Cagily, Poe turned his back to the video camera, and with sleight of hand, slipped the photograph into his pants, moving it down until it sat between the upper part of his thigh and pants. Helped that he was wearing snug jeans.
Delatorre was talking. “… can’t see the rest of the file, Rom. Sorry. Confidential information in here that could affect others. You want to look at it, I’ll need a subpoena.”
“S’all right.” He pulled out a notepad and pen. “Can you give me her vital statistics?”
“Uh … yeah, I suppose—” Delatorre’s beeper went off. He looked at the pager, read the number. “Trouble, Sergeant. I gotta go.”
“Real quick job for me, Pete? You don’t want another one of your girls to end up like she did.”
“She wasn’t one of my girls.”
“She ended up a mess, Pete. It’s bad for everyone if this isn’t solved quickly.”
Delatorre muttered, but quickly scanned through her application.
“Born in ’seventy-five, five-eight, one-ten, blond hair, blue eyes … seven years of dance training in L.A., worked as a secretary before taking this job. Recommendations from her dance teacher, her former boss, some friends, and some state senator in California. Bet she sucked him to the root to get that. Found out about the job through her boyfriend. It’s local. You want the address?”
Poe sighed inwardly. Guess where he was now headed at four in the morning. “Shoot.”
Delatorre gave him numbers, closed the chart. “Oh, I’ll need that picture back.”
“I returned it to you.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Open the file. It’s the one where she’s resting her head on her hand.”
Delatorre opened the folder. Sure enough, there was a picture of Brittany Newel leaning her head against an open palm. “I didn’t give you this one. I gave you a head shot.”
“I don’t have it, Pete.” He held his arms out straight from his waist. “You want to frisk me, be my guest. I’m a captive audience.”
Delatorre studied Poe’s face, closed the file, and put it back in the cabinet. Licking his lips and saying nothing, he punched some numbers on a wall panel and the door opened. He whispered, “After you.”
“Thanks.”
Delatorre led Poe back through the maze, back out to reception, walked with him halfway through the casino. Then he stopped. “I still think you owe me a picture, Rom.”
Poe grinned. “I promise I won’t play in your pits.”
Delatorre stared at him. “Fucking Digger.”
Poe ignored the insult. “I’ll keep in touch.”
“Fine,” Delatorre said. “Only next time, use a phone.”
At twenty-three, Brittany Newel had hit the skids—a bargain-basement whore whose rapid descent from high-priced showgirl/call girl to ten-buck-a-pop blow jobs had been made possible by Mr. Crack. Her address led Jensen to a seedy bungalow apartment complex in the north side of town. Brittany had lived with a roommate named Ria—a pale wisp of a woman also running on a fast track to nowhere.
To Jensen’s surprise, the place wasn’t a total sty. Sure, there were some dirty dishes in the sink, sticky counters and gummy tabletop. But the couches, though old, were cleared of debris. The carpet was an odd fluorescent green weave that looked like Astroturf, but basically clean. The place did hold a somewhat stale odor of people who spent too much time in bed.
Ms. Ria had greeted him and Fat Patty wearing a robe, the flaps unbelted but overlapping. As soon as she sat, she let the sides fall open, exposing huge silicon jobs under a flimsy white tank top. Her ass was barely covered by a pair of red lace panties.
Said Simple Simon to the pieman, let me taste your wares.
The way Ria glanced at him, Jensen knew she was sizing him up as a possible trick. She looked familiar. Could be he had slept with her before.
He turned to Patricia Deluca, hoping his partner would wrap it up before daylight. They had already asked her the routine questions—who, what, where. Ria spoke in one-word answers. Even that seemed to tax her brain. She did let them rifle through Brittany’s belongings. There wasn’t much to sift through. A closet of hooker clothes and shoes, a bathroom holding pills, dope, and lots of condoms. No needles but several crack pipes. Jensen wanted to go home, but Fat Patty insisted on a few more questions. Deluca was new on the job … trying real hard. Jensen liked her. Funny, because he had never just “liked” any woman before.
Back to the living room. This time, Ria had elected to forgo the robe altogether. Patricia ignored the woman’s brazen dress and said, “I just want to nail down what you told me, so stay with us a few moments longer.”
“If it’s only a few moments. I’m real tired.”
“I appreciate your time. If you could just hang in there—”
“Do I have a choice?”
Patricia flipped through her notes, studying Ria’s petulant face—round saucer blue eyes leaking mascara-stained tears. She had dyed her hair platinum, giving it little contrast to her ghostly complexion—not unusual at four in the morning. Her cheeks held slight pitting from teenage acne … a wasted-away body with very augmented breasts.
Ria made Patty and her extra poundage feel healthy in comparison. Deluca smoothed out her draping black suit. Half-sizes seemed to be designed by Omar the Tentmaker. As if fat women didn’t have figures. Well, she had a figure. It was just a large one.
“You stated that the last time you saw Brittany was around eleven in the morning?”
Ria lit another cigarette, talked in a whisper. “More like in the afternoon … around twelve.” Eyes to Jensen, eyes back to Deluca. “She was up before me. That I remember.”
“And she was where?” Jensen asked. “When you got up?”
Her knees now totally apart. “I told you … just sitting at the table, drinking a cup of coffee.”
Showing Jensen bush. He noticed a little mole on her thigh. A sense of déjà vu. He was really beginning to think that he had slept with her. “Drinking a cup of coffee.”
“That’s right.”
“Maybe smoking as well?”
Ria paused, nodded.
“Was she smoking crack or tobacco?” Patricia asked.
Ria’s eyes did another dance. She stubbed out her smoke. “You expect me to answer it?”
“We’re from Homicide, ma’am, not Vice.”
“You’re cops,” Ria answered. “That’s enough for me.”
Patricia said, “After she was done smoking, Ria, what did she do?”
A shrug. “Said she’d see me ’round. Then she got up and left. End of story.”
“Did she tell you where she was headed, what her plans were for the day?”
Ria shook her head no.
Jensen said, “You said she serviced the hotels.”
“That’s what she told me.” She shrugged. Thin shoulders attached to balloon breasts. Patricia wondered if they hurt her back. Ria added, “Hotels, motels … wherever there was business.”
“Did she work with a pimp?” Jensen asked.
A sigh. “You know, I didn’t know that much about her. We’d only been sharing this dump for a couple of months. I was gettin’ a little tight on cash, so I figured I take on someone to help me out. She was the first to answer the ad.”
“You two get along?”
“Sure. Why not? She did her thing, I did mine.”
“So you don’t know if she worked with a pimp?” Patricia continued to probe.
“Probably she knew a couple of guys who’d throw some business her way.”
“Bellmen? Dealers? Pit bosses? Higher-ups?”
“In the beginning, she claimed she did lots of high rollers.” Scratching her pebbly cheek. “Probably she did. I saw old pictures of her. She was cute.”
Old—as in two years ago. Would they ever learn?
Patricia paused.
At least her big boobs were her own. Guys loved her boobs. As heavy as she was, she had no trouble getting guys. She said, “Did she have regulars?”
Ria gave a quick glance to Jensen. “I guess.”
Patricia caught it. She wondered if Ria knew that Jensen had slept with Brittany. Then she wondered if Ria and Jensen had ever slept together. The guy went through hookers like she went through diets. “Why’d she move in with you?”
“’Cause she was broke and had nowhere to go. Her boyfriend had kicked her out.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Ex-boyfriend, I mean. Didn’t talk too much about him ’cept to say he had a bad temper and used to beat her. His name was Trent. He’s a dealer.”
Patricia asked, “Does Trent the Dealer have a last name?”
“I’m sure, but I don’t know it.”
“Was he her pimp?”
“Don’t know.”
“What hotels did she work out of?”
Ria gave some names.
“Good places,” Jensen remarked.
“If you can believe her.”
“She have a truth problem?”
“I dunno. Maybe at first she did work the high-end jobs. But she got into bad habits. You know, the nice places … they don’t like bad girls with bad habits.”
Jensen held up a small plastic sandwich bag. Hidden in the corner were a couple of brown crystals. He had found the shit in Brittany’s bedroom. “She was running a little low on her supply. Who’d she go to for a fill-up?”
She waved a hand, spread her legs farther. “It’s easy to buy in this city.”
Patricia spoke slowly. “Where in specific did she buy?”
Ria spoke with disdain. “If you don’t know, you ain’t much of a detective.”
“Could you narrow it down to a couple of places?”
She shrugged. “Sorry.”
He traded looks with Deluca. Patricia said, “I think we’re just about done.”
Ria stood up. “I hope so. It’s four in the morning. Night all.” She walked to her bedroom, stopped at the door, turned. “Push the button to lock the door and let yourself out.” A pause. Eyes on Jensen. “Unless you want to stick around …” A big smile. “In case something suddenly pops up.”
Jensen returned her smile with a slow, sexy one of his own. “No, I think Detective Deluca and I have finished with our questions. Thank you for your time, ma’am.”
Ria threw him back a burned look, answered, “De nada, Detective Jensen. That’s Spanish. It means thanks for nothing.”
“She had an ex-boyfriend.” Patricia into her portable cell phone. “A dealer. Ria said he used to beat her.”
Over the line, Poe answered, “His name is Trent Minors, currently a blackjack dealer at Shakespeare’s. I have his address. I’m going there now.”
“She ended up a mess, sir. I mean even before she died. A washed-out, dead-broke crack addict. Her roommate, too. Also a user. Both of them so young. It’s so sad.”
On the wire, Jensen said, “Sad but true.”
Poe said, “I don’t think I’m going to make it back to the Bureau right away. You two finish up your paperwork, then go home. I’ll run what we have by Weinberg. Let’s all try to meet with the loo sometime in the late morning.”
“Where?” Patricia asked.
“How ’bout Myra’s?” Jensen suggested.
“Okay. Myra’s at ten.” Poe checked his watch. “That should give you two about five hours of shut-eye.”
“Sounds good,” Patricia said.
“Fine with me,” Jensen added.
Poe cut the mike, drove to Minors’s address. The neighborhood was a mixture of small one-story houses and low-rise apartments. To Poe, even in the dark, it looked more than familiar. He had been here before, recognizing landmarks down to the apartment with the wrought-iron horsehead fence.
Then he realized he was about five minutes from Honey’s. He had entered the area from the north instead of the south. He thought a moment about Ruki’s keeping him at arm’s length.
He depressed the accelerator, did a couple of screeching right turns, then parked in front of Honey’s building.
Well, what does Ruki expect of me?
Nothing. That’s the problem.
The call girl wasn’t pleased to be awakened. Her hair was messy, eyes still heavy from sleep. She wore a bulky terry robe and had bunny slippers on her feet.
Her greeting to him: “Go away.”
Poe put his foot in the door before she could close it. “Please?”
“Why don’t you go bother Rukmani?”
“I would except she’s working.”
“So? One of the slabs is bound to be empty.”
Poe kneed his way inside. “You are one sick woman.”
A brush of pecan hair from midnight-blue eyes. “You know what time it is?”
“Four-fifteen.”
“Big night, Rom?”
Hands in pockets, Poe bounced on his feet, stared at the walls decorated with hundred-year-old Audubon prints. “Professionally, yes.”
Honey shut the door. “Professionally as in playing? Or professionally as in cop?”
“Unfortunately the latter.” He turned the security lock. “You should always use your deadbolt, Honey. It’s there for a reason.”
“You look upset.” She tightened her robe over ample breasts. The real labonza. Made her very popular. “Bad?”
“Girl named Brittany Newel. A former dancer at Havana. When she died, she was turning tricks for crack. Who knows? Maybe she was a runner as well. I’m about to visit her boyfriend. A dealer at Shakespeare’s. His name is Trent Minors.”
Honey shrugged.
Poe took out the stolen photo of Newel. “Know the girl, by any chance?”
Honey stared at the picture, but shook her head. “Nope.”
A stretch of silence.
Honey sighed. “All right. Go sit on the couch.”
Poe obeyed without question. She stood before him, then dropped to her knees and spread his legs. Unzipped his pants and went to work. Five minutes later, she was making coffee in the kitchen. She felt Poe encircle her waist from behind, kiss her neck.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Pleasure’s mine,” she answered. “You’re very good, you know.”
“Good?” Poe was puzzled. “You mean fast?”
She laughed out loud, broke contact. Turned to face him, holding a coffee urn. “Am I making this for nothing?”
“Probably.” Poe rubbed his eyes. “I’ve got to go back to work.”
“Poor Romulus.”
Poe took out his wallet. Honey put her hand over the billfold. “It’s on me.”
“No, no, no.” Rom pulled out a hundred-dollar bill. “I pride myself on paying my bills.”
Honey snatched the Franklin. “Far be it from me to deny a man his dignity.”
Poe took out Brittany’s picture, showed it to Honey again. “Look at it, Honey. Doesn’t look a little familiar?”
Honey blew out air. “Rom, she’s a face in the crowd.”
“She danced at Havana—”
“You already said that.” Irked, she pushed the picture aside. “I don’t know her.”
“Don’t get peeved. I’m just doing my job.” Poe paused. “You know how it is. A young girl working strange men. I wouldn’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
He looked at her pointedly. She matched his stare. “I know what I’m doing.”
“You’re a very savvy woman. Just take care.”
“Always.” She softened, kissed his nose. “Good luck and good night.”
He shut the door softly behind him. A moment later, he heard the loud click of the deadbolt. Thinking of Brittany’s mutilated face … good that Honey had taken him seriously.
It was a typical minimum-wage apartment, but it was neat and clean and had tasteful repros on the wall—cubic forms and sketches. Poe’s eyes jumped from the walls to Minors nervously flattening the carpet. The blackjack dealer had slipped on a gray sweatshirt and jeans, but hadn’t quite gotten around to shoes. He had hairy feet. His face was long, with even features except for the mouth. Thin, tight lips gave him an unforgiving expression. To stop him from pacing, Poe asked for coffee. Minors brewed up a batch as bitter as his mood.
Angrily, he said, “I can’t believe that Brittany sank that low.” A pause. “Not that I’m not saying it was her fault that she got murdered.”
“That’s good.”
The dealer reddened, looked down. “You’re sure? That it’s actually … her?”
Poe sipped his wretched java, didn’t respond right away. He drummed his fingers against the cup. Actually that was a good question. Newel had been found nude, without a purse, and half her face had been mangled. But the other half was identifiable as the woman in Havana’s posed portfolio photographs.
Poe said, “We’ve had some preliminary identification—”
“So you’re not sure?”
“We’re proceeding as if it is Brittany Newel.” Poe put down his cup. “You seem very angry at her.”
Minors’s face tightened, frowning lips turning into lines.
“Why do you say that? I haven’t seen her in months.”
Poe took out a notebook. “I’m angry at people I haven’t seen in years. Was the breakup amicable?”
“I was happy about it.”
“Why’d you two break up?”
“She was out of control.”
“Drugs?”
“What else?”
“How long had she been blowing crystal?”
“Long enough for me to say good-bye.”
“When you two met, was she using?”
Minors sank down on a chair, drooped like a water-starved plant. “Nothing heavy.”
“Pot?”
“Occasionally.”
“Why’d she turn to a heavier case load?”
“Who knows?” Minors muttered. “It’s this damn city. Takes over your life.”
Poe said, “She was turning tricks.”
Minors muttered, “Case in point.”
“Is that why you beat her up?”
Minors blushed brightly. “I didn’t beat her up—”
“You smacked her around, Trent. Save us both some energy and don’t play Mr. Who Me?, all right?”
“So I got pissed a couple times—”
“A couple of times?” With dubious eyes, Poe gave him a look. “Who was really out of control?”
Minors blurted, “I didn’t give a flying fuck about her whoring! Okay?”
Poe licked his lips, tapped his pen against his notebook. “Why not?”
Quietly, Minors said, “’Cause we had this understanding.”
“What kind of understanding?”
The dealer got anxious. “Just that we didn’t butt into each other’s business.”
“Each other’s business,” Poe repeated. “Do you mean personal or professional business?”
“Both.”
“So her whoring was okay because it brought in money?”
“It was her thing, Sergeant!” Minors exploded. “Her business, her money. I didn’t have a thing to do with it. I wasn’t her pimp, okay?”
“But you knew about it.”
Minors was quiet.
“If you had this understanding about her whoring, Trent, why did you toss her?”
“Who told you I hit her?”
Poe ignored his question. “Did you beat her because you thought she was holding money back?”
“I told you I wasn’t her pimp!”
“Then who was?”
A heavy sigh. Minors said, “She told me she was set up by hotels.”
“Havana?”
“All of them.” He swallowed hard. “She got around.”
“And you didn’t care?”
“I didn’t say that,” Minors whined. “I just said I knew about it and tried not to interfere.”
Poe said, “Can we go back to my original question? If you knew about it, had this understanding … why did you beat her?”
Minors said nothing, leaving Poe to wonder what information he was sitting on.
“Did she take up with someone else, Trent?” Poe asked.
Minors stiffened. “Hey! I kicked her out. Not the other way around.”
“After you found out she was shagging … who?”
Minors bolted upward. “I don’t have to talk to you—”
“Sit down!” Poe commanded. He put the mug on the coffee table. “Stop acting so … emotional.”
A long silence. Then the dealer sat down.
Poe stated, “Brittany had gotten involved with someone. Tell me who it was, and then I don’t drag you downtown. You make my life easy, I don’t have to say it came from you.”
Minors cleared his throat. “She took up with the boss.”
Poe paused. Did he mean Havana’s pit boss? “Are you talking about Pete Delatorre?”
“Bigger than Havana.” Minors hitchhiked his thumb in an upward motion. “And higher up.”
“A casino manager—”
“Higher still.”
Poe tried to keep cool. “This isn’t twenty questions, Trent. Give me a name.”
“How about Parker Lewiston?”
Poe opened his mouth and closed it. Lewiston owned half of downtown Vegas. Generally his taste in women ran a little older—mid-twenties and a hell of a lot more classy than Brittany Newel. Honey had been one of Parker’s ladies. Before he had put Honey out to pasture, he had fixed her up. The papers to a condo plus a yearly stipend. So what had happened with Brittany? And why would Parkerboy be attracted to a cheap whore like her in the first place?
A pause.
Of course, to paraphrase Virginia Hill’s statement to the HUAC, Newel, in her prime, could have been the best cocksucker in America.
“Hard to believe, huh?” Minors had turned acerbic. “Brittany with Parkerboy.”
“Lewiston takes care of his women, Trent.”
“I told you. Brittany was out of control!”
But Parkerboy never allowed his women to get out of control. If they used, he provided for them … kept them happy and content. Poe was suspicious.
Minors was saying, “… threw it in my face constantly.” He turned his voice high-pitched and shrewish. Imitated, “ ‘You keep whopping me and I’m gonna tell Parker on you.’ ”
“But she never did. Because if she had, you wouldn’t be working here … in this city.” Poe waited a beat. “She was using big-time when she died. Who’d she get her stuff from?”
Minors shrugged. “Maybe Lewiston.”
“Not if he dropped her.”
“Then I don’t know.”
“Who’d she get her stuff from when you knew her?”
“Lewiston.”
“She told you that?”
“Yeah.” Angrily, he said, “Parkerboy made her what she is today.”
“A corpse?”
Minors turned crimson, stammered, “No, no, I’m not saying … I’m not implying Mr. Lewiston had anything to do—”
“Stop sweating, Trent. He ain’t in the room.”
Minors looked over his shoulder. “All I meant was … well, she wasn’t using heavy until she hooked up with him. He turned her into a crack whore.”
Poe noticed that Minors had dropped his voice a notch.
As if the walls had ears.
And maybe they did.
She had wanted to pretend she was sleeping, but Steve had caught sight of her open eyes.
“You still up, baby?” he cooed.
She said nothing when Steve sat down on the edge of the bed and loosened his tie. Out of her corner vision, she saw him lower his hand, felt him stroke her shoulder. An instant wave of revulsion pushed through her body. But this time she was determined not to withdraw from his touch.
Make him think you’re getting better.
Jensen continued to caress his wife. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
She shook her head no.
“Another rough night, honey?”
They’re all rough.
“I’m fine.”
Her voice was a hush.
Jensen checked his watch—five in the morning. Reluctantly, he stopped petting her. Stood and took off his shirt. “Nasty night out. We found someone in the desert. And lots of paperwork. That’s what took me so long.”
She nodded.
“It was … hard. This one in particular. Not that you have to worry about it. Some hooker who went with the wrong guy … obviously.”
He realized he was gripping his shirt, nails digging into fabric made wet by his sweaty palms. He bit back panic and tried to smile.
“Forget I said anything, Alison. I’m … running off at the mouth. I’m stupid sometimes.”
No response.
She knew he was aching to talk, to find an outlet for his troubled soul. Shouldering everything for so long. And still blaming himself for her illness. Silly. Because she had been decompensated long before he had started cheating.
