Strip Search (27 page)

R
OSS AND
D
EVEREAUX
were officially off duty at eight the next morning when Axton and Wager logged in with the dispatcher. But they did not go home. Instead, Devereaux, with a satisfied smile, told Wager they’d stay long enough to finish up the paperwork on an arrest they had finally made: Pepe the Pistol.

“You’re sure you don’t want Max and me to book him in?” asked Wager. “I thought we were all supposed to be a team.”

“Oh, hey, Gabe—we are a team. The whole division gets the credit, believe me! It’s just that it’s only a few minutes more, and there’s no sense starting the paperwork all over again. I mean, we’re that close to being finished.”

At one of the gray metal desks, Ross, his shirt sleeves folded back on his thick forearms, printed steadily with a soft lead pencil on a form that would be sent to the division secretary for typing. Sitting at the side of the desk facing him, the kid tried to keep his face stiff and expressionless as he gave a brief answer to the occasional question. But the flesh around his dark eyes was pinched with worry and he chain-smoked from the new pack of cigarettes that Ross or Devereaux had bought for him.

“How’d you get him?”

“It was Ross’s idea. We almost had him that last time, you know?”

“I remember.”

“Well, this time we split up. Ross figured the kid must wait somewhere in the project for the patrol car to make its last tour of the shift. Well, Ross let me off a couple blocks from the girlfriend’s house and I walked on over. Meantime, he drives over to the mother’s house and cruises around. Then he comes past the girlfriend’s house about six. Routine patrol, right? Well, maybe ten minutes after Ross drives off, Pepe comes right up the front sidewalk like he’s delivering the milk or something—here it is daylight, and he just walks up big as life and knocks on the door. His squeeze opens it and that’s when I step around the corner and pop him. ‘Police officer, Pepe. Lift ‘em high.’ He almost shit!”

“He didn’t try anything?”

“Nothing. He had the piece on him—.25 automatic.” He nodded toward a tangle of plastic bag at the far side of Ross’s desk. “But he didn’t make a move.” Devereaux added, “If the girl hadn’t been standing right there, he might have. Maybe he was afraid she’d get hit.”

So there sat Pepe the Pistol, object of all those hours of cruising and waiting and searching. Father of one kid, killer of two others. A skinny fifteen years old. He had had a quick childhood. “Why didn’t he skip town?”

“I asked him that. He said it was his girl. He was trying to stay out of jail until the baby was born. Then he said he was going to turn himself in, do his time, and come back and take care of them.”

“Sure he was.”

Devereaux shrugged. “That’s what he said. He said if he ran out on her, he wouldn’t be any better than the two kids he wasted.”

“What’s that mean?”

“The girl had been screwing those other two before she started going with Pepe. They gave him some shit about whose kid she was carrying and that’s why he put holes in them. They treated her like she was a thing, he said. He didn’t want to treat his woman like she was a thing to be used and dumped.”

Wager could understand what Pepe felt when he had gone home and dusted off his old man’s pistol and come hunting for those who had hurt something in his heart and laughed while they did it. The punishment may have been a little heavier than the crime, but Wager could understand. And he guessed Devereaux did, too. It was, of course, what worried Max about Wager working the Sheldon killing on his own—that he would again go beyond the law with some personal idea of justice. And Wager could not honestly say he would not.

But the kid had made those two pay for their fun and games, and now he’d pay for his honor. All for the sake of his true love, who, when her belly went down, would probably end up dancing at Foxy Dick’s or the Turkish Delights, if she was lucky. Well, it wasn’t Wager’s to worry why or how—not when he was on duty, anyway. Those were questions that came when you couldn’t sleep, and you told yourself there were no answers even as you asked them. In the silent apartment when you lay there alone, you might ask why it happened in the first place. What happened to the children? What left them so alone that they had to claim space in an adult world with adult crimes or feel that they had no substance or value? When you were in the silence of your separate cubicle high above the life of the street, you could ask that.

“Does the union know about Ross’s free overtime?”

“Hey, come on, Gabe. Don’t start that. Ross said the union rules allow for a few uncounted hours, so it’s okay.”

It was nice to know that the union rules, like the team concept, bent a little when Ross wanted something bad enough. Maybe that’s why Ross tried to keep them so rigid for everybody else. Maybe that’s what politics did to people, even office politics. “Well, union work or not, you still did a good job,” he told Devereaux.

The tips of Devereaux’s ears reddened slightly. “Hell, the judge’ll probably let the kid off with six months’ probation.” Then he grinned. “Still, it’s nice to finally bag the little bastard.”

That was the way Wager wanted to feel about Whitey. But all he had right now was that gut-tightening pull of a thing about to happen. Exactly when, he couldn’t say, but soon: something you’ve waited for a long time, and you just had to hold the lid on your feelings until it did happen. It was a sense of expectancy that kept him leading Axton back to his apartment during the duty tour to check the telephone answering machine.

“You’re a damned Mexican jumping bean, partner. Do you want to tell me what it’s all about?”

“It’s about Whitey. I’ve got a lot of people looking for him. One of them’s got to spot him sooner or later.”

“Your snitches?”

“And a whole stable of street pushers.”

“I won’t even ask how in the hell you worked that.” After a minute, he added, “But I’ve got to ask what you’ll do when you find him, Gabe.”

Wager had been turning that over in his mind, too. Both in the way Axton meant and in the way his partner did not know about: the mindless fear that had blown him like an ungoverned wad of dust tumbling away from the blast of Whitey’s pistol. “I’m going to watch him.” He told Max about the man’s route. “Whatever he’s up to, it’s worth killing people for. I want to get his motive, and then I want to get him.”

Max gazed at the heat-whitened city flowing past the cruiser’s window and whistled that little half-tune between his teeth. “It’s got to be money. He’s got to be selling something or collecting something.”

“He doesn’t have any contacts. He buys a drink and then leaves. And he sits by himself.”

Max’s large head wagged a time or two.

“I figure Annette Sheldon and Angela Williams knew something about him that he didn’t want them to.”

Whistle. “But they were never seen together? Whitey and either girl?”

Wager had to admit that was so. “But he was the last one seen with Doc—and Doc was asking questions about Sheldon. That’s a connection.”

“Well, it’s curious and worth following up; but it’s not evidence. Not yet. Look, if the call does come in, let me follow the dude. He’s the one that took a shot at you, right? He knows you, but he’s never seen me.”

“You’re a whale, Max. He couldn’t help but spot somebody as big as you are.”

“Hey, come on—I can look small when I have to.”

“Sure. Like a small rhinoceros.” Wager shook his head and admitted one more thing to Max. “He’s supposed to look for me. I put the word out through Clinton that I was after him. By myself.”

“You called him out?”

Wager’s thumb slid along the faint ridge of flesh on his cheek. “He had the first shot. I figure it’s my turn.”

“Gabe—”

“Only if he tries something. Just like any other suspect.” Max would have to be content with that, because that was as much as Wager would—or could—promise.

The telephone finally rang a little after eight. Wager had been experimenting with a recipe from a new cookbook,
Tinfoil for Two: Oven Recipes for the Hurried and Harried Single
. This one was supposed to yield a baked Chinese dish in an hour, rice and all, but the rice came out like lumpy oatmeal and the bean sprouts like charred slugs. Wager dumped it and pulled the recipe out of its little plastic binder rings and threw it away. The cookbook now began on page 17; tomorrow night, he’d try Porkchops in Orange Sauce a la Alcoa.

Once, one of his dates had asked him why his cookbooks were missing so many pages, and he told her.

“You mean you try each one in the book and then just tear out the page and throw it away?”

“Sure. If it’s no good.”

“Why?”

It seemed pretty obvious to Wager. “If something’s no good, why keep it?”

She looked around the pale walls of his apartment, empty except for a sword hanging in the middle of one white expanse and a small photograph of a dead tree framed on the other. “That’s what you do in your life? Try something once and then toss it away if it doesn’t suit you?”

“Why not?”

She had been busy the next couple times he called, so he stopped telephoning. But he still puzzled a little over her attitude.

His favorite quick meal was a can of fried hash with a couple eggs poached in the middle. Splashed with plenty of hot sauce, it was good, and it took only ten minutes. He had just stifled the steaming pan with a lid when the telephone rang.

Fat Willy’s breath hissed in his ear. “That Whitey you wanted, Wager. My sources, they have come up with a little info.”

“What is it?”

“He’s into some kind of juicing.”

“Money lending?”

“That’s what I said, ain’t it?”

“What did your man see?”

“Nothing. It’s what he heard. That dude don’t show much at all, but there’s these whispers.”

“Did you find anyone who owes him money?”

“No. And that is a touch odd, ain’t it? I mean, a man in that business, he got to advertise, right? Whitey, he don’t advertise. But my man says he’s into the vigorish all right. He got something going with your good friend Clinton.”

“Did you get a name for him?”

“No. And I ain’t gonna ask Clinton. You cops let him run around killing people. Besides, you getting all this cut-rate.”

Fat Willy hung up, leaving Wager to gaze at the wall of his apartment where his black-and-gold NCO’s sword hung in its scratched scabbard. But it wasn’t the sword his mind’s eye rested on; it was the image of a man with white hair and an indistinct face.

The next phone call came just before midnight. Wager, dozing at the edge of wakefulness, had the receiver off the hook before the first ring finished. “Yeah?”

The voice was a tense mutter. “You the dude with all the associates?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, you know who this is? You wanted me to look for somebody.”

“I know. Have your people spotted him?” He reached for his Levi’s.

Little Ray’s voice relaxed a little. “He just went into Mickey Finn’s.”

“Where’s he coming from?”

“The Corral.”

“He hasn’t been to the Cinnamon Club yet?”

“I don’t think so. Watchdog says he usually starts at one end of the strip and takes them in order.”

“My associates will be grateful.”

“Next week, right? That’s when they start getting grateful, right?”

“You got my word on it. My associates are setting things up right now.” Or at least they would be as soon as Wager told Moffett and Nolan where Lazlo and his black van would meet Little Ray tomorrow night.

“And you’ll be in touch, right?”

“Didn’t you just use my phone number?”

The voice dropped into relief as it realized the fact. “Yeah. I guess I did. Okay—catch you later.”

Or vice versa. And if the Vice people wanted to find Little Ray’s fourteen-year-old girlfriend, they could get him on a nice statutory rape charge, too. Wager thought Moffett might be interested in that.

He finished tugging on his huaraches and vest and gave himself a quick check in the bathroom mirror before hustling over to the Cinnamon Club.

The place was almost empty. Just inside the entryway, a printed handbill read, F
REEDOM OF
E
XPRESSION!!!
W
RITE
Y
OUR
C
ONGRESSMAN!!!
and in smaller type explained that the State Supreme court had ruled against the clubs and, pending appeal, there would be no more bottomless dancing where food or drink were served. Beside the handbill was a poster:
Bottoms Up—See It While You Can. All Nude Review Still at the Cinnamon Club
.

Clarissa recognized him with a wide smile. “Hi—good to see you again. How about a seat right at the runway?”

Wager said No. “I’m waiting for somebody.” He headed for a rear table just inside the door.

She stayed on his heels. “I haven’t seen Little Ray yet. Beer? It’s a Killian’s, right?”

“That’s right.”

“See? I remember you.” She brought it quickly. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, Wager could see waitresses near the door waiting for the next customer to come in.

Elsewhere, a few stood at tables and smiled and chatted with their regulars.

“You must have a brother.” Clarissa poured his beer into a glass.

“Why’s that?”

“You look like somebody. In this light it’s hard to tell, but you look like somebody I’ve seen before. What’s your name?”

“Gabe.”

“Gee, that’s a name you don’t hear often. Mine’s Clarissa,” she reminded him.

“I know. You’re a good dancer, Clarissa.”

“Thanks!” Her thighs, just below the edge of her tight shorts, pressed at each side of a table corner; her tights rode out in a warm curve over the table lip, and she seemed in no hurry to go back to the line of waitresses clustered by the door.

“When do you go on again?” Wager asked.

She glanced at the current dancer who, in a frilly bodice with many ribbons and straps, was twirling a black-stockinged foot in the air like a cancan girl. “Three more performers. Berg—Mr. Berg—moved me to later in the evening,” she said with modest pride.