Motor City Shakedown Read Online Free

street were minuscule, but my mind was attuned to the search. An alarming number of women had auburn hair. When Elizabeth and I started seeing each other, her hair color was unusual. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed this before, though, to be fair, I hadn’t noticed much of anything for the past three years.
    I put my head down and continued on my journey. Only a few blocks from Woodward, gaping holes pocked the street, the loose cobbles stolen for other uses. An odor of rot joined the oily stink of coal smoke. As I walked, the buildings became more and more squat, down to the single-story clapboard shop that was my destination—the Empire Pharmacy. It had taken me a number of months to find a pharmacy to my liking, that is, a pharmacy that would sell me morphine over an extended period of time without making an issue of it. Practically the only one I hadn’t tried was Adamo’s pharmacy next to the Bucket. I wasn’t going there.
    A bell tinkled when I opened the door. The pharmacist, an old, stooped man I knew only as Mick, nodded when he saw me. “How many today, sir?”
    â€œI’d like a sixteen-ounce bottle.”
    â€œWell,” he said, a glint in his eye. “I’m not supposed to sell those except to doctors, sir.”
    â€œWhat’s the difference, Mick? You don’t want to fill all those little bottles anyway, do you?”
    â€œI don’t know.” He rubbed the back of his neck and made a point of looking around furtively. “You’d have to make it worth my while. I could get in a lot of trouble.”
    He normally charged me two dollars per one-ounce bottle, twice the amount charged by a respectable pharmacy. But a respectable pharmacy wouldn’t sell morphine to the likes of me. At least, not without a prescription. “I’ll give you forty bucks.”
    Shaking his head, he looked down at the floor. “Sir, I don’t think I can do this.”
    â€œFifty.” It was at least two weeks’ pay for him.
    His eyes cut to mine. “I could do that.”
    I pulled my wallet from inside my coat, took out a brand new fifty-dollar bill, and placed it on the counter.
    He grabbed the bill and stuck it into his trouser pocket. “Right away.” While he rooted around behind the counter, I wiped my nose.
    He put the bottle in a paper bag and handed it to me. I turned to leave. As I did, I glanced up at his face and saw an expression that made me turn away even faster. His eyes were narrowed and his mouth set into a tight frown. It was a look you might give to a man who’d stolen money from his children.
    Disgust.

CHAPTER THREE
    A top my walnut bar, Sophie Tucker’s voice warbled out of the horn of Wesley’s Victrola— Some of these days you’re gonna miss me, honey / Some of these days, you’re gonna be so lonely. …
    I cherished this Victrola and its records far more than the two thousand dollars Wesley had left me. Music was what his life had been about—writing, playing, singing. I missed him almost as much as I missed Elizabeth. The only postcard she’d sent me, with a picture of Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel’s tower on the front, had arrived three months earlier. It was still on the end table next to the sofa. I sat down and flipped it over, reading her message for the hundredth time:
    Dearest Will,
    I hope this note finds you well. I am feeling better since my last letter, though I must admit the thought of returning home someday still fills me with dread. Of small comfort is the fact that we won’t be doing so any time soon. My mother is nearly as overcome with melancholia as when we arrived in Europe. I’ll write again soon. I miss you.
    Yours,
    Elizabeth
    I’d had no word from her since.
    I noticed again that I was rubbing my hand. I tugged off the black kid glove a quarter-inch at a time. First to appear was the scar from the gouge on the inside of my wrist that