Stress Read Online Free

which the historic battlewagon was rising in l/24th scale like a ghost ship from a miniature scrap yard. In time, Battle supposed, it would take its place among the Mayflower, the Santa Maria, the Bonhomme Richard, and the rest of the toy fleet that sailed atop every file cabinet and shelf in the corner office. Throughout the twelve precincts Zagreb, who spent most of his lunch hour driving to and from Rider’s Hobby Shop in Ypsilanti, was referred to as Cap’n Crunch, but never to his face. As skipper of Special Investigations he drew deep water in every bureau.
    He was a slight man with a balding head and enormous sideburns like the ones on the deceased city leaders whose pictures walled the corridors of the City-County Building where Battle worked. With the Bicentennial still three years away, a number of local notables were already cultivating such exotic adornments in the spirit of the shaggy greats of the past. It was the young officer’s observation that most of them lacked training in the care and nourishment of facial hair; Henry Ford II and Senator Philip Hart especially looked as if they had hooked on false whiskers for a school play.
    Zagreb tied the line to a halyard on the deck, snipped off the extra inch with a pair of pinking shears, and peeled aside his gold-rimmed reading glasses. “Know anything about ships, Officer?”
    “I know they float. Sir.”
    “Under ideal conditions, yes. The only time I was ever on one—a real ship, I mean, not a rowboat or the ferry to Mackinac—I got sick as a dog. Haven’t been on the water since. So why do I build model ships? I could say it’s good for manual dexterity, but there are other kinds of models I could put together, cars and movie monsters, and they don’t interest me. I guess I’m fascinated by sailing craft because they’re entirely self-contained. Maybe that’s why I joined the police force. It’s the only government body that cruises along independent of the rest.”
    “I guess us cops are all sort of in the same crew.”
    “Horseshit. I didn’t call you in here to give you the don’t-rock-the-boat speech. How are things at City Hall, by the way? Is Gribbs figuring to re-up?”
    “I don’t know, sir. The mayor doesn’t confide in me. I only see him in the lobby and he’s usually surrounded by TV crews.”
    “Well, if you do talk to him tell him I don’t recommend it. The Democrats are grooming Young. That son of a bitch does his electioneering with a pipe wrench.”
    Battle, who thought it was high time the city had a black chief executive regardless of what tools he employed, said nothing. He wished Zagreb would invite him to crack a window. But the lieutenant didn’t seem uncomfortable at all in a double-knit suit that might have been painted aluminum for all it wrinkled or draped or gave any indication that there was a body underneath.
    He sat back, Old Ironsides forgotten. “We know now why I became a cop. Why did you?”
    “To serve and protect.”
    “That’s what it says on the cruisers, and it’s horseshit. This isn’t the academy finals. What made you decide to become a cop?”
    “It isn’t wrestling.”
    “Explain.”
    “There’s a story involved.”
    “I don’t have anything to do until this cement dries but listen.”
    “I was raised by my Uncle Anthony. He was born in Biloxi. Down in Mississippi a black man picked cotton or nothing. When his father had enough of that he came up here to make Model Ts and brought Anthony with him. Anthony didn’t want to work for Ford, so he boxed. Only when he got to the Golden Gloves he found out he wasn’t Joe Louis and went to work carrying a hod. When he got tired of that he became a professional wrestler.”
    Zagreb snapped his fingers. “Anthony Battle. I should have guessed. He took the U.S. championship away from Percival E. Pringle, two falls out of three.”
    “World, U.S., it was all the same thing. The same outfit held all the wrestlers’ contracts and decided