Indian Country Noir (Akashic Noir) Read Online Free

good citizens of Corinth. Matter of fact, aside from Will, most of them
would have been surprised to see I knew how to drive. Then I
walked in to Will's office.
    Wyllis Dunham, Attorney at Law, read the sign on the
modest door, which opened off the main street. I walked in
without knocking and nodded to the petite stylishly dressed young woman who sat behind the desk with a magazine in her
nicely manicured fingers.

    Maud, I said, touching my knuckles to my forehead in
salute.
    Charles, she drawled, somehow making my name into a
sardonic remark the way she said it. What kind of trouble you
plan on getting us into today?
    Nothing we can't handle.
    Why does that not make me feel reassured?
    Then we both laughed and I thought again how if she wasn't
Will's wife I'd probably be thinking of asking her to marry me.
    What happened to your cheek? Maud stood up, took a
cloth from her purse, wetted it with her lips, and brushed at
the place where the bullet had grazed me and the blood had
dried. I stood patiently until she was done.
    Thanks, nurse.
    You'll get my bill.
    He in?
    For you. She gestured me past her and went back to reading Ladies' Home Journal.
    I walked into the back room where Will sat with his extremely long legs propped up on his desk, his head back against
a couch pillow, his eyes closed.
    Before you ask, I am not asleep on the job. I am thinking.
Being the town lawyer of a bustling metropolis such as this
tends to wear a man out.
    Don't let Maud see you with your feet up on that desk.
    His eyes opened at that and as he quickly lowered his feet
to the floor he looked toward the door, a little furtively, before
recovering his composure. Though Will had the degree and
was twice her size, it was Maud who laid down the law in their
household.

    He placed his elbows on the desk and made a pyramid
with his fingers. The univeral lawyer's sign of superior intellect and position, but done with a little conscious irony in
Will's case. Ever since I had helped him and Maud with a little
problem two years back, we'd had a special relationship that
included Thursday night card games of cutthroat canasta.
    Wellll? he asked.
    Two questions.
    Do I plead the Fifth Amendment now?
    I held up my little finger. First question. Did George Good
retire as game warden, has the Department of Conservation
started using new brown uniforms that look like they came
from a costume shop, and were two new men from downstate
sent up here as his replacement?
    Technically, Charles, that's three questions. But they all
have one answer.
    No?
    Bingo. He snapped his fingers.
    Which was what I had suspected. My two well-trussed
friends on the mountaintop with their city accents were as
phony as their warrant.
    Two. I held up my ring finger. Anybody been in town asking about me since that article in the Albany paper with my
picture came out?
    Will couldn't keep the smile off his face. If there was such
a thing as an information magnet for this town, Will Dunham
was it. He prided himself on quietly knowing everything that
was going on-public and private-before anyone else even
knew he knew it. With another loud snap of his long fingers
he plucked a business card from his breast pocket and handed
it to me with a magician's flourish.
    Voila!

    The address was in the State Office Building. The name
was not exactly the one I expected, but it still sent a shiver
down my spine and the metal spearpoint in my hip muscle
twinged. Unfinished business.
    I noticed that Will had been talking. I picked up his words
in mid-sentence.
    ... so Avery figured that he should give the card to me,
seeing as how he knew you were our regular helper what with
you taking on odd jobs for its now and then. Repair work, cutting wood ... and so on. Of course, by the time he thought to
pass it on to me Avery'd been holding onto it since two weeks
ago which was when the man came into his filling station asking about you and wanting you to give him a