The Glass Highway Read Online Free PDF Page B

“He was still working downtown last Christmas. Who’d he replace?”
    “That name you don’t have to pry out of me. Johnny Ralph Dorchet.”
    Some names trigger instant responses. That one put me in front of my television set around New Year’s Day, watching news footage of three bagged corpses being wheeled into a county fast-wagon from an apartment on Erskine. One of the corpses had belonged to Johnny Ralph Dorchet. The world was suddenly more interesting. I swung off the chair and leaned my face down close to Grissom’s.
    “True still on Twelfth?”
    “How the hell should I know? He doesn’t deal at his place. He calls me and we meet different places.” He pulled in his chin to avoid collision. I pushed in closer. Some things you never forget from basic training.
    “If he’s expecting me I’ll come back and watch you eat your telephone circuit by circuit.”
    “You won’t tell him where you got the name, will you? You say he won’t kill me, but that leaves a lot of room for what he will do.”
    “Frankly, Rhett, I don’t give a damn.”
    He wrinkled his nose. “Oh, funny. I heard that one before.”
    I went out to my bucket. The snowmobile was lying on its side, its headlight smashed and one ski broken. The garage door might have been scuffed.
    Dusk was gathering in corners. Beyond Lake St. Clair, which was as black as a new galosh, early lights spangled the Canadian side. The orange running lights of a squat ore carrier crawled south toward River Rouge and the iron foundry at the Ford plant. Nocturnal things like Moses True would be getting up about now, staring into the closet and wondering whether to put on the coat with the ermine trim or the purple vest. I decided to postpone going to see him until morning. You don’t hunt vampires at night.

5
    H OME IS A THREE-ROOM orange crate on Hamtramck’s west side, not far from where the iron ball was making sawdust out of the historic homes, shops, and church of Poletown in the name of General Motors and the city administration’s mantra, Total Employment. First, GM had dangled the carrot of a new Cadillac plant under the mayor’s nose, then the black knight of Eminent Domain had charged in with token payments for the dreams of lifetimes, and finally those stubborn residents who had refused to leave were burned and trashed out by vandals, none of whom the city police seemed able to apprehend. The case against Eminent Domain had gone to court twice and lost. Both courts were located in Detroit. So the wreckers came and the mayor was re-elected by his customary landslide and everyone was waiting for GM’s next move. And waiting.
    I broiled a steak for supper and ate it off a tray in front of the television set watching Sandy Broderick and the Six O’Clock News. He and the Barbie doll and a pansy in a blazer doing a live minicam report from Joe Louis Arena were kicking around preparations for a rock concert, scheduled for January in the crumbling white elephant taxpayers hadn’t finished paying for. All the newscasters agreed that the event would be good for Detroit. The Chamber of Commerce spent a lot of advertising dollars on local TV.
    When the news ended I had a choice of three animated Christmas specials and a Pistons’ basketball game. I turned off the set and put a record on my economy stereo—just two speakers, no tape deck or filters or laser can openers—bought myself a double Scotch from the bottle I reserved for guests and sat down and listened to Lee Wiley singing about the street of dreams. The Scotch tasted like moor. When the glass was full a second time I held it up, admiring the pure copper color of the liquid. It looked smug. It didn’t know about pills and people like Rhett Grissom and Moses True and that it was obsolete. I drank it and turned in when the record was through.
    The weather wasn’t doing anything at all when I got up next morning. The temperature had risen enough during the night to thaw the street in front of my