1 The Reluctant Dick - The Case of the Not-So-Fair Trader Read Online Free Page B

number.
    “I’ll bet it’s either untraceable or a pay phone,” I say.
    “It’s ringing.” Steve holds the receiver to his ear.
    “Mister Sherlock,” Tiffany says, “ p eople don’t use pay phones anymore.”
    “Still ringing?” I ask.
    Steve hangs up the receiver. “Nobody answered.”
    “Well, then if it was the murderer, he should be easy to catch,” Tiffany says excitedly. “There’s not that many pay phones anymore and all cell calls are listed on a giant computer in orbit around the earth.”
    “Really?”
    “I got that from a reliable source,” she explains.
    “Was the source for sale at the checkout line at the market?” Steve asks.
    “Could have been.”
    “Tiffany,” I tell her. “Next time, just ask who is calling.”
    The day is done. We’ve all had enough. We separate to make our way to respective exits, us out the back and the detectives out the front. No one says goodbye.
     

 
     
    4
    My doggone back
     
     
    I awake on Sunday morning with a pain so sharp it almost levitates me out of my own bed. The agony starts in my lower back, lumbar region , and shoots upward through my body like a lightning bolt through storm clouds. My feet go numb; I can’t move my legs. I lay helpless, waiting for the first wave of misery to pass. Partial relief may take one minute or twenty. I scrunch my six-foot frame into the fetal position and begin to rock my upper torso in miniscule increments of movement to loosen my vertebrae. Some days it can take an hour before I can move my legs. Off the bedside table I grab my emergency ibuprofen, pop three in my dry mouth and force them down my throat. Their result won’t come for ten minutes, but the result will come. I keep rocking and the pain starts to lessen. I move my toes, which helps my back; but this is misery. Anyone who has ever had back pain can relate; there is no worse feeling than your spine twisted as taut as a wet dish rag.
    I’ve had back problems going on a decade now. Maybe it was too many years sitting in a state-issued, domestic car; maybe it was the strain of the divorce; maybe it was one-too-many criminals wrestled to the ground. Whatever the cause, it hurts.
    Today, it is a half-hour between waking and stepping into the shower. I start lukewarm and keep increasing the temperature until it is so hot I could make tea. The jet stream hits my back like one flaming torpedo after another and, with the ibuprofen kicking in, I finally can move like a normal human being.
    Yet another aspect of my miserable existence.
    Thank God, it is not my kid weekend. The only other plans I had were to attend a victory party at the home office of Chico’s Bailbonds, which will certainly not be happening.
    I lay on my back, on the floor, feet resting on the couch. I watch, upside down, every local news program that reports on the mysterious, accidental demise of Alvin J. Augustus. From the footage shot early that morning, the yellow crime tape did not do its job once again. There were close-ups of the blood stains, the path, and the rocks. A few of the stories had old footage of Alvin at some art opening or in front of some bank. The weekend anchors and reporters covering the stories were not as well known or as good-looking as the weekday anchors, in the blow-dried, bleached teeth kind of way; but each gave it their best shot in reviewing the lurid details for an audience hungry for a good, gory, death. I wonder if the regular folks watching are snickering at the fact that Alvin won’t get a chance to spend all the money he worked so hard to make.
    Feeling better, I rise to my feet and make a very easy decision to not clean my small apartment, a common practice I perform on Sunday mornings. Instead, I flip on my computer and make my way onto the i nternet.
    I hate the computer. The fact that my ten-year-old daughter can whip around from one website to the next, while I can’t figure out why you have to push START to turn it off, infuriates the hell out