Road Rules Online

“Mike?”

Myron Blake looked up from his third beer of the afternoon.  He’d have to remember to buy a fifth of Jim Beam on the way home, since that was how real alcoholics dealt with hangovers.  He wasn’t an alcoholic, but he was working on it.

“It is you,” said the short man with the acne scars and black motorcycle jacket.

“What?” asked Mike.  “I know you.”

“Of course you do.  Stan.  Yarazelski.  I loaned you my car on prom night.”

Mike shook the cobwebs from his head.  He’d seen Stan Yarazelski a few times since graduation.  After twenty years, neither one of them had moved any closer to the city, let alone left the area.  “Yeah, yeah, I remember you.  How you been?  What are you up to?”

Stan swaggered over to Mike and hopped onto a barstool.  “Oh, good, good.  Doing odd jobs here and there.”

“Sounds like someone dodging questions at a job interview.”

“Done a little of that, too.”  He flagged the bartender, a chubby woman of about thirty with auburn hair and an ample bosom.  Stan ordered a Budweiser draft.  “So tell me, what have you been up to?  How’s the insurance game?  How about that curvy little brunette you married?  What was her name?  Dina?  Diedre?”

“Deanna,” said Mike, some of the life gone from his voice now.  “Deanna Hoffmeyer.  We split up about a year ago.”

Stan had started to take a sip, then stopped.  “Oh, man, that’s too bad.  She get on you about working late?  She jealous?”

“She left me,” said Mike.  “For another man.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, ouch.  It was Tim Mason.”

Stan spit a mouthful of beer across the counter.  The chubby barmaid came over and threw a dishtowel at him.

“You spray it,” she said, “you clean it.”

Stan took the towel and started cleaning up his mess.  “You mean that skinny little twerp we used to swirlie on a regular basis?  What’s he doing now?”

“Sucking management’s cock at Walden.”

When Stan looked up into Mike’s eyes, Mike lost all restraint.

“Tim Mason is my nemesis and my tormentor,” he said.

“That’s a bit too dramatic, isn’t it, Mike?”

“He’s taken my wife and now my job.  I want to choke the shit out of that sonofabitch.”

Stan looked ready to bolt for a moment.  Then his mouth twitched to one side in a poorly suppressed smile.  He flagged the barmaid and slapped a twenty down on the bar.  “Whatever he wants.  I’ll take another Bud.  And you keep the rest.”

She winked at Stan.  “You’re not so bad, despite what they say about you.”

“Oh, it’s all true, honey.  All true.  Part of my charm.”

“Don’t push it.”

She served the drinks then headed out from behind the bar for the restroom.

Stan turned back to Mike.  “Okay, so let’s hear it.”

“You sure?” said Mike.

“Yeah.  I’m sure.  I’ll bet it’s a doozy of a story.”

Mike wondered if anyone said “doozy” anymore.  Something told him Stan Yarazelski was one of the last who did.  “Well, since you asked…”

Estevez hated the smell of grease.  He hated getting it on his shoes.  He hated how it hung in the air when it burned on the surface of hot metal.

In fact, Estevez hated the very thing that made Cleveland Cleveland, heavy industry.  Unfortunately, Major Crimes often sent him into the factories and warehouses and foundries that still made up much of the city’s economy.  Why he didn’t take that job in Houston ten years ago, he’d never know.  Houston had warmer weather, more white collar crime.

Oh, yeah.  He remembered why.  Houston had two big strikes against it:  Smog and hurricanes.  Say what you would about Cleveland’s blizzards and the odd tornado, the city knew how to handle them.

All that brought little comfort as Estevez stood in the middle of Allied Staging and Storage.  A black man in a suit that cost more than Estevez’s big-screen TV walked up to him after chatting with a couple of hard hats.  “Not a damn thing, Loot.  Half of them act like they never knew it was here.”

(continue reading…)

Chapter 3

“You’re not at the warehouse,” said Myron Blake into his cell.  “You dumped that poor girl here so you could go play golf.”

“Prove it,” said Mason.  In the background, someone whacked a golf ball with a loud whoosh and a metallic smack.  “By the time Aston gets over to the warehouse, I’ll have already been there and gone.”

“You sonofabitch.  Are you trying to get me fired?”

“Now why would I do that, Mikey-boy?”

“Because you hate my guts for dunking your head in the toilet back in high school.”

(continue reading…)