“We’ve talked to the night clerk but he claims he doesn’t know anything about her,” Anderson said. “Said she’s been around two, three weeks. She’d come into the office, pay for the room, leave. She’d take a room for the night, bring two or three guys back, knock on the window when she was coming and going. She’d remake the bed herself.”
“How much did she pay for the room?”
“I don’t know,” the vice cop said. “I could check.”
“Usually it’s one guy, one rent. They don’t usually take them for the night. Not if the motel knows what’s going on.”
“This guy knows,” said the vice cop.
“It’s Vinnie Short?”
“Yeah.”
“We have a long relationship. I’ll go talk to him,” Lucas said. He looked around the room again. “Nothing, huh?”
“Not much. The note.”
“What’d it say?”
“ ‘Never carry a weapon after it has been used.’ ”
“Son of a bitch. He’s not leaving us much.”
Anderson wandered out. Lucas looked at the body again, then picked up Brown’s bag and looked through it. A cheap plastic billfold contained fifteen dollars, a driver’s license, a social-security card, and a half-dozen photos. He pulled the clearest one out of the billfold and let it fall to the bottom of the bag. In a side pocket he found two twists of plastic. Cocaine.
“Got a couple quarter-grams here,” he said to the vice cop. “You inventoried her purse yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Stick your head out the door and call Anderson, will you?”
When the cop stepped outside, Lucas pocketed the photograph from the billfold and snapped the billfold shut.
“Yeah?” Anderson stepped back inside.
“Got some toot. Better get a property bag around this purse before it goes away.”
Vincent Short was short. He also had long, thinning red hair and thought he looked like Woody Allen. He didn’t know nothing. He scratched his head and shook it, and scratched his head some more. The dandruff flakes fell like snow on his black turtleneck shirt. Two vice cops were standing around looking at him when Lucas came in. Short looked up and paled.
“Lieutenant,” he said nervously.
“Vincent, my friend, we need to talk,” Lucas said cheerfully. He looked around at the vice cops. “Could I have a private talk with this guy? We’re old pals.”
“No problem,” said one of the cops.
“Say, you find the girl’s registration card?”
“Yeah, right here.”
One of the vice cops handed it to him and Lucas glanced at the total charge. Thirty dollars. “Thanks. See you around.”
When they were gone, Lucas turned to Short, who was shrinking back in his chair.
“Maybe we ought to go back in the office where we can talk,” he suggested.
“You fuck, Davenport—” Short started to cry.
Lucas leaned over his chair and spoke in kindly tones. “Vincent, you know who the girl’s pimp is. Now, you’ve got to decide, are you more scared of him? Or more scared of me? And let me give you a hint. We’re working on a multiple killer here. My ass is on the line. So you should definitely be more scared of me.”
“You fuck—”
“And maybe you should think about what the boss is going to say when he finds out you rented a room to a hooker, all night, for thirty bucks. You must have been getting a little on the side, huh? Maybe a little pussy, maybe a little kickback? Huh, Vincent?”
“You fuck . . .”
Lucas glanced out the windows toward the street. Nobody was looking in. He reached down and grabbed the flesh between Short’s nostrils between a thumb and forefinger and drove his thumbnail into it. Short arched his head as though he were being electrocuted and dragged at Lucas’ hand with his, but Lucas hung on and pressed his other thumb into Short’s throat below his Adam’s apple so he couldn’t scream. They struggled for a few seconds and then Lucas let go and backed off, and Short doubled up in the chair, his face buried in his hands, a long groan squeezing from his mouth.
Lucas leaned over him and wiped his fingers on Short’s shirt, his face close to Short’s.
“Who’s her pimp?” Lucas asked quietly.
“Aw, c’mon, Davenport.”
“If you think that hurt, I’ve got a couple more in places you wouldn’t even believe,” Lucas said. “Don’t show, either.”
“Sparks,” he mumbled. His voice was almost inaudible. “Don’t tell him I told you.”
“Who?”
“Jefferson Sparks. She works for Sparks.”
“Sparky. God damn.” Lucas patted Short on the shoulder. “Thanks, Vincent. The police appreciate the cooperation of our citizens.”
Short looked up at him, his eyes rimmed with red, tears running down his cheeks.
“Get out of here, you fuck.”
“If this isn’t right, if it’s not Sparky, I’ll be back,” Lucas promised. He smiled at Short. “Have a nice day.”
Outside, they were moving the body, wheeling it out into the flaring lights of the TV cameras. The vice cops were standing in a small group by the sidewalk, watching, when Lucas walked up.
“Your old pal tell you anything?”
“She worked for Jefferson Sparks,” Lucas said.
“Sparky,” one of the cops said enthusiastically. “I do believe I know where he’s staying.”
“Pick him up,” said Lucas. “Soliciting or something. We’ll talk to him downtown tomorrow morning.”
“Sure.”
Anderson was talking to the medical examiner. When he finished, he walked over to Lucas, shaking his head.
“Nothing?” asked Lucas.
“Not a thing.”
“You’re dragging the neighborhood for witnesses?”
“Got guys all over the place. Won’t know anything until tomorrow.”
“We got a name on the pimp,” Lucas said. “Vice is going to look for him. Probably have him tomorrow.”
“I hope he’s got something,” Anderson said. “This is getting old.”
Lucas worked on his game for half an hour, editing the scenarios. It was the worst part of the job. The finishing touches were never done. With the murder of Heather Brown, he couldn’t focus on the work.
He quit at two o’clock, ate a cup of strawberry yogurt, checked the doors, and turned out the lights. He had been in bed for ten minutes when the doorbell rang. Crawling out of bed, he tiptoed into the workroom so he could look out a window down the length of the house to the front door.
The doorbell rang again as he peeked out. Annie McGowan, alone in the streetlight, self-conscious as she waited by the door. Lucas sat down with his back to the wall, staring into the dark room. Jennifer was pregnant. Carla was waiting at the cabin. Lucas loved women, new women, different women. Loved to talk to them, send them flowers, roll around in the night. Annie McGowan was stunning, a woman with the face of Helen and what promised to be an exquisite body, pink nipples, pale, solid flesh.
And she was dumb as a stump. Lucas thought about it, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Outside, Annie McGowan waited, and after another minute turned away from the house and started back toward her car. Lucas stood up and peered through a crack between the curtain and the wall as she opened the car door, hesitated, looked back at the house. The window opened vertically, with a crank. His hand was on the crank and it would take only a second to open it, call out to her before she got away. He didn’t move. She slid into the driver’s seat, pulled the door shut, and backed out of the drive.
In another second she was gone. Lucas walked back to the bedroom, lay down, and tried to sleep.
Visions of Annie . . .
CHAPTER
15
Lucas’ office door was open and the vice cop ambled in and plopped down in one of the extra chairs.
“Sparky’s gone,” he said.
“Damn. Nothing’s coming easy,” Lucas said.
“We found his place, down on Dupont, but he split last night,” the vice cop said. “The guy who lives upstairs said Sparky came home about midnight, threw his shit in the car, and took off with one of his ladies. Said it didn’t look like he was coming back.”