city blues 01 - dome city blues (13 page)

John sighed.  “On the one hand, I’d really like to see you get back to work.  It would be good for you...”

I could hear it in the tone of his voice.  “But not on this particular job?”

“You need a case that hasn’t already been solved,” he said.  “I was being polite back there.  Your lady friend is distraught.  She can’t come to grips with the truth, but the fact of the matter is, her brother was a killer, plain and simple.  He knew it.  The cops knew it.  The press knew it.”

John leaned his head in the direction of the den.  “Probably everybody in the world knows it, except for her.”

“And me,” I said.  “I’m not sure one way or the other yet.”

John smiled and turned toward the door.  “Okay, Sarge.  You go chase the bad guys.  I have to get back to work.”

“Thanks for coming,” I said.

“Any time, old buddy.”

Sonja was still pretty upset when I got back to the den.  I spent ten minutes calming her down and then another hour bringing her up to date on the case: what I knew, what I could prove, what I suspected.  I owned up to raiding her apartment’s database.  I ended with Holtzclaw’s murder, and my morning encounter with Dancer and Delaney.

Sonja pulled a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her eyes.  “Is there any chance that Mr. Holtzclaw’s death is related to the case?”

“I don’t know,” I said.  “I hope not.  I’d hate to think that I led the killer to him.”

Her eyes widened.  “The killer?  You’re saying that the killer is still out there somewhere?”

“Maybe,” I said.  “If Michael was innocent, and I’m still not convinced that he was, the real killer is still running loose.”

“Well, at least he can’t afford to keep killing.  I mean, the police would find out that he’s still alive, wouldn’t they?”

“Not necessarily.  If the killer is smart, he could change his style, move to another city, and start another spree next month, or tomorrow.”

I watched the awful possibilities register in her eyes.

“Or yesterday, or last week,” I added.

Sonja inhaled sharply.  “He could be killing again?  Already?”

I nodded.  “Worse.  The Aztec spree may not have been his first time out of the box.  He may have played out this scenario two or three times, using different MO’s, in different towns.  If he has, there’s no telling how many people he’s killed.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes.

I used the time to turn over the implications of the things we’d discussed.

I found my thoughts drifting.  The wine, my full belly and the soft couch conspired to remind me of how little sleep I’d had.  I closed my eyes for a second.

A hand shook me gently.  “David.”

I cracked one eye.  The lighting in the den was low.  I closed the eye again.

An unseen hand ran gently down the side of my cheek.

“Mmm...”

“Come on, David.  You need to get off this couch and crawl into bed.”

I struggled to a sitting position, ran my fingers through my hair and yawned so hard that my ears rang afterward.  “What time is it?”

“After seven.”

“Jesus, why did you let me sleep?”

“You needed it.  Besides, I enjoyed watching you.”

“I’ve got work to do.”  I stood up.

She stood up with me and gave me a gentle shove in the direction of the hall.  “You’re going to bed.”

“Uh-uh.”

She crossed her arms and cocked her head to the side.  “Do you have an appointment?”

“No, but I...”

“Anything you can do after seven o’clock, you can do after nine.  You need at least a couple of more hours.  House, wake David up at nine o’clock.”

“David?”  House sounded doubtful.  He wanted to be polite to my guest, but he wasn’t prepared to take her orders unless I confirmed them.

I sighed.  “Yeah.  A couple of hours won’t hurt.  Wake me up at nine.”

Sonja smiled.  “Want me to rub your back?  You could probably use it after that couch.”

I stretched.  “No, I’m okay.”

Her eyes flashed.  “That offer means exactly what it says.  A back rub.  I was
not
offering anything more horizontal.”

I nodded sleepily.  “A back rub sounds great.”

“You go climb into bed and I’ll be right in.”

I muttered an unintelligible acknowledgment and shuffled toward my bedroom.

I was in bed with the sheets pulled up to my waist when she appeared in the doorway and knocked on the frame.

“Come in.”

She set a glass on my night table and sat on the bed next to me.  “House told me where to find it.  Cutty on the rocks, right?”

I reached for it, took a sip.

She took the glass from my fingers.  “Roll over.”

I did, keeping the sheet pulled over my butt.  When I was settled comfortably on my stomach, she handed me the drink.

John and I had caroused a few massage parlors in our Army days.  The girls all seemed to operate from the same script.  Cursory, unskilled kneading of a few muscles and a lot of ‘accidental’ contact with some of my more obvious erogenous zones.  When the expected erection appeared, the masseuse inevitably offered to correct the problem for a small tip.

Sonja hadn’t read that script.  She dug her fingers far enough into my muscles to elicit little grunts of pain.  I stiffened, raised my head off the pillow.

She shoved my head back down.  “Lie down.  I knew you needed this.  You’re way too tense.”

I tried to lay still, but her probing fingers seemed determined to find every little pocket of pain hidden in my muscles.  Gradually I became aware that she was good, I mean really good.  The occasional painful twinge notwithstanding, she knew exactly how to soothe the kinks out of my tired muscles.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it.  It was totally non-sexual and somehow, intensely sensitive and personal.

Occasionally I would stir just enough to sneak a sip of scotch.  After a while I gave up even that and let myself drift toward sleep.

I was almost totally under when I felt her weight shift.  She stood up.  Her voice was almost a whisper.  “I’m leaving now, David.  Goodnight.”

I spoke softly, eyes closed, trying not to interrupt my own gentle transition to the dream state.  “You can stay here if you want.  I have a spare bed...”

She sighed softly.  “I can’t.  I have... a client.  Rest now.  Call me tomorrow, please?”

I listened to the sound of her leaving and pretended to be asleep.  After a while, I was.

CHAPTER 8

“David, wake up.”

Both eyes came open easily.  I felt rested and refreshed.  “House, run a shower and start a pot of coffee.  I’m going out and I’ll probably be gone all night.”

“Very well, David.  Would you like me to download the morning news feed?”

That stopped me.  Morning?  I felt the first stirrings of suspicion.  “What time is it, House?”

“The time is nine-oh-one a.m.”

“It’s after nine in the morning?”

“Yes, David.”

I felt a rise of annoyance.  “House, I told you to wake me up at nine
p.m.
”

House remained quietly unperturbed.  “You did not specify a.m. or p.m.  Just before she left, Ms. Winter assured me that you intended to sleep all night.  Is there a problem, David?  Have I made an error?”

I climbed out of bed and threw the sheet on the floor.  “No, House.  You didn’t screw up, but someone did.”

I showered, and dressed at a leisurely pace.  My schedule was shot in the ass.  Most of the people I wanted to talk to were night crawlers.  They wouldn’t be out and about for hours.

Despite the lack of hurry, I wasn’t relaxed.  I was nurturing a little spark of annoyance, trying to fan it into genuine anger, and frustrated by the knowledge that it wasn’t working.

I broke out the Blackhart and the cleaning kit.  I fieldstripped it over the kitchen table.  When it was down to base level components, I lit a cigarette and called Sonja.

I knew the second she answered that I’d finally caught her asleep.

I jammed a brush through the barrel of the Blackhart and blew smoke out the side of my mouth.  “I’m glad to see I’m not the only one sleeping the day away.”

She smiled sleepily.  “Morning...”

“Morning my ass, it’s practically afternoon.  Why did you lie to my AI?”

She stretched and yawned lazily.  “You needed the sleep.”

Even with my carefully pitched scene, I had to concentrate to keep the edge in my voice.  “There’s a killer out there somewhere.  Sleeping isn’t going to catch him.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” she said.  “In the shape you were in last night, you were definitely no match for him.  Now, you’re pissed off and overly dramatic, but your mind is alert.”

“Goddamn it!  That wasn’t your decision to make.”

“Did you ask my permission to raid my personal database?  Or did you use your best judgment and do what you thought was best for me?”

To my credit, I didn’t actually stammer.  “I’m a detective,” I said.  “I get
paid
to snoop.  It’s what I
do
.”

“I’m a call girl,” she said.  “I get paid to make people feel good.  It’s what
I
do.  You were feeling like shit.  I fixed it.”

She moved in for the kill, still smiling.  “Besides, two days ago, you swore most solemnly that you were
not
a detective.  How did you become so fanatically dedicated to your profession so quickly?”

She was grinning.

I ground out the butt of the cigarette and grinned back at her.  “I surrender,” I said.  “You win.”

“I don’t want to win,” she said.  “I want breakfast.  You cook.”

“I’ve already eaten.”

She faked a pout.  “You don’t have to eat; just cook.  I’ll handle the eating part.”

“I offered to cook you breakfast the other day.  You turned me down.”

“It was the middle of the afternoon.  Anyway, I didn’t know that you could cook, then.”

“Your mistake,” I said.  “You have scorned my breakfast once.  You won’t get a second chance.”

She wrinkled her nose, stuck her tongue out at me and hung up.

I laughed and started reassembling the automatic.

I slipped on my shoulder rig and shoved the Blackhart into the holster.  On the way out the door, I realized that the call hadn’t gone even remotely according to plan.  I laughed again and pulled a windbreaker over the Blackhart.