Thorazine Beach Read Online Free PDF Page A

buddy?”
    “Generally,” I said.
    “I’m hurt, Jack. Really, I am.”
    “Impossible,” I said. “You’re an insect. You have only the most rudimentary nervous system.”
    “True, dat.” He sipped his tea, his pinky ever so slightly out. That, too, was new. And downright creepy, from a former vice cop.
    “By the way, Mac,” I said. “Congratulations. On your promotion, I mean.”
    “Thank you, Jack,” he said. “It
has
been a long time coming. And it’s all been a bit of a surprise.”
    Major is an unusual rank for a city police department to have on its roster. It all started when the MPD’s union, ages ago, managed to put through a provision that handed a captaincy to any old patrolman who slugged it out thirty years without getting caught in any of the shenanigans too many Memphis cops get caught in. Legit captains didn’t want to be mistaken for one of
those
, so the new rank of major was born, just for them. Now, they had lieutenants-colonel. Colonels, too. I expected to see a brigadier-general any day now, staff car, braided aide-de-camp, and all.
    “Thought I might be getting a precinct,” Mac said. “I was kind of hoping for Union Avenue—still inner-city enough for some action, but then you’ve got the cotton mansions on Belvedere, Bellevue, so forth, some good restaurants. Midtown. The arts. And a better class of person,” he added.
    “Time was, Mac, your idea of fine dining was pulled pork, beans, and a mess o’ collard greens at Neely’s barbecue.”
    “Tell you a secret, Jack?” He leaned in and whispered. “Still is. But I’m buckin’ for the big time, and it behooves me to be seen in some fancier places.”
    “Oh, then the Union Avenue precinct would have been perfect,” I said. “There’s a Popeye’s Chicken across the street.”
    “Racial profiling, Jack?”
    “No. But it’s a perfect profile of you.”
    “You wound me so.” He leaned back, smiled, spilled a spot of tea on his tie—a screaming yellow silk, which he wiped fruitlessly with his napkin. “Damn! Now I know why you always wear those ugly brown paisley ties.”
    “Till they get too stiff with dried old gravy,” I said.
    “Shit,” he said. “Don’t s’pose these dry-clean very well, do they?” I shook my head. “Seventy-five bucks, this. So where do you get your ties, Jack?”
    “eBay. Sixty-five, seventy-five cents. A buck, sometimes.”
    “Wow. Plus shipping, of course.”
    “Including shipping.”
    “Polyester?” he asked. “Recycled restaurant placemats?” He reached. Felt. “Damn! Silk!”
    “And if I spill something, it’s no big—”
    “Which you
always
do, Jack.”
    “Only when I’m eating or drinking or doing something else. Anyway…silk. People’s Republic of China. Most I ever paid was about three bucks. Lowest winning bid…the princely sum of six cents.”
    “So you’re deliberately bypassing my people, the hard-working American black folk, ensconced against their wills in Dickensian factories, the dark, satanic mills, hunched over their work stations, hand-stitching neckties the good old American way? All in favour of buggering our trade balance with all those vile commie countries?”
    “‘Buggering’?” I said. “Another new one for you.”
    “Learned it from you, Jack. You Canucks and Brits have got better cussing than we Amurrikins do. I’m making a study of it.”
    “Good move,” I said. “First met you, back in your patrol car days, about the best you could do at the time was ‘muh-fuh.’”
    “And high-quality invective it remains, Jack. For the right audience.”
    “Ever tasteful,” I said. “Positively Shakespearean. Anyway… silk…China…cheap…”
    “Speaking of which, Jack…”
    “So you do want something.”
    “Naturally I
want
something, Jack. I admitted that right up front.”
    “You did not.” I turned back to typing the next line of my report, looked at my watch. About two and a half hours to get to Office Max, print, stop