Headstone City Read Online Free Page A

My old man had one of these, right off the line. Same color. I was thirteen and he never let me drive it. Not once, the prick. But he'd make me wash it twice a week after school until I had soapsuds coming out of my ass.”
    “Looks like retirement's been good to you.”
    Grinning now, posturing a touch. Phil had a self-satisfied smile that just kept going and going until you could see all the way down the back of his throat. “You ought to get something for your thirty years besides a gold watch.” Some acute bitterness there, but not like the cops who'd really gone to the wall. “Putting your life up against it every day, in the street with the garbage. I would've been better off in sanitation with the rest of the mooks.”
    Dane's father had been proud of his badge, never bitched once, and had died on the job. So Dane didn't have much sympathy for Phil. “You get a full pension, insurance, and benefits. Then you take a security position in a warehouse someplace, sleep on the job, and draw another check.”
    “Why don't you get in, Johnny? Before some wiseguy decides to shoo you off the sidewalk.”
    Dane thought about it. Maybe he should take care of this first. When you had accounts to square going all the way back to your childhood, it was tough to prioritize. They all threaded together and snarled into the same web. There'd be time enough for the showdown after he'd cleared up a few other matters. He took another look at the front door of Chooch's, imagining blood on the ceiling. He grinned at Phil and climbed in. “Sure.”
    Fifteen years ago, when he was seventeen, he could've stolen and sold this car for maybe twenty grand cash. Now, he couldn't even guess what it might run.
    “You know why the Caddy has such ludicrous fins?” Phil asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “You do?” Like he was afraid if he said some kind of bullshit now he'd get called on it.
    Dane looked at him. “Yeah. The designers were fascinated with rockets and space missions. Before man walked on the moon, but they knew it was coming soon. You take a look at the rear, it resembles the exhaust ports of a jet, right? Even when it's sitting in your driveway, it's still cruising. Cadillac was going head-to-head with Chrysler at the time. They put a rush schedule to get the 1959 draft completed. The entire lineup flaunted visibility. Spaciousness. You can see all four corners with this windshield.”
    “I like how it curves.”
    “Nice. They did a good job refitting it.” Dane ran his hand over the seat. “You got burned on the fabric though.”
    Phil froze, the proud smile going rictus. “What?”
    “The interior isn't original.”
    “You fuckin' with me, Johnny?”
    “No.” Dane felt good, showing off. A couple hundred hours stealing cars and working in chop shops came in handy for conversations like this. “You've got the metallic fabric used on the Fleetwood Sixty Special. It trapped the hairs of women's mink coats so the manufacturer switched it out. Weird that your restorer would put this in.” Stroking it, enjoying the feel, like petting the back of a sleeping woman's head. “Same period . . . even more rare, really, when you get down to it. But not the high-class stuff.” Dane tried to think which mob garages might've had the old Fleetwood fabric tucked away for fifty years.
    Phil turned, expressionless, but seething beneath the false composure. He didn't mind being ripped off half as much as being alerted to the fact.
    Guerra. The name meant “war” in Italian, and Phil liked that. It gave him an extra measure of poise, especially when he was a cop. He said his name—the word—like he practiced it, putting everything he had into it.
    Voice firm and smooth as a character actor in some noir movie from the thirties. Phil had porked up about fifty pounds since he'd retired, but he'd been working on everything else. A pretty good rug with the right amount of silver in it, a nice tan from spending half the week in an ultraviolet booth.