“I need to find Sheriff Tillman.”
The man shook his head instantly. “You can’t bring that—body in here. It’ll make people lose their appetites.”
Remembering what Tillman looked like from the photograph in the sheriff’s office, Fargo pushed past the greeter and entered a large room with maybe fifteen tables where very well-dressed men and women dined and chatted and laughed in what appeared to be reasonably civilized circumstances. The flocked wallpaper, the two waiters in monkey suits, and the carpeting impressed Fargo, despite his sour mood.
But he wasn’t here as a restaurant critic.
Tillman wasn’t difficult to pick out. Balding man in a dark, expensive, three-piece suit with a full beard and a squat, but powerful-looking, body. The mayor was a scare-crow in a cheap suit, a brocaded vest, and full head of greasy yellow hair. He looked like a pitifully unsuccessful riverboat gambler.
Everybody was watching Fargo, of course, knowing at first glance what was inside the rolled blanket. He walked directly to Tillman’s table and snapped, “Here you go, Tillman. You’ll have to do a little work for once. Seems I’ve got this dead girl here.”
And with that, he bent over and laid the blanket roll across the table.
Several women started screaming.
He wrapped her back up, slung her over his shoulder again, and said, “I’ll see you in your office this afternoon.”
Then he got the hell out of there.
7
Liz Turner pestered the desk clerk at the Royalton Hotel until he threatened to call Butch, an ex-con who served as both the handyman and a bouncer.
Liz said, “Butch wouldn’t hurt a lady.”
“Who says you’re a lady?”
“Very funny. Where’s the manager?”
“He’s out of town.”
“And he left you in charge?”
“That’s right.”
“I need to talk to that man for sure. He leaves you in charge and somebody gets kidnapped from one of your rooms, in broad daylight, and you say you don’t know anything about it.”
“You’re making this up so you’ll have a good story for your stinking paper.”
“It makes a better story that you don’t even know what’s going on in your own hotel. A kidnapping and you don’t know anything about it. That should make your guests feel real safe. Now take me up to that room.”
Charlie Daly sighed. He was a master sigher. Very dramatic. His sigh told you more than you wanted to know about him—that he was weak, nervous, and easily given to pique, a word Liz had used in a newspaper story once. Only once. Many readers complained that she was “showing off” with words like that. And you know what? Liz decided they were right. It had been a boring story to write and so she’d taken it out on her readers by using a word few of them would know. She’d never used such a word again.
The desk clerk led her up to the room. He sat primly on a straight-backed chair while she prowled the room. She and Charlie got along most of the time. But if Charlie felt that his job was in jeopardy, he’d get his back up and claw at you.
“What exactly are you looking for?” he said, sighing again.
“Don’t go get your cravat in a whirl,” she said. “I want to see if Red told me a whopper.”
“Red? The kid?” He laughed. “My God, Liz, I don’t have much respect for you so-called journalists, but I would’ve thought that you’d be more responsible than to listen to Red.”
“I don’t think Red would lie to me.”
“Oh? Why not?”
She almost said, “Because he’s smitten with me.” Saying it, she’d sound vain and foolish. Was there any reason that Red would fib to her, even though he did have a crush on her? Maybe the fellow who told him was fibbing, just trying to stir up trouble.
She calmed down. “I’m sorry I insulted you.”
“Me, too. For insulting you, I mean.”
“I don’t see much of anything wrong with this room.”
“Nothing broken,” he said.
“No blood,” she said.
“Nothing missing.”
“No notes left behind.”
He sighed again. This time the sigh wasn’t so dramatic. He said, “Believe me, if I heard a story about a kidnapping here, the first person I’d talk to would be you.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed. “You know, this isn’t the first time somebody’s reported a kidnapping during the Fourth of July celebration.”
“It isn’t?”
“I went back through ten years of newspapers. This was way before we got here. Three times somebody came to the paper to report that somebody they knew had gone missing. They were sure it was foul play. You know, that the person hadn’t just wandered away. The paper always ran the items in the ‘Odds’N’Ends’ column.”
“Why not in the ‘Law News’ section?”
“I’m not sure. But it was strange.”
Charlie thought a moment. “You know, before young Tom became sheriff and you folks took over the newspaper, Tillman decided what got in the paper and what didn’t. Fellow that owned the newspaper was scared to death of making old Tillman mad at him.”
“That makes me curious.”
“Yeah? About what?”
“Well,” she said, “if old man Tillman didn’t want the full story in the paper, maybe he had something to do with those disappearances himself.”
Fargo wanted to clean up and put on some fresh clothes. Hauling a dead person around left its traces on a fella.
He was just about to enter his room when he heard a quiet voice behind him say, “I was just about to clean up your room. My name is Maria Veldez.”
The Mexican chambermaid he’d seen earlier. Couldn’t have been more than five foot three, couldn’t have weighed more than one hundred pounds, but her body was full and well-rounded and her face was beautiful.
“Well, don’t let me stop you,” Fargo said.
He used his key, opened the door, and allowed her to enter first.
“I was just going to change clothes,” he said. He’d become almost painfully aware of her charms, couldn’t think of much else, in fact. “You turn around and do your work. And I’ll grab me a fresh shirt and pants.”
She smiled. “This hotel is full of old men. I see them half-naked all the time. Big bellies and breasts like women and chins that nearly touch their chests.” She sent him an openly admiring glance. “I wish I could see men like you walking around half-naked.” She giggled sweetly. “Then I would have a good reason to come to work every day.”
Fargo might not have been a deep thinker or particularly learned man but he sure as hell knew when a lady was expressing interest in his body.
He walked over to her and slid his arms over her shoulders and brought her to him. “I’ll take my shirt off if you’ll do the same.”
She made a cute little face. Put a finger to her chin as if she were pondering philosophical problems. “Let me see. I’ll have to think about that.” Then she slid her arms around his waist and said, “OK, you talked me into it.”
They were on the bed less than a minute later, as he teased the both of them by rubbing his rod against the soft sweet entrance to her sex. In moments they were both jerking and bucking, eager to get past this first stage. She eased him over on his back and licked her lips to the tip of his rigid manhood, flicking the head with her tongue, and then seeming to take the enormity of it completely inside her mouth.
He wondered if he could hold out. She was bringing him the sort of pleasure that blinded a man, made him one big erection, his entire body, his entire mind. Her tongue wrapped itself around his rod until—just at the moment he thought he could hold out no longer—she rolled over and guided him inside her.