Read Denton - 03 - Way Past Dead for Free Online

generator.”
    “There is, but it’s not big enough to cool the whole building. It only drives the unit on the cooler. We take turns going into the cold room and sitting with Evangeline.”
    “I hear she’s not much of a talker.”
    Marsha laughed again. Yeah, I thought, she’s doing fine.
    “No, the conversation tends to be a little one-sided. It wouldn’t bother me so much, but there are three others in there right now that haven’t even been cleaned up yet. Dr. Henry phoned in and said to stop all work. He didn’t want us in the middle of an autopsy if the shooting started.”
    “So everything’s on hold.”
    “Yeah, big guy, including my heart. And a couple other parts of me.”
    “I thought you said this wasn’t a private line,” I said, contemplating all my parts that were on hold for the time being.
    “It’s not,” she said, her voice starting to break up. “Listen, babe, I’m losing you. This phone’s about dead. I’ll have to plug in the charger for a bit. Guess I’d better go.”
    “I read the stuff in the paper about these idiots,” I said, not wanting her to go. “I think they’re just bluffing. I’m reading the newspaper and watching television, but they don’t really say much about what’s going on.”
    “We don’t know either,” she said. “We’re staying in touch with the negotiators. We talk to them every hour. But there’s not much to deal with here. They want Evangeline back and we’re not going to let them have her.”
    “So what the hell are they going to do?” I asked, an edge in my voice.
    “There’s not much anybody can do. We’ll just have to wait it out. Nobody wants to see any shooting.”
    “Ye—” The phone momentarily popped out, then came back on. “Hope you’re right. Listen, love—” Snap, crackle, cellular pop …
    “—later.”
    Dial tone.
    “Yeah, love,” I said to nobody. “Later.”
    Exasperated, I went by Marsha’s apartment, watered the plants, and checked the locks. Bored with puttering around at her house, I spent the rest of Sunday afternoon restlessly puttering around my office.
    There was mail to open, but no answering-machine messages to return on Monday. Business had picked up over the past few months, but then recently dropped off again. On a few rare days, it looked like I might even sort of kind of maybe might be able to make a living at this. Other days, the outlook wasn’t so bright.
    Funny, I’d taken on this new profession almost on a lark. After losing my job at the newspaper—and being pretty well burned-out on the daily grind anyway—I thought being a private detective would be kind of a hoot. I envisioned trench coats and late nights parked in front of sleazy motels waiting to take pictures of bank presidents sneaking out with the bimbo du jour. But bank presidents are smarter than that these days, and the people who sneak out of sleazy, twenty-dollars-for-three-hours motels are people I wouldn’t want brushing up against me in a crowd. Might catch something a good shower couldn’t wash off.
    I’d been at this game almost two years now, and truthfully I’d begun to miss the paper. It’s not that I haven’t had my good moments; it’s more that after a while the insecurity and unpredictability begin to wear on you. I can’t remember when I didn’t have what I diplomatically refer to as a “slight cash-flow problem.” In other words, I’m always tapped out. Thank God Tennessee doesn’t require liability insurance (technically, they do, but nobody enforces it). After the car fire, Icouldn’t afford the rate hikes. And as for health insurance—hell, the only way I’ll ever get health insurance again is when Ed McMahon pulls up in front of my apartment with that ten-million-dollar Publishers Clearing House check he’s been promising me every month for the past decade.
    I know—bitch, bitch, bitch. Nobody has any sympathy for middle-aged white guys. Besides, I really can’t complain. I answer to