“Can I come with you?” the woman asked.
“Shut the fuck up,” Randy screamed. He pointed a trembling finger at her. “You can’t go outside until you gots a name, bitch, and you ain’t got one.” To Qatar: “I ain’t figured her name out yet.”
“Okay. . . . So . . .”
“So let’s go, Dick. Let’s get the fuck outa here.”
Qatar was now Dick—because Randy had used “dick” in a sentence? He wasn’t sure, but looking at Randy leaning against the passenger-side window blubbering to himself, he was very sure that Randy had gone over some unseen edge.
They went to a cash machine at a branch bank on Grand Avenue. Qatar took out four hundred dollars in twenties, and as he pulled it out of the machine, Randy snatched it away from him and then backed away, said, “Get the fuck away from me. Get the fuck away.”
“Randy, Randy . . .”
Randy jammed the money into his pants and asked, “You know who you’re fuckin’ with, motherfucker? I’ll hunt you down like a dirty dog, you fuck with me.”
“Okay, okay . . .” Qatar held up his hands. He was leaving. “I’ll see you in a couple of days.”
Then Randy came back: “Ain’t you gonna drop me?”
“I thought, uh . . .”
“You can’t leave me out here on the fuckin’ street, man. Where’s my money?”
“In your pocket.”
Randy dug in his pocket, found it. “Sonofabitch. I had it all the time. Let’s go.”
On the way, Randy pressed his hands to his temples, looked at Qatar, and blurted, “I made a garland for her head and bracelets too and fragrant zone. She looked at me as she did love and made sweet moan.”
“What?”
“I made a garland for her head . . .”
Randy’s brain was missing a few links, Qatar thought. Even so, he knew where he was going. He would point at corners and say, “There,” and “There, that way.” He said, “Over there, Richard. . . . Can I call you Richard?”
In five minutes they were idling in front of an apartment on Como Boulevard. Randy hopped out and said, perfectly rationally, “You can come in if you like, but they mostly brothers. They don’t like white boys that good.”
“That’s okay. I gotta get home anyway.”
Randy slapped the car roof in reply, then darted into the apartment’s dark front entry, never looking back.
QATAR ROLLED AWAY from the apartment. Instead of cutting back onto I-94 to Minneapolis, the car seemed all by itself to roll back across the interstate to Randy’s place. He’d been thinking about the woman since they left the apartment—not the possibility of sex, but the other possibility.
He sat outside for ten minutes, unable to make up his mind. He was sure that Randy had no idea who he was; he might never get the money from the jewelry, but he ought to get something. He could feel an artery in his neck, beating harder, a thick, ropy pounding. He wanted her; he could feel her. He fished the starter rope out from under the front seat of the car and tucked it into his hip pocket.
Randy’s brain was fried. He wouldn’t remember this. . . . Did he really know who Qatar was, anyway? And Qatar was suffused with courage. He was competent, hard, athletic. He went to the door and rang.
The blonde had gotten dressed again, though her feet were still bare. At the door, Qatar said, “Randy talked me into giving him five hundred. But he said I get you, any way I want.”
The blonde looked past him, unsure, and then asked, “Where’s Randy?”
“He’s back at the apartment, partying. When we’re done, I’m supposed to take you over there.”
A misstep: Now she was suspicious. “I can’t go outside ’til I got a name.”
“He thought of the name,” Qatar improvised. “You’ve got a name.”
“I do? What is it?”
“Tiffany. Like the jewelry store.”
“Tiffany,” she said aloud. She tasted it. “That’s pretty good. Tiffany.” She looked him over again, then said, “Okay. Come on in.”
She was a hooker, and it didn’t take long: He got her on her hands and knees, in front of the couch, waiting for him to enter her. He’d rolled the condom down, positioned himself behind her. His pants had been tossed on the couch, and he fished the rope out of the back pocket. Touched her back with it; trailed it her down her spine.
She asked, “What’s that?” and turned her head.
“Nothing, nothing . . . keep going.”
Formed his loop; touched her neck again. Held the loop open, smiled, dropped it around her neck and . . .
Snap!He tightened it like a hangman’s noose, and her hands went to her throat and she tried to turn, flailing like a caught crow, but he pressed her down with his weight. He didn’t want to see her eyes; he used the power of the rope to bend her sideways and down, and she continued to flop and twist and struggle, her feet banging against the couch, smashing the back legs of an EZ-Boy, and then he half stood, and lifted her, held her suspended above the floor like a billfish on the deck of a big-game boat. Held her and shook her and watched her hands flailing, watched them weaken, felt the power surging through his arms into his heart. . . .
As her struggles slowed and weakened, he straddled her and lowered her to the floor, her hands scratching along the furry carpet. He knelt over her, then sat on her buttocks, keeping the pressure on, his teeth showing now in a slashing grimace, squeezing, squeezing. At the end, she arched her back and her hands fluttered in a terminal dog-paddle, and she died.
God, that felt good.
When she stopped moving, stopped the shuddering that came with brain death, Qatar released his grip, sat back on her hips. He was sweating, just a bit, and wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve, then rolled her over. Her eyes were open, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling, her mouth touched with blood; and a puddle of blood pooled on the rug beneath her neck. She’d bitten her tongue, he thought. He rolled her. “Tits not bad. Soft and warm,” he said.
No response. After a minute with her, he sighed and stood up. “Gotta get going,” he said. “The clock is running. Gotta go.” He didn’t feel rushed; if anything, he felt languid.
And his lip hurt, he realized. He wandered into the bathroom to look at it in the mirror. He had a full underlip, usually pink, now bruised. Sometime during the struggle, she must have hit him, but he didn’t remember it. Hit him hard, judging from the split lip. There was no swelling yet, but he could taste the blood in his mouth. “That was completely fucking unnecessary,” he said. He probed the cut with his tongue, winced at the pain. The lip would get big if he didn’t get some ice on it, but the swelling would be disguised by his thin beard. “Unfucking-necessary.”
He had to stay focused. He got dressed, flushed the condom—surprised to find it full of semen; he didn’t remember that part—straightened his shirt, tucked it back in his trousers, got himself neat. Got a chunk of toilet paper and walked through the apartment, wiping everything he could remember touching. Another flush, and he was done.
“Thank God for toilets,” he said to himself.
Money. There wouldn’t be any cash, but there should be something. . . . Randy had stuck Neumann’s jewelry in his pocket, so that was gone. Qatar walked through the apartment, looking. And found almost nothing small. Randy had apparently sold everything that could be peddled on the street.
“Moron,” he said aloud. He stepped over the woman’s body on the way out. Queen for a day, Tiffany for a minute. Nice tits, though.
RANDY GOT BACK at dawn and pounded on the door, because he didn’t want to go through the whole business of finding his key. He was not in any shape to find it. So he beat on the door until somebody shouted, “Go away or we’ll call the police.”
Some fuckin’ neighbor. But he didn’t need the police, so he took five minutes and finally found the key, and another five minutes and he fit it into the lock and the door swung open. He shouted up the stairs, got no answer. Climbed the stairs in the dark—there was a swi
tch at the entrance, but he was too fucked up to use it—and in the living room, in the dark, tripped over the woman’s body.
“Fuckin’ . . .” He groped around on the floor, felt a breast. Knew what it was and knew it was too cold. Randy started down, the cocaine strength dissipating like a fart in a thunderstorm. He crawled across the floor to a lamp, climbed the lamp like a monkey, turned it on.
Looked down at what’s-her-name. Who was she? What had he done? He pressed his hands to his temple, trying to squeeze out the memories that must be there somewhere. When had he done it?
“Motherfucker,” he said.
15
WEATHER HAD SPENT the night at her own place. “If we haven’t rung the bell yet, I don’t think we’ll get it done this month,” she’d said. “Plus, my house is getting stale. I need to air it out.”
Lucas didn’t remember that when he woke up. Still drowsy, he reached out for her shoulder, came up with air, and bumped up, quickly awake, looking for her. He remembered the question he’d asked the night before. Pregnant? Not pregnant? When would they know?
“In the bye and bye,” she’d said cheerfully. “It was fun working with you, Davenport. Maybe we can do it again next month. Then again, maybe we won’t have to.”
He half-smiled at the thought, punched his pillow back into shape, and drifted off again. Lucas liked to stay up late, but didn’t like early mornings. A good day, he believed, generally started around ten o’clock.
TEN O’CLOCK WAS just coming up when the phone rang, and continued to ring. He recognized Del’s style. “Yeah?”
“Randy’s around, but I can’t find him. People say he ran into some shit out in L.A. Ambition combined with stupidity, probably.”
“Probably,” Lucas said. He yawned. “Who’d you talk to?”
“The Toehy sisters. They said he was running a hooker named Charmin until a couple of weeks ago, but—”
“Charmin like the toilet paper?”
“That’s what they say. Anyway, he wandered off in a cocaine blizzard, and she transferred to DDT and that’s where she’s still at. Thing is, I can’t find DDT right now. I got a couple of people looking for him and also for Randy.”
“DDT, huh?”
“Yeah. Thought you might be interested.”
“I am. Did Marshall ride with you?” Lucas asked.
“You know: That’s how it goes,” Del said.
“He’s standing next to you?”
“You got it,” Del said.
“Careful with him. I hate to say no, that he can’t come along—but if he starts stepping on you, I’ll pack his ass back to Wisconsin.”
“We’ll figure something out,” Del said. “We’re okay for now.”
“You want me to come along if you find DDT?”
“If you don’t mind. He owes you big, and he don’t owe me shit.”
“Gimme a call,” Lucas said.
Lucas shaved and spent ten minutes in the shower, working on a sound he’d heard on a David Allen Coe album, from a song called “The Ride”—twisting the word “moan,” trying to get three syllables out of it. He agreed with himself that he sounded particularly good that morning, got dressed, looked out the window—patches of blue sky and the street was dry—and loaded into the Porsche.
He was carrying a red apple and whistling when he pushed into the office. Marcy was talking on the phone, twisting a ring of her dark hair around her index finger, her feet up on her desk. She stopped playing with her hair long enough to raise a hand to Lucas, then started talking into the phone again. Lucas paused and looked her over: Marcy tended to be a little too tense all the time, and when the tension was suddenly relieved, it showed.
She noticed him studying her and turned away. Lucas continued into his office, a little pissed now: That goddamn Kidd had gotten into her pants. He knew the look too well to be mistaken. And they hardly knew each other, Lucas thought, and Kidd was a lot older. He retracted that a bit: Not too old—actually, he was probably a year or two younger than Lucas, so he couldn’t be too old, because Lucas himself had . . .
“Goddamnit,” he said. He flipped the apple up at the wall and caught it on the rebound, leaving a small pink patch behind on the wall. If Kidd and Marcy . . . He didn’t want to think about it. But it sure as hell was going to reduce her efficiency at a critical moment in the case, and—
“I don’t want to hear the first fuckin’ word from you.” Marcy was in the doorway.
“I just—”
“Not the first fuckin’ word,” she said, holding up a finger. When he opened his mouth again, she said, “No! Bad dog.”
Lucas dropped into his chair, looked away from her, then said, quickly, “You don’t know him that well.”
“Shut up, Mr. Why-don’t-we-screw-Marcy-Sherrill-on-the-office-carpet.”
“We knew each other,” Lucas protested. “For a long time. That was spontaneous.”
“So was last night. And I’ll tell you what, he’s a good guy,” she said.
“You spend the night?”
“He did. At my place. We were just coming back from dinner, and it happened.”
“He bring his toothbrush?”
“No, he didn’t bring his toothbrush. And that’s all I’m telling you,” she said.
“What’d he brush his teeth with?”
“His finger.”
“That’s so unsanitary,” Lucas said sourly.
Marcy put her hands on the top of her head and started to laugh, and a moment later Del came in, with Marshall trailing behind, and asked, “What’s so funny?”
“He is,” Marcy said, pointing at Lucas.
“I ain’t even gonna ask,” Del said, looking from one to the other. To Lucas: “We found DDT.”
DDTSTOOD FOR Dangerous Darrell Thomas. Thomas had given himself the name when he was riding with a motorcycle club and was interviewed for a public radio magazine. The magazine writer got it wrong, though, and referred to him as TDT—Terrible Darrell Thompson—which lost something of its intent when expressed as initials; and since the writer got the last name wrong, too, Thomas never again trusted the media.
Darrell wasn’t much of a pimp. He didn’t solicit customers and he wasn’t particularly interested in sex, money, or any kind of fashion. His only pimping qualification was that he liked to fight, and when a girl wanted to leave her former sponsor, or was having trouble with a customer who expected fidelity, she might move in with Darrell.
He would grudgingly take care of her, and if she wanted to chip in a few bucks every once in a while, and maybe clean house and cook a few meals, that was okay. And if she didn’t, that was okay, too. They tended to drift away when they discovered that Darrell really didn’t care.
At all. About anything.
Except cars.
Darrell was a professional house-sitter.
“Can’t believe he got a gig in Edina,” Lucas said, as they pulled into his driveway. They were driving a city car, a dented Dodge, and they all peered through the windshield at the house. The house was long and white and two-storied, with double faux-marble pillars on either side of the front entry. “Wonder what the neighbors think about the whores going in and out all the time?”
“Maybe they think it’s colorful,” Del said.
They got out of the Dodge, and Lucas took a second to look around the neighborhood. Nothing moved: The place was one large bedroom.
When Lucas caught up, Del and Marshall were already looking at an enormous wrought-iron knocker on the front door. “Use the doorbell,” Marshall said. “You’ll knock the door down if you use that thing.”
“How about a nice-knocker joke?” Del asked.
“None of those either,” Lucas said. Del leaned on the doorbell, and after three long buzzes ten seconds apart, a woman with power-frizzed hair, wearing a pale blue quilted housecoat, stuck her head out, looked at the three of them, and snarled, “What?”
“Time to get up, sleepyhead,” Del said, showing her a badge. “W
e’re friends of DDT. Is he home?”
“Yeah, but he’s in the spa,” she said.
“That’s something I wouldn’t want to miss,” Del said. He stepped forward and the woman stepped back, a good enough invitation, they thought, and they all trooped inside.
“It’s outside, on the deck,” the woman said, pointing at faux French doors at the far end of the living room.
Del’s nose was working. “Something smells like dog shit,” he said.
“We got a new puppy,” the woman said. As she passed the table, she picked up a bottle half full of white wine and started working the cork loose. “We’re paper-training it. You guys want some wine?”