Trouble in Rooster Paradise Read Online Free

one.
    “ Seattle’s still such a hick town.
I’m not setting down any roots. I won’t be staying here much
longer. I’m putting away some money. My dream is to live in a
penthouse apartment on Park Avenue, in New York. It’s good to have
dreams, don’t you think?”
    “ Yeah, sure. Dreams are
good.”
    “ Of course the best dreams cost lots
of money,” she said.
    I didn’t agree or disagree. At the time my
dreams consisted of cutting a rug to music with a heartbeat at the
Palladium, at least until I saw that hoped-for sparkle in the eyes
of my date of the week. Or sometimes I just looked forward to
quaffing a bottle of Pabst with my feet up and listening to
pleasant mood music on KOL or KOMO—which at the time tended to be
Hawaiian tunes.
    We saw no Packard during our ten-minute
palaver. At Christine’s insistence I drove a zigzagging route south
about ten blocks. Aunt Emelia’s Victorian looked to have been built
when Teddy Roosevelt was whacking away with his big stick. It was
liberally decorated with fancy moldings, turrets, and bay windows,
which gave it a false appearance of affluence.
    I pulled in the driveway and Christine
smothered a visit-ending yawn with a delicate fist—that universal
way of saying, “Is it that time already?” I knew I wouldn’t be
meeting Aunt Emelia.
    We faced each other and she took my right hand
in hers. She squeezed my palm and playfully ran the index finger of
her other hand up the front of my shirt—starting at my chest and
ending at my chin. With a tug on my lapel, she pulled my face close
to her pursed lips and gave me a full-mouthed kiss. She quickly
pulled away and whispered, “Thank you,” as she hopped out of the
car.
    I didn’t surprise easy, but she shut the car
door before I could even say, “You’re welcome.”
    The stone footpath sloped upward. Christine
walked in long climbing strides but with no urgency. Her faille
skirt sculpted the back of each round and solid thigh as one leg
shot in front of the other.
    She disappeared inside the house. She didn’t
wave or look back. I didn’t expect her to.
    I’d struck out on getting her phone number, and
though she had mine, I was certain she’d not be dialing it anytime
soon. I wasn’t the stuff her dreams were made of.
    But it wasn’t the last time I saw the girl. No,
not hardly.
     
     

Chapter 3
    I’ d driven Christine home
Tuesday night. A police summons rousted me from my bed in the
middle of the night Wednesday. And now, in the wee hours of
Thursday morning, I was seeing Christine once again. She was
definitely slumming it. She wore her hair up this time. She didn’t
look so good. A summer dress of rayon crepe enshrouded the lumpy
pile she’d become in the alley off Ballard Avenue. I was of no
further use to her. The cops hoped otherwise.
    A white-haired medical examiner squatted over
her body. He shut his black bag, looked up, and said, “She died
before she hit the ground.”
    “ Dragged to this spot after she was
shot,” said Detective Sergeant Milland. “Killer wanted her back a
ways. Out of sight.” He was looking at Christine’s foot as he
pointed to the blood trail. One of her platform-soled sandals had
fallen off, and the toe of her nylon was roughed up and torn. Her
skirt was hiked up so that one of her thighs and the fringe of her
underwear showed.
    “ Gal had a nice set of legs,”
Milland said. “A real shame to go and break a dish like that.” He
didn’t mean it to be funny, and nobody laughed.
    Cops in Seattle ran a gamut that included the
crooked, slightly bent, and those who mixed virtue with their
dishonesty. Frank Milland was not-so-crooked with honest leanings.
Under his fedora he wore short-cropped hair that was prematurely
gray and made him look well over forty. But I knew he was no more
than thirty-five, since he was only a couple years older than me.
He’d tried to enlist during the war despite a wife and kid, but a
severe case of hammertoes barred him from the