Dead Red (28 page)

I pretended to give that some thought. “House rules, right?”

She smiled and winked. “I like you, Chad.” Damn, she was good at this. I allowed her to lead me the rest of the way up the stairs. When we got to the second floor, she released my hand and walked over to the door on the left. She removed a key from her pocket and unlocked the door, holding it open for me. “Why don’t you make yourself comfortable inside, and I’ll see what we can do about Sheila.”

Not wanting to go into a room I knew nothing about, I said, “I’ll wait out here if that’s okay?”

She shook her head. “It’s not okay, Chad. Like you said: house rules.” She opened the door another few inches and waited. I took a deep breath and stepped inside. The door closed behind me and, much to my relief, there was no click of a lock sealing me inside.

The room was laid out like a typical teenager’s bedroom. There was a dresser with a huge mirror and a set of shelves containing a large-screen TV, DVR/cable box, and a music system with top-of-the-line speakers. The bed itself was neatly made with a blue-and-white comforter and matching pillows. I walked over to the window and looked out to the backyard. I could see the neighbors’ houses across the way and was reminded of Hitchcock’s
Rear Window
. Even though the AC was on, I wanted some fresh air, so I bent over to open the window. It was locked. Before I could figure out how to unlock it, the door behind me opened.

I turned, hoping to see the young woman I had seen on Ricky’s phone. Instead, there was a short Hispanic man with a cut-off T-shirt and hairy arms covered in tattoos rather than sleeves. He was smoking a joint and holding a leash, at the end of which was a gray-and-white pit bull.

“So, Mister Five-Oh,” he said, blowing out marijuana smoke. “Whatchoo want with my girl Sheila?”

Chapter 23

THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT pit bulls that makes my scrotum try to play hide-and-seek. It was the exact opposite of the feeling I got when the woman who had escorted me upstairs ran her finger across my wrist. Amazing how moody genitals can be. I tried my best to focus on the guy with the dog, not the dog itself.

“I’m not a cop,” I said, as steady as I could manage. I thought about Jack’s offer to take his gun with me and wished I’d given it more consideration.

“You either a cop,” the dog guy said, “or some other undesirable. Whatchoo askin’ about Sheila for?”

“I was here a month ago. We had a good time, and I thought we could do it again. If I’m wrong or it’s too early, I can just—” I made a move toward the door. The dog growled. I stopped.

“Who’s this Ricky you talking about?”

“He’s my friend who brought me here and introduced me—”

“Ricky
was
a cop, man,” he said.

I tried to act surprised. “I didn’t know that.”

“Then you as stupid as you look.” He gave me the once-over. “Take off your clothes.”

“Excuse me?”

He smirked and shook his head. “You deaf now, too? Take off your fuckin’ clothes.”

“I don’t know what your lady friend told you, but I’m not into that shit. I came for Sheila. You tell me she’s not here, I’m out of here, but.…”

The guy grinned and looked down at his dog. “Mister,” he said, “you either take off your clothes right now, or I have Bates here do it for you. With his teeth.”

I looked at Bates and, I swear, he gave me a look like he was hoping I’d choose the second option. I started to unbutton my shirt.

“I get it. You wanna make sure I’m not wired or have a gun on me.”

“Yeah,” Dog Guy said. “That’s it.”

I took off my shirt and kicked off my sneakers. After I got my jeans off, I raised my arms and spun around in my boxers and socks.

“I say stop?”

“No, but…”

“Bates!” he said, and the dog stood at attention.

“Okay.” I started to remove my undershorts. With my penis and what was left of my balls hanging out, I held the boxers up for the guy to see.

“Bates,” he said in a softer tone, and the dog relaxed, visibly disappointed. “Putcha clothes back on, mister.”

I did as I was told—slowly—and, without asking permission, I took a seat on the edge of the bed. My knees felt like they were about to give out, and I thought I’d been humiliated enough for the morning. I sat there in silence as the man with the dog decided what to do with me.

“Now,” Dog Guy said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone, “this asshole here?”—he turned the phone to me so I could see a picture of Jack sitting in his car—“
He’s
a cop. Used to work ’round here. Wanna tell me whatchoo doin’ with him and throwin’ Ricky’s name around if you ain’t a cop?”

I tried to figure out some way to spin this. Some story that would ensure that I left this room—this building—with all the body parts I’d come in with. Dog Guy knew too much for me to try another lie or half-truth. I looked at him and Bates, swallowed, and went with the truth.

“He’s a private investigator, hired by the family of a missing girl.” I touched my front pocket and Bates growled. “Can I pull out my phone?”

“Slowly,” he said.

I did so and went to the photos. I got to Angela Golden’s and turned the phone around. “This girl.”

Dog Guy leaned forward and studied the picture. “That the girl from TV?” he asked. “The one with the big reward?”

“Yeah. She was recently seen”—I went to the picture of Sheila E and held it out for him to see—“with this girl. I was told her name was Sheila, and she frequented this address.”

“Who told you that?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Can you tell Bates?” He stroked the dog’s head.

“If I tell you who told me, that person will do more damage to me—and you—than Bates could ever dream of.” I wasn’t really sure what violence Tio was capable of, and I didn’t want to find out.

Dog Guy thought about it. He took another long puff from his joint, licked his fingers, and extinguished the flame. He placed what was left in his pocket.

“He’s got juice?” he asked, blowing out smoke. “Your source?”

“More than you wanna deal with.” I looked at my cell. “If I don’t get out of here in about two minutes, my partner’s gonna come in looking for me. And he
does
have a gun. Pretty big one, in fact.”

“Big enough to stop Bates?”

“You really wanna find out?” I asked. “Be a waste of a fine canine.”

Bates looked at me as if he understood and put his head against his master’s leg. Dog Guy just looked at me. We stayed like that for maybe a minute.

“Okay,” Dog Guy said. “Lisa said you got some green on you.”

I’d played that hand too early. “Yeah.”

He reached out. “Gimme what you got.”

“In exchange for what?” I asked, acting like I was gaining the upper hand.

“I can tell you about the white girl,” Dog Guy said. “And a little about Sheila E. You get to walk out of here—instead of hopping with your hand between your legs—with more info than you came in with. That’s what you get.”

“That’s not much.”

“It’s better than you got now,” he said.

Again, I swore I saw hungry look on Bates’s face. I reached into my pocket—slowly—and pulled out the money. Dog Guy leaned over, took it, and slipped it into his pocket.

“Call your boy first,” he said. “Don’t want him interrupting and getting my dog all upset over nothing, y’know?”

I called Jack and, I swear, he picked up before his phone even rang. “What’s going on?” he said. “I’m halfway up the stoop and was about to start knocking.”

“I’m good. I’m talking to the … manager. Give me ten minutes, okay?”

“The manager? This a music studio or a fuck palace, Ray?”

“I’ll explain when I see you. Ten minutes.”

“Make it five,” he said and hung up.

I put the phone on the bed and looked at Dog Guy.

“Blondie,” he said. “What’s her name? Golden?” I nodded. “She come by a few times with Sheila. She’s all nervous-like. But she’s also got this look, like it’s a thrill for her, y’know? Sheila told me Blondie’s interested in partying, but let’s get her used to the place first. I’m cool with that, because the girl was smokin’ hot and that gets the customers hot. And if they can’t have her, they go for something else. Like a tease, y’know?”

“She’s sixteen,” I said.

“Hey! I don’t check no driver’s licenses or IDs, man. Old enough to sit at the table, know what I mean? Anyways,” he said as he stroked the area between Bates’s eyes with his thumb, “Golden girl shows up two or three times, and just when I decide it’s time for her to start really earning her keep, she goes bye-bye.”

“And you have no idea where?”

Dog Guy laughed. “If I knew that, you and I wouldn’t be conversatin’. What’re they giving to get her home? Fifty large? Know how long it takes me to make that kinda cash?”

“You mean, how long it takes your girls, right?”

“You really wanna judge me, Mister PI? I gotcha money in my pocket and Bates here. You best watch yourself. This is
my
house. I give the word, and you’re a pile of dog shit tomorrow.”

There was a big part of me that wanted to lunge off the bed and grab this guy by the throat. The other part—below the belt—reminded me of his dog. I took a deep breath and slipped my hands under my thighs.

“When’s the last time you saw her?” I asked. “The Golden girl.”

“Less’n a month ago, I guess. She just stopped comin’ by.”

“Hard to get good help these days, huh?”

He laughed and pointed at me. “That’s good. Not too many guys can be funny in a sitch like this.”

“What about Sheila? Can I speak with her?”

“That’s gonna cost more’n the three hundred you gave me, mister.”

“Why’s that?”

“’Cause I ain’t seen her since two days after Blondie split on me. Packed up her shit one day and she was gone. Don’t know where.”

“How close was she to Ricky? The cop.”

“He was regular. Two, three times a week, man. Boy had it bad for Sheila. That’s good for business mosta the time, but.…”

“But?”

“But him being a cop and all, it kept most of the others away from her.”

“Ex-cop.”

“Makes no diff,” Dog Guy said. “Anybody else look at Sheila when that guy was around, they got the eye, man. That cop eye they all got.”

“Anybody get the eye more than anyone else?”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“Did you have any customers who seemed particularly annoyed at getting cockblocked by Ricky?”

He thought about that. “Why you askin’?”

“You hear about the shooting the other night? Over on Kent?”

“Heard something about it. And…”

“That was Ricky T.”

A dim light bulb went off over Dog Guy’s head. “And you think it was ’cause of Sheila?”

“Do you?”

“Nah, man. Guys who come here are horny, not killers.” He got silent and let Bates sniff his hand. “There was this—ah, shit. Never mind.”

“What?”

“I’m not talkin’ ’bout my customers, Mister PI. That’s the quickest way to lose ’em. You guys know that.”

“But there was somebody? Someone who stands out?”

“I told you, man, I’m not gonna—”

“What if no one finds out? What if there was a reward involved?”

“How mucha reward?”

So much for customer confidentiality.

“It would be substantial. You could start off with the ten grand the Cop Shot people offer. If the guy you’re thinking of did it.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know, man. I gotta think on that.”

I could see he wasn’t going to cough up the name of whomever he thought of, and I worried he might end the conversation if I pushed him any harder on this point. Besides, I didn’t have any more money. So I kept going.

“Any idea how old Sheila was?”

“Twenty, I guess. Twenty-one.”

“What about a last name? An address?”

“I told you, don’t check IDs, man. And
this
was her address. You don’t listen real good for a PI.”

“I meant for her family.”

“She didn’t talk about family. She was here for about two years. One day she just showed up with a friend, and she been here ever since. Least ’til she left.”

“No idea where she was from?”

“She didn’t put it on the job application,” Dog Guy said. “Shit, man. Girls come here ’cause they wanna forget where they from. Start all over. Sheila took to the life with a quickness. Started bringing by new girls right after she got here.”

“Like the Golden girl?”

“Exactly.”

“So she was a recruiter for you?”

That made him smile. “More like a talent scout, know what I’m sayin’? Sheila was real good at picking out girls who’d fit in around here. Girls who didn’t mind doing what it takes to earn their way in the big bad city. Start out at Port Authority and head out from there.”

That’s where most of the busses into New York City ended up, filled with young people—especially young girls—thinking the city would take away all their problems.

“That bank robber guy said it pretty good: you rob banks ’cause that’s where the money’s at. Wanna find new talent? Bus stations and Amtrak.”

And Dog Guy was going to have an unending supply of “talent” for the foreseeable future. I was suddenly very glad I was sitting on my hands.

“I’m going to give you my number,” I said, slowly pulling one of Jack’s cards out of my pocket.

“What for?”

“In case you wanna reach out about whoever you thought might have been involved with Ricky’s shooting.”

“A’ight. Don’t mean I’m gonna call.”

“I understand. Just in case.” I wrote my number on the back of the card, handed it to him, and looked at the dog. “Okay if I get up now?”

“Yeah, man. Bates not gonna do nothin’ ’less I tell him. You cool.”

I eased myself off the bed and headed to the bedroom door. I heard a low growl behind me and just kept moving. I was outside less than a minute later. Jack was across the street leaning against a tree.

“What? You decide to get laid while you were in there?” I guess I was giving off a look or something. “You okay, Ray?”

“I’m fine. I just spent fifteen minutes in a room with a pimp and a pit bull.” I looked Jack in the eyes. “I fucking hate pimps and pit bulls.”