Read Drawing Dead for Free Online

have a dream. His head was full of acres, feet of shoreline, elevations, and abbreviations such as “FP.” Fireplace? Front porch? Either would be fine. None of the listings in the brochure was for an island. That would be something, to have his own island, a place to be with himself. No phone. No Dickie Wicky.
    â€œJoe?”
    â€œYeah, I'm here.”
    â€œI need to talk to you about something.” Wicky paused.
    Crow waited, trying to imagine what it could be. He had never seen or talked with Dickie Wicky other than from across a card table, nor had he ever wanted to. He didn’t even like playing cards with the guy. Wicky was everything Crow had avoided becoming—overweight, overfamiliar, overpaid—and he was a user, both of people and of substances. Crow liked users about as much as he had liked himself when he was using, which was to say, not at all. He decided in that moment to buy an answering machine. He had never liked the things, but if it would screen out one call from a guy like Dickie Wicky, it was worth the price. He turned to the next page of the brochure: “Bird Lake, 210' lksh, secluded, on pt, cozy 4 rm getwy, FP, grt fshng.” It was hard to see the cabin in the picture because it was surrounded by trees. He liked that. “$140,000.” That was a bit of a problem, since his entire net worth would come in at something like twenty thousand dollars, most of it tied up in his Jaguar XJS. The three thousand he had won last night was a start, but not nearly enough. Was there such a thing as a cabin on an island for ten or twenty thousand?
    â€œYou still there?”
    â€œI'm here. What’s on your mind?”
    Wicky cleared his throat. “I got a little problem. Listen, Joe, you do, like, odd jobs, right?”
    â€œI'm not really looking for work, Dickie.” Milo, Crow’s oversize black tomcat, bumped against his leg.
    â€œI heard you did some investigating work for Frank Knox.”
    â€œI did him some favors.” Crow set the peanut-butter-covered knife on the linoleum floor. Milo set to work, scraping it clean with his rough tongue. Crow had served some papers for Frank Knox and chased down a reluctant witness to an auto accident, but that was about it. Aside from his poker winnings, he was professionally and financially adrift, waiting for something to inspire him.
    â€œYou used to be a cop, right?”
    â€œNot much of one. Dickie, what is it you’re looking for?”
    â€œIt’s sort of complicated. Do you think you could come down here?”
    â€œWhere is 'here'?”
    â€œLitten Securities.”
    â€œThat’s downtown, right?”
    â€œWe're in the Mills Building.”
    â€œMaybe you ought to tell me what you want to talk about. I don’t want to waste your time.”
    â€œA business proposal.”
    â€œI don’t have any money to invest, Dickie.”
    â€œYou won’t need any money. But there might be something in it for you.”
    â€œYou want me to sell Amway, you can forget it.”
    â€œI don’t want you to sell Amway. Look, I’ll pay you for your time. A consultation fee. What would you charge me for a half hour of your time? Just to listen.”
    â€œThree hundred dollars,” Crow said, hoping to discourage him.
    Wicky did not hesitate. “How about ten o'clock Friday morning?”
    After agreeing, reluctantly, to meet with Dickie Wicky, Crow put on his gray sweats, brewed a cup of strong coffee, and went out onto the porch to drink it. He brought the real estate brochure with him. Milo, who had finished with the peanut butter knife, followed, his kinked tail held proudly aloft.
    Crow rented the top half of a duplex on First Avenue, an eighty- year-old clapboard house that, unlike most of the properties in this marginal neighborhood, retained all of its windows, was vermin-free, and sported a coat of white paint less than a decade old. His porch, which ran the