The Dead Caller from Chicago Read Online Free Page A

get as far from Rivertown as I could afford. After freshman year, I stayed in the city because I had nowhere else to go. I took an early-morning summer session class, worked three part-time jobs, and waited for the memories to fade. A girl I’d known had died. For a time, I’d been suspected of killing her.
    I’d never wanted to summon back those times, but now I realized Leo had never mentioned that summer, either, other than once he’d said he’d worked at the city’s municipal garage.
    â€œWho called, Leo?”
    His eyes were glass, unblinking, as he turned back to look at me.
    â€œA dead man,” he said.

 
    Three
    To my shame, I forgot about the strange call Leo had received. My new client called, offering a seventeen-hundred-dollar fee to document a fraudulent insurance claim in Cedar Rapids. I was packed and gone first thing the next morning, certain it wasn’t Iowa I was headed for but Fat City.
    Leo phoned a day later. I was in a meeting with two of my client’s agents. The call went to message but he hadn’t left any words, and I forgot about that as well. It was like that with Leo and me. When one of us—almost always Leo—got busy, calls didn’t get returned, unless someone yelled “Important.” He hadn’t.
    I’d been back in Rivertown for two days, typing up reports, before I drove over to his neighborhood just before dusk. Even then, it wasn’t Leo I was anxious to see, but rather that harbinger of coming good times, the new construction sprouting on his street.
    They’d made good progress, in spite of the fact that it snowed three inches right after I’d left for Iowa. A huge hole had been cut square into the ground for a foundation sizable enough for what would surely be the largest house in Rivertown. I supposed the third lot, where the bungalow slated for demolition still stood empty, would be used for a side yard, and perhaps a detached garage.
    I imagined some of the neighbors, good solid blue-collar types with sensible values, were appalled at what was sure to be a monument to an arrogant ego being plopped down smack in the middle of their neighborhood. I suspected more would be excited, like me, at the prospect of finally making out financially in a grub town like Rivertown.
    I continued on down the block, thinking that if Leo were home, I’d blow off about having been traveling, as he so often did, on professional business, as he invariably did, and about how my professional life was just like his, except he had multiple clients, made huge money, and was generally well regarded in his profession. Since my business, and my life, had been trashed in a falsified document scheme some time back, that kind of talk would be good for half a laugh.
    I coasted to a stop at his curb, surprised.
    His house was dark, his sidewalk and front steps still covered with the three inches of new snow. For some people, uncleared snow didn’t matter, and they took their time shoveling it away. Not so Leo Brumsky. He was fastidious to a fault about keeping his walks clean for Ma and her movie-loving friends, and he always attacked the task swiftly. When he was out of town, he had a standing deal with a snow removal service, paying them extra to put his bungalow first on their work list.
    Snow lying on a walk, several days after it fell, was never allowed.
    I trudged up the front steps and rang the bell. When there was no answer, I knocked, loudly. No one came.
    I high-stepped across the tiny lawn to the gangway between his house and the neighbor’s. Leo’s office window, like all the basement windows, was barred. I knelt down. His office was dark, like every other room in the house.
    Someone tapped on glass high behind me. I stood up. The gray-haired neighbor babushka looked down from her side window. She jabbed a finger toward the front. I walked back up the gangway.
    â€œYou’re awful late,” she said, leaning out