away to say, “And before you get on your high horse, this is medicinal―codliver,
bitters, and extract of chicory. Tastes like liquefied dung. You’re welcome to
it.” He swigged, and grimaced. “Less I see of you, the less of this shit I need
to swallow, so out with it.”
    “Have you found the driver?”
    “Need to find the truck first.”
    I said, “You haven’t told me where the
trail led.”
    He tilted the bottle, shook his head,
twisted its top back on, and jammed it into a drawer.
    “Granton. Warehouse by the river.”
    That was Eastside. Where the UN had once
stood. What business did a Speigh have there, day or night? I said as much.
    “My question exactly,” said Tunney. “But I’ve
got a bigger one for you, genius: Why can’t the Examiner find a cause of
death?”
    That raised my eyebrows. “The boy was all
bent out of shape.”
    “All post-mortem,” he said. “No, the body
of Euripides Speigh, forty-two looking like twenty-four, has everything in its
place, and is just hitting its stride. Only problem being it’s stone dead.”
    “Blood alcohol?”
    “Barely one drink.”
    I could see Tunney thinking “only”. I was
thinking what was rare for a drunk was rarer for a teetotaler.
    I made that move with my mouth again. “Maybe
the boy had a freak condition. Something undetectable in the brain? It
happens.”
    “Not to guys in dumpsters. That’s
horseshit.”
    He had a point. I got the address of the warehouse
and left Tunney to his mood.
    Outside, the wind had shifted. I could smell
rain. Thick, dark clouds were banking up for a show, and you knew it was going
to be a good one when the litter started running faster than the citizens.
    I ducked into a pharmacy and bought
aspirin. In a diner across the street I ordered an all-day breakfast―ham, eggs,
hashbrowns, the lot―and took a seat at the window. Someone had left a copy of
the Times on the bar. I flicked through it, but the Speigh murder had been too
late for the morning copy.
    Sitting there I noticed a tight feeling in
my side that meant my shirt had stuck to the wound. Something else to look
forward to.
    My breakfast arrived and I hung my head
over it a moment, inhaling deeply. I ordered coffee, then alternated swallows
of breakfast, coffee, and aspirin till things looked rosier.
    The heavens let loose and pelted the street
and sidewalk. Heavy drops dashed against the window in isolated spatter, then
joined and ran till the street writhed like a live thing. The water lifted
winter’s smell from the pavement and wafted it indoors, humus and soot and
shit.
    I left the waitress a smile and a good tip,
turned my collar up, and went in search of a cab. I’d need to wear my good
spirits like a knight his armor heading out Eastside. Eastside specialized in
denting things it didn’t like.

 
     
    — 4 —
    The cop who met me outside the
warehouse in Granton had a drop of what was probably water hanging from his
nose. He ran the sleeve of his department-issue all-weathers across his nose
and said, “Who the hell are you?”
    I flipped open my wallet and showed him my
license and gun permit. He read aloud as though for my benefit: “‘Janus
McIlwraith, Provenor. Licensed to operate by Tri-State Authority.’
    “That a fact?” he said, and tucked