Loren D. Estleman - Amos Walker 16 - Poison Blonde by Loren D. Estleman Page A
Authors: Loren D. Estleman
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that had taken me twice around Circe’s island and past the cave of the cyclops.
The one I selected, after I parked in the Tonka-size lot a block over from my building, was a cute pop-up affair that featured the Rust Belt in all its El Niño-battered glory. It was as easy to fold as a conventional accordion map, with the added advantage of not being as detailed. But I wasn’t using it to attack Bastogne.
None of the customers in my waiting room could distract me from my higher purpose, even if there were any; the trade off the street in that neighborhood would drive a pusher into real estate, and anyway you can’t expect to just walk up two flights and hire an investigator on a whim. You need to bring your wallet.
I found out from the service no one had called, and grunted at the girl when she asked me if it was snowing yet. I guessed the switchboard room didn’t have windows. Mine was sealed
with a nail from one of Alexander’s horseshoes and the panes had cataracts. I spread open the map on the desk, sat down, and found the red pen I employed to keep the accounts.
Matador had met Jillian Rubio for the first time last February in Chicago. Five thousand dollars had changed hands in return for letting the woman who called herself Gilia go on being Gilia. I drew a scarlet X on the little circle that marked Chicago on the map. In March it was Indianapolis, in April Des Moines. I marked them. Des Moines again in May, then clear up to Duluth. Another X . Omaha, Omaha, Chicago again. Scratch scratch. Milwaukee for the first time in October. The upper Midwest was beginning to look as if it were stitched together with crimson thread.
Milwaukee again in November. That was the first time the blackmailer had failed to show. Matador had decided, in view of the Rubio woman’s propensity for returning to the scenes of earlier crimes, to go back to the same place in December and January, adding five thousand to the envelope each time to bring his client’s account out of arrears. It was a sensible plan, only Jillian wasn’t having any of it. We were coming up on the first anniversary of the arrangement next Saturday, also three months since anyone had seen the extortionist vertical and breathing, and that was as long as she was supposed to stay missing before the whole thing came spewing out into the living room of Mr. and Mrs. America.
As itineraries went it wasn’t Magellan’s. All the locations were within twelve hours’ driving distance of one another. Whoever had drawn it up either lived somewhere within that twelve hours or wanted whoever looked at it to think that. The last was an unlikely hypothesis; blackmailers made life inconvenient for other people, not themselves. A related theory was that if the person did live in that area, the one place she would not set up a drop would be the city where she lived. It would be bad form to be recognized by an old acquaintance while committing a felony.
I excavated the big Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass someone
had given me in the spirit of jest, and which I used far more often than the someone had intended, although hardly ever to magnify anything. Its heft made it a good tool for rehanging pictures, and in this case it functioned equally well as a compass. I laid the glass on top of the map, lining it up so that all the marked cities showed, with Milwaukee and Indianapolis on the extreme right edge at top and bottom, Duluth and Des Moines framing the center, and Omaha at the left. I used the red pen to trace a circle around the glass, then pushed aside the magnifier and with one eye closed and my tongue between my teeth marked a bold red X in the circle’s exact center. Then I leaned back to admire my artwork.
The cross of the X fell squarely on the Mississippi River where it divided Minneapolis and St. Paul. Which were the only bold-faced cities on the map where Jillian Rubio had never arranged to meet Hector Matador.
I enjoyed the moment, then tossed the map into the
The one I selected, after I parked in the Tonka-size lot a block over from my building, was a cute pop-up affair that featured the Rust Belt in all its El Niño-battered glory. It was as easy to fold as a conventional accordion map, with the added advantage of not being as detailed. But I wasn’t using it to attack Bastogne.
None of the customers in my waiting room could distract me from my higher purpose, even if there were any; the trade off the street in that neighborhood would drive a pusher into real estate, and anyway you can’t expect to just walk up two flights and hire an investigator on a whim. You need to bring your wallet.
I found out from the service no one had called, and grunted at the girl when she asked me if it was snowing yet. I guessed the switchboard room didn’t have windows. Mine was sealed
with a nail from one of Alexander’s horseshoes and the panes had cataracts. I spread open the map on the desk, sat down, and found the red pen I employed to keep the accounts.
Matador had met Jillian Rubio for the first time last February in Chicago. Five thousand dollars had changed hands in return for letting the woman who called herself Gilia go on being Gilia. I drew a scarlet X on the little circle that marked Chicago on the map. In March it was Indianapolis, in April Des Moines. I marked them. Des Moines again in May, then clear up to Duluth. Another X . Omaha, Omaha, Chicago again. Scratch scratch. Milwaukee for the first time in October. The upper Midwest was beginning to look as if it were stitched together with crimson thread.
Milwaukee again in November. That was the first time the blackmailer had failed to show. Matador had decided, in view of the Rubio woman’s propensity for returning to the scenes of earlier crimes, to go back to the same place in December and January, adding five thousand to the envelope each time to bring his client’s account out of arrears. It was a sensible plan, only Jillian wasn’t having any of it. We were coming up on the first anniversary of the arrangement next Saturday, also three months since anyone had seen the extortionist vertical and breathing, and that was as long as she was supposed to stay missing before the whole thing came spewing out into the living room of Mr. and Mrs. America.
As itineraries went it wasn’t Magellan’s. All the locations were within twelve hours’ driving distance of one another. Whoever had drawn it up either lived somewhere within that twelve hours or wanted whoever looked at it to think that. The last was an unlikely hypothesis; blackmailers made life inconvenient for other people, not themselves. A related theory was that if the person did live in that area, the one place she would not set up a drop would be the city where she lived. It would be bad form to be recognized by an old acquaintance while committing a felony.
I excavated the big Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass someone
had given me in the spirit of jest, and which I used far more often than the someone had intended, although hardly ever to magnify anything. Its heft made it a good tool for rehanging pictures, and in this case it functioned equally well as a compass. I laid the glass on top of the map, lining it up so that all the marked cities showed, with Milwaukee and Indianapolis on the extreme right edge at top and bottom, Duluth and Des Moines framing the center, and Omaha at the left. I used the red pen to trace a circle around the glass, then pushed aside the magnifier and with one eye closed and my tongue between my teeth marked a bold red X in the circle’s exact center. Then I leaned back to admire my artwork.
The cross of the X fell squarely on the Mississippi River where it divided Minneapolis and St. Paul. Which were the only bold-faced cities on the map where Jillian Rubio had never arranged to meet Hector Matador.
I enjoyed the moment, then tossed the map into the
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