The Ninth Step Read Online Free PDF

fluorescent-lit showroom, between stacks of microwave ovens and rows of stoves. The place smelled of plastic and metal. Salesmen in cheap khaki pants, pressed shirts, and dull-colored ties roamed their sections like tired lions out on a big synthetic plain; they perked up a little at the sight of the detectives, new meat on the sales floor, but not enough to rouse themselves. For the thousandth time, Jack was grateful for the constantly varied nature of his job: he got to roam the entire southern half of Brooklyn, checking out new scenery and new people every day. (Some of them were dead, of course, but still …)
    At the sound of gunfire, he turned toward the back of the store, then relaxed: it was just a video game booming out over a home theater system. A security guard in a blue blazer ambled over, a huge dreadlocked black man with the stolid, comfortable demeanor of a pro. “Can I help you guys?”
    “We need to see a manager,” Jack said.
    The guard didn’t ask why; Jack knew the guy had made him and his partner as cops.
    PHIL MANGIOLE, THE FLOOR manager, sat on a half-size refrigerator in the back loading area, shaking his head. He was a small, olive-skinned man with the anxious face of someone whose job depended on meeting monthly sales quotas.
    “I can’t freakin’ believe it!” he said. “The guy was just loading in the new Toshiba forty-seven inchers yesterday afternoon. And now? Phfft — adios. Man, what a fuckin’ city! My wife keeps pushing me to move down to the Jersey shore, and I been resisting ’cause I’m from here, ya know, but shit like this really makes you think. Here today, gone tomorrow, am I right?” He looked up at the two detectives, as if expecting praise for this deep insight.
    Jack nodded, to be polite. He glanced around. The floor in the back was plain concrete and the walls were grease-stained cinder block. Piles of broken-down boxes and other trash littered the room, and Jack—rather fastidious despite the ghastly untidiness of his chosen career—looked on in disapproval. He noticed a hand-lettered sign on the nearest wall: DO NOT RIDE ON CONVEYOR!!
    “How long did Brasciak work here?” he asked, taking out his notepad.
    Mangiole shrugged. “I’m not sure. I got transferred to this store about a year ago and he was already here. When I first came, he was working security, but we both decided it would be better if he switched to the back. He was okay with it because the loading job paid better, which was good because frankly I wanted him off the floor. There were a couple of incidents.”
    Jack’s eyebrows went up. “Incidents?”
    Mangiole tugged at his chocolate-brown tie. “He, ah, he took the job real seriously. I mean, we want somebody intimidating out there, but he thought he was Chuck Norris or something. He was a bit lacking in the, whaddayacallit, people skills.”
    “How’d he do back here? Did he stay out of trouble?”
    “Yeah,” Richie said. “Or did he ride the conveyor?”
    Mangiole smiled at the small joke but shook his head. “He wasn’t exactly the fun-loving type.”
    “Did he get along with the other workers?”
    The manager pinched his mouth with his fingers. “How do I put this? We, ah, we have a very mixed staff here. Very urban , if you know what I’m saying.”
    The detectives nodded. The employees were quite racially diverse.
    Mangiole frowned. “Robert was not the, ah, most open-minded of individuals.”
    Powker crossed his arms. “You mean he was racist?”
    Mangiole shifted. “Not to speak ill of the dead or anything …”
    Jack scratched his jaw. “Sounds like he was kind of a problem. Why’d you keep him on?”
    Mangiole pointed to a full-sized refrigerator sitting in the open mouth of a service elevator. “The guy could probably have bench-pressed one of those. He had some quirks, but he worked like a freaking ox.”
    “Did he have any enemies?”
    “Well, I don’t know about that, but I can tell you that he didn’t