Ogden went to 104 and an old woman opened the door a crack. She spoke Spanish and eyed Ogden, with every right, suspiciously. He immediately showed her the photograph. “¿Ha visto usted a esta mujer?”
The woman sighed, closed the door, and fastened the chain inside.
Ogden knocked at doors until another old woman answered. This woman was Hispanic as well, but she spoke English. “What do you want?” she asked.
Still, Ogden spoke Spanish, just out of respect. “¿Vive esta mujer aquí?” He pointed.
“No sé,” she said.
“¿La ha visto usted?”
She looked up and down the hall.
“Second floor.”
“Gracias.” He thought he saw her begin to smile, but that didn’t make sense.
On the second floor, no one answered the first five doors. A white woman, maybe thirty, opened the sixth door. Her face was pocked, her eyes red, her dyed blond hair was a nest on her head. She looked at Ogden as if she were expecting him.
“You’re late,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Ogden said.
It was only then that she realized he was not whom she was expecting. “You’re not Billy.”
“Not for some time.”
She turned and walked back into her hot apartment. Ogden stepped in after her. The room stank of cigarette smoke and a bathroom and maybe sex. The kitchen was part of the front room and it was a cliché of filth.
“I’m looking for Petra,” Ogden said.
“Yeah, me too. She owes me half the rent.”
“When did you last see her?”
The woman turned to look at Ogden. “Ain’t you proper?” She lit a cigarette. “When did you last see her?” she mocked Ogden. “Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m looking for Petra.”
“Yeah, well, I can see that. What you need her for? I’ll fuck you for fifty bucks.” She sat at the thick-legged table in the center of the room. She was backlit by the light from the curtainless window.
“I’m not looking to get fucked.”
“Then what the hell you want Petra for?”
“I want to talk to her.”
“Now I know you’re lying. I’ve talked to Petra. You don’t want to talk to her. Nobody in his right mind wants to talk to that bitch. Forty dollars.”
“Did you know Destiny?” Ogden asked. He used the past tense on purpose.
“Yeah. What do you mean did?”
“She’s dead.”
“Everybody dies.”
“She was shot.”
“People get shot. You know, you sound like a cop and I want you to leave.”
“I’m really not here to cause you any trouble. I don’t care that you’re a hooker. I don’t care that you use drugs. I don’t care that you dye your hair. I’m just trying to find out why two women are dead and who killed them.”
“I knew she was going to fuck up,” the woman said.
“Who?”
“Carol.”
“Carol Barelli?”
“Yeah. She came in here two weeks ago talking about scoring a lot of money and I told her she was crazy.” She put her cigarette down and lit another one. Now she had two going.
“What kind of score?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about One Hand?”
“One Hand. You mean Hicks?”
“I guess. Does he have a first name?”
“I’ve never heard it. He’s a two-bit pusher.”
“You know where he lives or where I can find him?”
The woman looked at Ogden and shook her head. “You ain’t no cop.”
“I’m a cop in New Mexico.”
“Well, this ain’t New Mexico, cowboy, so up here you ain’t no cop.”
“That’s pretty much how it is,” Ogden said. This woman wasn’t stupid. He imagined Carol Barelli looking like this woman, drugs in control, moving like this woman. Then he wondered what the woman in front of him would look like cleaned up and trying to fake her way through the world.
Ogden pulled out the photo of the dead woman from the cabin. “Do you know this woman?”
“Is she dead?”
“Yes, she is.”
“I don’t know her.”
“Listen, thanks for talking to me.”
“Thirty? Thirty dollars. I’ll do you for thirty.”
Ogden took thirty dollars from his pocket and put it on the table. “Use it how you need to.”
“You know I don’t need your charity,” she said, grabbing the money.
Ogden looked at the window. “I know you don’t. Consider that payment for the information.”
“And I ain’t no snitch.” She had fallen into something automatic and maybe safe for her.
Ogden didn’t press. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“You’re welcome, sir. Yes, sir. You’re welcome.”
“If it matters to you at all, I thought your friend Carol was all right. Until I found out she was lying to me.”
“She was a liar. What can I say?”
Ogden nodded. “Thanks again.” He started for the door.
“Try the Plank,” she said.
“What?”
“It’s a bar. It’s called the Plank. Hicks used to hang out there.”
Ogden nodded.
Ogden found his way downtown and into a restaurant. He ordered a burger with an enormously complex description and when it came it turned out to be a burger. It was large and with a few fries he could manage only half of the meal. He boxed the remainder and walked back toward his truck. He found a cop with his foot on his back bumper, looking at his license plate. Ogden put the food in his ice chest in the bed of the pickup and waited.
The square man looked over at Ogden. “Aren’t you going to whine or say something?”
“Meter expired,” Ogden said. “What’s there to say.”
“True.”
“From New Mexico?”
Ogden nodded.
“You know, I haven’t really started to fill this puppy in,” the cop said.
Ogden nodded, again. “It’s your job.”
The fat man closed his book. “I’ll let you off with a warning.”
“I appreciate it. You know a place called the Plank?”
“Yeah, I know it. It’s not far from the stadium. I think it’s on Wewatta. It’s a real dive; why do you want to go there?”
“Maybe I don’t.”
After a visit to his room at the Motel 6, Ogden found the Plank. It looked like the dive he expected it to look like. It was in a warehouse area and there were no other bars in sight, only long expanses of concrete buildings, loading docks, and semitrailers. It was dusk and there were a few cars parked in front. The only tree for blocks was in the center of the dirt parking area, a large chinaberry with a huge canopy. Ogden thought the tree almost gave the place some character. He walked in and stood at the bar.
“Whatever you have on tap,” Ogden said.
The bartender, a wide man with a blond crew cut, grunted an acknowledgment and grabbed a glass.
Ogden received the beer and looked around the room. Two bikers were playing pool. A tall man sat alone in a booth, his long legs crossed at the ankles and extended out to the nearest table. A couple sat in another booth, on the same side, not talking, just sitting. The bartender wiped his way down the counter.
“Any hookers ever come in here?” Ogden asked.
“Sometimes,” the man said. “How would I know a hooker if I saw one?”
Ogden smiled at him. “You know any of them?”
“I guess.” He stopped wiping and tossed his rag someplace Ogden couldn’t see. “Why you asking?”
“You know a woman named Carol Barelli?”
The man said nothing.
“Here’s her picture. She’s the one on the left. She also uses the name Destiny.”