Lincoln Perry 02 - Sorrow's Anthem by Michael Koryta Read Free Book Online Page B

listening. And he won’t listen.”
“He might;” I lie. “You can’tgive up on him this easily, Allison. He
loves you the same as ever. He’s just…”
“He’s just killing himself “ she finishes for me. “You’re trying to
turn a blind eye to that, Lincoln, but you know it’s true. You’re the one
who told me what Antonio Childers is like. “
I turn away from her and stare at the wall. Antonio Childers is one
of the great social menaces in our city, a drug dealer who is also a suspect
in nearly a dozen unsolved homicides. For several months now,
Ed Gradduk has been working for him. It started as petty shit, muling
and couriering mostly, but it’s escalated. Ed’s in construction, had a
run of bad luck with lost jobs and bad bosses, and apparently he found
an alternative income source. I haven’t seen much of him recently;
working nights for the Cleveland police, putting in as much overtime
as possible, trying to get noticed and get promoted. 'That’s how you
make detective, I know, and that’s what I intend to do.
“He’s going to get killed,” Allison repeats, and I avoid looking
down directly into her face.
“I know,” I say softly. Allison and I have had this conversation before.
Ed and I have had this conversation before, too. He told me to
keep my eyes on the other side of the street when I pass him in my
cruiser, and otherwise things would be normal. I told him it couldn’t
work that way. We haven’t spoken much since.
“He’s gone all the time now,” Allison says. “We’ve had calls at all
hours of the night. Once a guy sat in front of the house in a van for
hours, just waiting for Ed to come back. “
They still live on the near west side, which is part of the problem.
Childers has recruited Ed because Ed knows the neighborhood well,
knows who to talk to and who to avoid, and works the streets with all
the familiarity you want from a foot soldier. For the life of me, I cannot
reason out how this began, how Ed could possibly have allowed
himself to get involved with Childers.
“There’s only one way to get him to listen,” Allison says, and she
reaches out and squeezes my upper arms to emphasize her point. “You
told me you could arrange things if it came to that. I’m telling you it
has come to that.”
“Shit, Allison.” I shake my head. “He’s got to talk for it to work. If
he doesn’t. . .”
“He will. 'Trust me, Lincoln. If it comes down to a choice between
freedom and jail, between me and a cell, he will make the right decision.
You know he will. But until he’s faced with that choice, I’m
afraid he’s going to keep looking at it as a game.”
“He’s got to talk,” I repeat.
“He’ll talk. He may not care enough to save himself right now, but
if we press him to that point, Lincoln . . . if we put his back to the wall,
he’ll have to.”
“We’ll save him despite himself” I say sarcastically, but she nods
with an equal amount of sincerity.
“Yes,” she says. “That’s exactly what we’ll do. But I need your help.
You have to be involved, have to make sure he has the options. Are you
sure you can do that?”
I run my tongue across dry lips. “I’m sure. There’s a narcotics detective
named Pritchard. Joe Pritchard. He’s got a good reputation,
supposed to be a hell of a cop. And he’s got a serious hard-on for Antonio
Childers. He’s not going to send a small player like Ed to jail when
he could trade that conviction for information about Childers.”
    “So you’ll do it.”
I take a long look at her face, then look back at the window, the glass
dark with growing shadows.
“Lincoln,” she says, “Ed is losing his life here. He’s going to be
killed or he’s going to get sent to jail by someone else, someone who will
see that he’s kept there a long time. You know talking is not doing any
good. We have to force him to walk away from this.”
I swallow and get to my feet, step around her and into the middle of
the living room, heading