Bones Are Forever (10 page)

As we ate, Ollie filled us in on Susan Forex.

“She was collared twice after filing the report on Ruben. Once as part of a general sweep—that time she skated. Once for soliciting—that bought her a year of probation.”

“Then straight back to the life.” Ryan sounded disgusted.

“Something like that.” Ollie’s tone could have frozen peas.

“Guess she missed the constant round of parties and gallery openings.”

“Forex is different from most girls on the stroll.”

“Meaning?”

“Forget it.”

Ryan turned to me. “Coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

I was already regretting my menu selections. And the speed with which I’d ingested the damn things.

Ryan left to score caffeine. Perhaps to light up. Though he’d kicked cigarettes years back, recently I’d smelled smoke on his clothes and hair. That along with the uncharacteristic surliness meant he was edgy as hell.

We were shoving waxy wrappers back into grease-stained bags when Ollie’s mobile buzzed. While he took the call, I crossed to an overfilled trash bin and mashed our contribution into the mix.

When I returned to the booth, Ollie looked like a kid who’d found his lost puppy after a very long search.

“Forex is at a bar over near the Coliseum.”

“Is Ruben with her?’

“She’s alone. And working.”

“You’re thinking surprise visit?”

“Popping in during business hours might make her more forthcoming.”

We both smiled, then I started toward the door. Halfway there, a hand caught my arm. I turned.

Ollie was wearing that face men don when they’re about to go macho.

“You often think about”—he gestured from his chest to mine—“us?”

“Never.”

“Sure you do.”

“There was no,” I hooked finger quotes, “us.”

“We had a hell of a time.”

“Mostly you were a jerk.”

“I was young.”

“And now you’re a wise old sage.”

“People change.”

“You got a girlfriend, Ollie?”

“Not currently.”

“Why’s that?”

“Haven’t found the right one.”

“The love of your life.”

Ollie shrugged.

“We should go,” I said.

“Don’t want to keep Detective Douchebag waiting.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The guy’s not the best company.”

“You deliberately provoke him.”

“He’s an asshole.”

“Ollie.” I drilled him with a look that said I meant business. “Did you discuss”—I mimicked his gesture—“us with Detective Ryan?”

“I may have mentioned that I knew you.” The flicker in his gaze was all the tell I needed.

“You unprincipled bastard.”

Before I could react, Ollie pulled me close and pinned my body to his chest. “When we wrap this up, you know you’re going to want me,” he whispered in my ear.

Pushing hard with both palms, I disengaged. “Never gonna happen.”

I whipped around, hot-wired with revulsion.

Ryan was standing outside the door, staring in through the glass. In the garish neon, his face looked drawn and gaunt.

Shit. Shit. Shit
.

Uncertain how much he’d seen, I gave a thumbs-up and smiled brightly. Good news!

Ryan walked into the shadows, features so tight, they looked painted on his bones.

O
LLIE DROVE. I RODE SHOTGUN. RYAN SAT IN BACK.

A light rain had begun to fall. As we wound through the city, a kaleidoscope of blurred color and shadow slipped past my window. The wipers beat a slow metronome on the windshield.

Ten minutes out, Ollie turned onto a street lined with bars, strip clubs, and fast-food joints, all lit and open for business. Fragmented neon glistened on the pavement and splashed across signs, cars, and taxis.

A few small businesses elbowed for position: an auto supply outfit, a pawnshop, a liquor store. Their windows were dark and barred against vandalism and theft.

A handful of men in sweatshirts and windbreakers moved in both directions, heads down, shoulders hunched. Here and there smokers lingered in doorways, enduring the wind and damp for a nicotine fix.

Ollie pulled to the curb in front of a two-story brick building with
XXX Adult Store
painted on one side. In addition to the world’s largest collection of movies and images, the enterprise offered twenty-five-cent peep shows twenty-four/seven.

“Your heart’s desire right here, for a price.” Ollie swept a hand across the squalid scene around us. “Drugs. Women. Boys. Weapons. You want a hit man, you can probably find that, too.”

“How about Susan Forex?” I said.

“Let’s see what we can do.”

Ollie punched a number on his speed dial and put the phone to his ear.

I heard a voice on the other end but couldn’t make out the words.

“In front of the triple-X,” Ollie said after several seconds.

Pause.

“How long?”

Pause.

“Anything on Ruben?”

Pause.

“Call me the minute you do.”

Snapping the lid, he said, “Lucky break. The lady’s not having a profitable evening.”

We all got out. As Ollie
wheep-wheep
ed the locks, I slipped on a jacket I’d pulled from my roll-aboard.

The air smelled of fried food, gasoline, and wet concrete. Muffled music pulsed from a building to our right, boomed as a patron emerged, grew muted again when the door swung shut.

Ollie led us fifty yards north to a stucco box whose sign identified it as the Cowboy Lounge. The neon cowgirl wore nothing but a ten-gallon hat.

“I do the talking.” Ollie aimed that at Ryan. “She knows me. I’m less threatening.”

Ryan said nothing.

“You good with that, Detective?”

“I’m good with that, Sergeant.”

Ollie entered. I followed. Ryan brought up the rear. We all stopped a few feet inside the entrance.

The first thing to hit me was the smell, a noxious blend of stale beer, cigarette smoke, reefer, disinfectant, and human sweat. The stink invaded my nose as my eyes adjusted to the gloom.

To the left, the crack of pool balls drifted from a room set off by swinging half-doors. The bar was straight ahead, a carved wooden affair with an ornate mirror behind and stools in front.

At midbar, a plaid-shirted man drew beer from a long-handled tap. He had moles on his face and jittery eyes that landed on us a nanosecond, then moved on.

A dozen mismatched tables filled the space to the right. Framed
posters covered the walls around them—Gene Autry, John Wayne, the Cisco Kid.

Willie Nelson wailed from a jukebox beyond the tables. A player piano sat beside it, cover cracked, wooden case a battlefield of cigarette burns.

I guessed the original idea had been Wild West saloon. Instead, the place looked like a rundown roadhouse in Yuma. With lousy lighting.

Half the tables and all of the bar stools were full. The clientele was mostly male, mostly blue-collar. The few women present were definitely rough trade—brassy hair, tattoos, couture designed to advertise flesh.

Moving among the tables was a waitress in red bustier and tourniquet-tight size-sixteen jeans. Her hair was fried, her makeup cheap and overdone.

Ollie tipped his head toward a tall, angular woman at the left end of the bar. “Looks like our gal’s the pick of the litter tonight.”

I appraised Susan Forex. Her hair was long and blond, her peasant blouse artfully draped to reveal one shoulder. A denim micromini, cinch belt, and ankle-strapped stilettos completed the look.

Forex was talking to a dumpling in western boots and a thousand-gallon Stetson. Stetson had a beer. She was drinking what appeared to be whiskey on the rocks.

Leaning as close as the hat would allow, Stetson spoke into Forex’s ear. She ran a long red nail up his forearm. Both laughed.

We crossed the room, senses alert to danger.

The bartender watched, eyes bouncing from us to the door, to the waitress, to the tables, to his charges at the bar. A few other eyes rolled our way. Most didn’t.

“Hello, Susan.”

Forex swiveled at the sound of her name. When she saw Ollie, her smile collapsed.

“Friends of yours?” Stetson peered around Forex toward us, a drunken grin splitting his doughy face.

“Beat it.” Forex flicked a dismissive wrist at her would-be john.

“Darlin’, you and me are gonna—”

Forex rounded on him. “Get the hell out of here.”

Stetson’s face crumpled in confusion, tensed when he grasped that she was blowing him off. “Pay for your own drink, bitch.”

With that witty retort, Stetson shoved from the bar stool. Standing straight, including the hat, he was maybe my height.

Ollie waited until Stetson was out of earshot. Which wasn’t long. Stompin’ Tom Connors was now singing about a Sudbury Saturday night.

“We’re not here to hassle you, Foxy.”

Forex rolled her eyes and crossed her legs. Which were spectacular.

The bartender closed some distance but kept his gaze on everything but us.

Ollie got right to it. “You filed a missing persons report on Annaliese Ruben.”

Forex went totally still. Bracing for bad news? Preparing a lie to protect her friend?

“You OK, Foxy?” The bartender spoke just loud enough to be heard above the music.

“I’m good, Toffer.”

“You sure?”

“She’s sure.” Ollie badged him.

Toffer backed off and became very busy wiping the bar.

Up close I could see that Forex’s hair was dark down close to her scalp. Though yellowed, her teeth were even and perfectly straight, suggesting a childhood affluent enough to include braces. Her skin was smooth, her makeup skillfully applied. In that light, she could have been thirty or fifty.

“We think Ruben was living in Quebec the past three years,” Ollie continued. “Word is she’s back in Edmonton.”

“Good. The little punk stiffed me on her share of the last month’s rent.”

As Ollie questioned Forex, I checked out two men sitting a few stools over. Their body language told me both were listening. One guy was large, with wild black hair and dark little eyes that looked like raisins. The other was smaller, with leather wristbands on arms inked with jailhouse tattoos.

“Come on, Foxy. You know where she is.” Ollie seemed unaware of the interest our conversation was drawing. “She dimed you, right? Asked for a place to crash?”

“I love a good spring rain, don’t you, Sergeant?”

“Or did she call Scar?”

“Who?”

“You know who I’m talking about.”

Forex picked up her drink and swirled the ice. I noticed that her fingers were well manicured and free of nicotine stains.

“Help me here, Foxy.”

“Ruben was too young to be living on the streets. I took her in. Doesn’t mean I bought the rights to her life story.”

That didn’t tally with the statement of the ER doctor in Saint-Hyacinthe.

“I thought she was older,” I said.

Forex’s eyes crawled to me. For a moment she said nothing. Then, “Nice jacket.”

“Ruben self-reported her age as twenty-seven,” I pressed.

“The kid was barely old enough to shave her legs. Should have been in school. But I get why that wasn’t her thing.”

“Why’s that?”

Forex snorted. “You’ve seen her?”

“A picture.”

“So we both know she won’t be America’s next top model.” The naked shoulder rose, dropped. “Kids can be vicious.”

In the corner of my eye, I saw Raisin Eyes elbow his buddy. His face looked icy green in the glow of a neon frog shouting,
Let’s party!

“Where was Ruben living before she moved in with you?” Ollie still seemed unaware of the pair down the bar. Not so for Ryan. Ever so subtly, he tipped his head left. I nodded.

“What am I, her Facebook pal?” Forex said.

“Why would Ruben lie about her age?” I asked.

“Gee.” Forex widened her eyes at me. “Why would a kid on the run do that?”

Good point. Stupid question.

“On the run from what?” Ollie jumped on Forex’s phrase.

“Hell if I know.” Forex’s tone said she’d be making no further slips.

“We’d like to get to Ruben first,” Ollie said. “Stop her from reaching out to Scar.”

“Are you listening to me? The kid was only at my place a few months. I hardly knew her.”

“You cared enough to report her missing.”

“I didn’t want trouble.”

“I know your pattern, Foxy. Ruben isn’t the only kid you’ve taken in.”

“Yeah. I’m Mother frickin’ Teresa.”

“Monique Santofer.” Ollie’s voice sounded gentler. “How old was she?”

Another shrug.

“What happened with Santofer?”

“I found her wired to the eyes and threw her ass out.”

“That your policy? No drugs?”

“My pad. My rules.”

“Let’s try again. Where’d Ruben live before she moved in with you?”

“Buckingham Palace.”

“She leave anything behind?”

“A pile of junk.”

“You still got it?”

Forex nodded.

“Might be we’ll need to take a turn through your place.” Ollie’s tone was again cop-hard. “I know you won’t mind.”

“Damn right I’ll mind.”

Ollie smiled. “Life’s a cesspool of disappointment.”