Sinister Heights Read Online Free Page A

Sinister Heights
Book: Sinister Heights Read Online Free
Author: Loren D. Estleman
Pages:
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into backing the road company.”
    â€œCongratulations. Broadway angels usually wind up with actresses.”
    â€œThe understudies alone were stacked six deep, with the boys from the chorus chirping around him like buffalo birds. I had to hack my way through.” She crossed her legs. “I’m a hard-fired little chippie, Mr. Walker, you might as well know that up front. Do I sound like Brooklyn?”
    â€œThe one in Michigan, or the one on The Honeymooners? ”
    â€œThe one that berls eggs and feeds boids. I try not to talk like that even in jest. It took me six years in speech training to shuck it and I’m still afraid I’ll forget and slip back. That was in the daytime; at night I studied art, and in between I waited on tables. Was I a girl with a dream?”
    â€œYou tell me.”
    â€œSmart man. Art was just a vehicle. If I were seven feet tall and black, I’d have learned to dribble a basketball. You go with what God gives you. My father was in and out of the money all the time I was growing up. I preferred in. I never managed to sell Broadway, but even a third-rate road show needs costumes. If Leland hadn’t come along, I suppose I’d have landed on the faculty in an art school somewhere. The pay wasn’t any worse and I wouldn’t have to prop a chair against my door to keep out the night manager. But I wasn’t looking forward to it.”
    â€œYou keep your hand in. I saw your studio.”
    â€œThat’s just a time-waster. It keeps me from becoming one of those rich widows pickled in alcohol. What about you?”
    â€œI can’t draw a straight line. I can sometimes walk one.”
    â€œI meant detective work. Is it your consuming passion or just a vehicle?”
    â€œYou go with what God gives you. Or in this case Rayellen Stutch.” I set my glass on the floor and got out my notebook and pen.
    She didn’t need any more nudging. “Connor says you’re a Detroit native. Do you remember hearing about Leland’s paternity suit?”
    â€œOnly that there was one. It’s mighty hard to be male and have money and not attract at least one. Also those old auto barons played as hard as they worked. How’d it come out?”
    â€œFirst, can I offer you a real drink? Leland always said water’s only good for making ice.”
    I looked outside. The sun was behind the old plant now, shining straight through the windows from the opposite side as through a paper shell. Most of the machinery had been scrapped or stripped for parts; only the steel-pouring paraphernalia remained, and the evolution of the all-plastic body had killed the midnight shift. GM was talking about knocking down the old hulk and building an engineering complex on the site. Briefcases instead of lunchboxes.
    Mrs. Stutch caught me measuring daylight. “I’ll tell Mrs. Campbell to take her time.”
    â€œShe doesn’t have to gather dust.”
    She got up. “Not gin?”
    I asked for Scotch. She went to the door and called out into the hall. I’d tagged her for something and tonic, but it was vodka neat and a water chaser. In a little while the woman in gray brought in a pitcher and glasses and two bottles on a tray, set the works on the table next to her mistress, and left with our empty water tumblers. At the door she touched a switch and a couple of lamps came on. The sun had slipped a few more inches, and now the plant had grown more solid, its shadow swinging around like a scythe to darken the tract houses. Molten steel glowed white-orange in the windows: They were making monsters again up there on the hill.
    I balanced my notebook on my knee and drank between scribbles. It was single malt, smoky with old heather.
    â€œIt’s been fifty years,” Mrs. Stutch said. “Weird to think about it. I mean, picture having a stepdaughter who’s almost twenty years older than you are.”
    â€œIt’s
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