Murder in the Wings by Ed Gorman Read Free Book Online Page A

not."
    It was then, for the first time, that I realized that these guys were stoned. Between the first and second I saw a small brown prescription bottle. It probably contained cough syrup, which is a cheap high because it doesn't take much and it lasts a long time.
    "All right if we go inside?" I asked.
    "Hey, prince, you're askin' the wrong man."
    I smiled. "Guess we'll have to go inside to find out if it's all right to go inside, huh?" But they were too stoned to see the irony.
    We went inside. I almost had to pick their eyeballs off Donna's behind, like ticks after a picnic.
    Once there had been a vestibule but it had been knocked out. Now most of the first floor was one big communal room with wobbly furniture from at least five different eras. There was a Motorola black-and-white that had been new about the time Uncle Miltie was laying claim to Tuesday nights, and a phonograph that had probably played a lot of Bing Crosby records. From the kitchen drifted the odors of institutional food: oversalted, oversweetened, anything to kill the taste. There was a residue of cigarette smoke that could have been cut with hedge clippers. It was a sad place, a place where men without women and without dreams passed days in front of the TV or under the thumb of a minimum-wage boss who hated them—men who feared the slammer but didn't really know where else to go. The majority, hapless, hopeless, would be back there within six months.
    I took Donna's arm and led her over to a big board that looked like a flight schedule in a terminal. There was a long list of men's names, and next to each was written the place where he was employed. Next to these were two boxes, one that read "Time Out" and one that read "Time Back."
    We were reading all this when a whiskey voice behind us said, "Help you folks?"
    When he reached us, I saw that his voice complemented his body perfectly. He had slicked-back forties-style hair and a wide, flat Slavic face with black eyes that knew all sorts of truths that most of us would rather not know. He had a gold-capped tooth and he used Aqua Velva green and he put out a hand that could have crushed a whole six-pack of beer. He wore an old blue cardigan sweater that sloped to cover his considerable girth and gray OshKosh washable pants and a pair of leather house slippers that fit as tightly as shoes. He was every boss in every institution I'd ever known.
    I introduced myself and Donna, and then he introduced himself as B. J. Anderson. "Mr. Anderson," I said, "we're looking for a man named Lockhart."
    He smiled with his gold tooth. "Well, you've come to the right place, but unfortunately you've come at the wrong time. I'm afraid Mr. Lockhart has gone and got himself grounded."
    "Do you mind if I ask what for?"
    He kept on smiling. "Not if you don't mind if I ask why you're so interested in Mr. Lockhart."
    I decided to tell him the truth. "He may know something about a murder."
    The smile went back into mothballs. "Lockhart? Murder?"
    I explained our association with Wade, and how Stan, the janitor at the theater, had said that Lockhart had come over to look through Reeves's office.
    "So that's where he went," B. J. Anderson said. "Pardon?"
    "The other night Lockhart went out past his curfew. When he got back he looked kinda shook up but he wouldn't tell me nothing. Not a goddamn thing. So I put him up in the attic." He raised his black eyes toward the upstairs. "That's where I keep 'em when they've been bad." The smile played on his lips. "This is the only halfway house in the state that hasn't had a man involved in a felony. And you know why? 'Cause I just put the bad apples upstairs and let them cool their heels a little bit."
    Donna said, "We'd really like to talk to him if we could."
    For the first time he seemed to recognize her. But he was past sex; he had his institution, and that was more fulfilling than any woman had ever been. "I'm not sure that'd be good idea, miss."
    "It's very important."
    He turned