Night Moves

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “What about Braun and Mr. Camaro?”

  “I’m not Moses on the Mount, one thing at a ti—”

  A burp-like noise cut off the last word.

  He said, “Call waiting. Hold on, that could be John Nguyen. I put in a call to talk about Bitt being a pedophile, let’s see what he has to say about this.”

  He was off the line for several moments, came back talking fast.

  “Not John, Petra. My stars and planets must be aligning weird, check this out.”

  My turn to listen.

  I said, “The citizenry going that extra mile.”

  “Obviously, you wanna be there.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  * * *

  —

  The woman’s given name was Sarabeth Sarser. Her street names were: Sadie, Sammantha, Samanthalee, Bettisam, and, inexplicably, Beanie Baby.

  She’d worked the street for fifteen of her thirty-one years, shuffling identities in order to confuse law enforcement as she traveled up and down the state and into Nevada and back. The past seven years, she’d concentrated her efforts in Hollywood, energy for the road fading due to poly-drug usage.

  No more fooling anyone; she solicited with little guile, got arrested, paid her tickets, kept working.

  She’d been picked up for the fortieth or so time by a cop named Harry Bucksteen. Bucksteen had irritated a superior, gotten pulled off a cushy paperwork job and transferred to the prostitution prevention program Petra had described. Instead of following the early intervention directive, he’d gone the conventional route: waiting for girls to complete transactions with clients, then stepping in and harassing both ends of the sex-trade supply-demand curve.

  “Believe that?” said Sarabeth Sarser. “Lazy fat fuck totally broke the rules.”

  Petra said, “Lucky for you he’s lazy. Now you have something to trade with.”

  “I was gonna call you anyway. It’s the right thing to do,” said Sarser. “Ma’am.”

  She had a well-formed, perfectly oval face marred by under-the-eyes meth smudges and vicious skin eruptions layers of makeup couldn’t conceal. A black poly cocktail dress, skull earrings, plastic pearls, and white knee-high boots formed her ensemble of the evening. Long white-blond hair that probably looked okay in nighttime lighting was turned to straw by coffee shop glare.

  The shop was a dingy place called Happy Losers, renamed last year by its latest owners because Joan and Bill’s didn’t have that ring. No change to the décor in decades; that and overpriced coffee explained the hipster-slackers nursing cracked mugs of Arabica while studying their phones. The coffee accounted for the rest of tonight’s customers, as well: pushers, procurers, other streetwalkers, and the cops who played legal Ping-Pong with them.

  A couple of uniforms on Code Seven in a corner booth recognized Sarser when we walked in and gave her a finger-wave.

  She said, “Hey, boys,” and wiggled her hips in a way that sent a shimmer up to her shoulders.

  The cops laughed, saw Milo, returned to their sandwiches.

  Petra picked a booth in the opposite corner. “Sit here, Bean.” Tapping blue vinyl. When Sarser complied, she slid in next to her. Milo and I sat opposite.

  Sarser said, “I feel so popular.”

  “You are,” said Milo. “Thanks for helping us out.”

  “Of course, sir. I am kind of hungry.”

  * * *

  —

  Twenty minutes later, she pushed aside the few bites of cheeseburger she’d managed. Her eyes were pinballs. The black dress bagged and twisted as her torso shifted constantly.

  She looked at the burger with the longing of an abandoned lover. Plenty of reach, no grasp. All those amphetamine nights killing appetite and sleep.

  “Shit deal,” she said, “but we’re glad, no?”

  “Shit deal about what?” said Milo.

  “The guy got killed, sir.”

  “You know him?”

  “No, sir, never even saw him.” Sarser belched. “Oops.”

  “Never saw him before he got killed.”

  “Never saw him ever, sir. Just heard.” Flicking a skull earring. “The gun-pops. Then I saw what I saw and knew I had to help you guys ’cause you guys have a job to do and I totally get that. Sir.”

  “You made the first call anonymously to our desk,” said Petra. “Why not 911?”

  “You know, ma’am.”

  “Know what?”

  “Privacy?” said Sarser.

  “Aha,” said Petra.

  “What’s the diff, I told you now, ma’am.”

  “So you did, Beanie. As the lieutenant said, we all appreciate your stepping forward.”

  Sarser smiled and played with a piece of limp lettuce. Her nails were inch-long vinyls the color of arterial blood.

  No one talked and that seemed to unsettle her. “You know, guys, I saved up.”

  “Saved what?” said Petra.

  “What happened. In my head, it’s still there. You have to save thoughts like money, my gram always told me.”

  “Did she,” said Petra. “Where does Gram live?”

  “Now she’s in the cemetery, ma’am.”

  “Sorry to hear about that.”

  Sarser’s pale, pimpled shoulders rose and fell. “It’s okay, she was old.”

  Milo said, “She raise you?”

  “Uh-uh, no way, Mom did. Then Mom went to prison then she died and I got fostered but I used to visit Gram. She had all her money ’cause she saved it.”

  Her face hardened. Remembering.

  And during your visits, you decided to let her share involuntarily.

  Milo said, “Okay, let’s go over it again, Bean.”

  “I already told her—told you everything, ma’am, right?”

  “Right,” said Petra. “The lieutenant’s the boss, go over it again.”

  “The boss,” said Sarabeth Sarser. She shot Milo a ragged tweaker smile. “Can I have pie, sir?”

  “Still hungry?” He pointed to the barely touched burger.

  “Pie’s different, sir. It’s like a different thing.”

  “Gotcha, Bean. Soon as we’re finished, pie it is. Go over it again.”

  “I was there and heard it and later I saw it.” Another grin.

  Milo said, “That’s not pie, kid, that’s crumbs.”

  Sarser laughed. “Okay. All right. Okay. I was there—”

  “In room thirteen of the Sahara.”

  “Don’t know the number.”

  “It was thirteen,” said Petra.

  “Really? That’s a shit unlucky number,” said Sarser. “Maybe that’s why.”

  “Why what?”

  “Something bad happened.”

  “In room fourteen.”

  “Well…it’s like the whole thing was a bad deal.”

  Milo said, “You know the Sahara pretty well?”

  Sarser took a moment to reply. “A little.”

  “We couldn’t care less about your job, Bean.”

  “Job” made her sit up straighter. Validated. “Yeah, I’m there sometimes.”

  “That night who was your client?”

  “We were just talking, sir.”

  “Whatever. Who?”

  “Talking, I swear, sir.”

  “That’s fine, Bean. Tell us about your client.”

  “Talking,” she said for a third time. “He was a little guy, I didn’t understand him ’cause he was Spanish.” Jagged-tooth meth grin. “Little dude. Cute. We was talking and we heard it. Little Dude got scared and hid in the bathroom.”

  She clapped her hands together. Feeble act, producing a faint, puffy sound; not much muscle left in her arms.

  Milo said, “You heard the gunshots. Little Dude’s hiding in the bathroom, where are you?”

  “In the front room, ready to pee my panties. Little Dude comes out, gets dressed real fast.” Giggling. “He’s like getting his feet caught in his pants and his thing is waving. He opens the door and books, I shut
it and get down on the floor.”

  She tucked in her head and covered it with both arms. A schoolkid during one of those pointless Cold War drop drills.

  I said, “Must’ve been tough, waiting.”

  Her arms dropped and she looked at me. A ribbon of fear curled across her face, rippling sections of ashy skin. “I was scared, sir. Waiting for more.”

  “More gunshots.”

  “A lot of times there’s more. Right?”

  “Right,” said Milo. “Then what happened, Bean?”

  “Nothing happened, sir,” said Sarser. “So I looked.” Spreading the air with her hands, she created a two-inch space centered on her face.

  I said, “Through the blinds.”

  “The what?”

  “The window covering.”

  “Oh,” she said. “I thought you were saying I’m being blind. For not seeing more.”

  I aped the spreading motion.

  “Yes, sir. I did that a little and peeked.”

  “And saw…”

  “A guy.”

  First time that had come up.

  Milo looked at me, then Petra. No one spoke.

  Sarabeth Sarser said, “That’s it. Can I have pie?”

  “A guy,” said Milo.

  “And a girl.” Breezily, as if one went inevitably with the other.

  “From room fourteen.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’d they do, Sara?”

  “Booked.”

  “They ran off together?”

  A beat. “He musta pushed her, she like…tripped a little? But she didn’t fall.”

  “Then what?”

  “He put her into the back of the Rover and booked.”

  All new material.

  Petra said, “Did she put up a fight?”

  “Uh-uh, no. But like I said, she kind of…fell when she walked. But not down. Just like she was…I dunno.”

  I said, “She stumbled.”

  “Yeah!”

  Petra said, “Okay, this is the important part, Sara. What did these two people look like?”

  “Don’t know, ma’am. It was dark, I was scared shitless.”

  “Tall? Short?”

  Head shake. “I didn’t see nothing but shapes and they were moving fast.”

  “Black, white, Spanish?”

  Head shake. “If they were purple I couldn’t tell you, ma’am, I swear.” To me: “Guess I was kind of blind.”

  Petra said, “Age?”

  “Couldn’t see.”

  Milo said, “No idea at all about age or race?”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “What about clothing?”

  “Sorry, sir, I wasn’t P.R.’ing.”

  “P.R.’ing?”

  “Project-Runway-ing,” she said. “Like when you study the creations?” Frown. “I streamed a bunch of episodes then my iPad got ripped off.”

  Petra said, “Bean, in your first call to the station, you didn’t mention any of this. And you didn’t tell me when I talked to you a few hours ago.”

  “I was scared.”

  “But now you’re telling us.”

  “I figured I should.”

  “Saving up for a rainy day,” said Milo.

  “It’s not raining,” said Sarser. “Not all year, I like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “When there’s no rain.” Another giggle. “Less clothing, sir.”

  “See your point,” said Milo. “So you were saving up the information for when you could use it.”

  “That’s what I do, sir. I listen to Gram.”

  Petra said, “Let’s go over it again.”

  Sarser pouted. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Puffing her cheeks while tearing lettuce into shreds, Sarser retold her story. Nothing new.

  “After they drove away and didn’t come back, I booked. Got rid of my panties, sir. Like I said, I was scared shitless.”

  She laughed. “Can I have pecan pie?”

  * * *

  —

  We left her facing a mammoth slice of pecan pie, glazed nuts crystallized past optimal freshness, the wedge topped by a runny heap of vanilla ice cream. The enhancement, Milo’s burst of generosity.

  À la mode, Bean?

  Told you, sir. I don’t speak Spanish.

  Pie with some ice cream?

  That would be cool, sir.

  Literally.

  Huh?

  Out on the sidewalk, Petra said, “Sorry for bringing you out for that. She kept hinting around she had more but obviously she just played me to get her solicitation ticket wiped off.”

  Inside the coffee shop, a man walked up to Sarser. Ten years her senior, dark-complexioned, lazy eyelids, lizard face. He wore a black leather jacket, a flashy flowered shirt, diamond earrings in both lobes. Tattoos ran up his neck, flirting with his carotid.

  “Look at this zombie-scum,” said Petra. “How many priors would you say?”

  Milo scratched his chin. “Twenty, minimum.”

  “I say thirty.” She stared at the newcomer, squinting, tight-jawed. Hoping he’d notice her. He didn’t. Kept talking into Sarser’s left ear. Sarser’s hands were flat on the table.

  Petra said, “Pathetic. Next time I hear about her, she could be my client.” She turned away. “Okay, guys, let’s get some sleep. Wish it had made a difference.”

  Milo said, “Nothing to be sorry for, kid. We learned plenty.”

  “What?” she said.

  “The woman with Chet wasn’t the caller, making her likely collateral damage, maybe dumped along with the Range Rover, so let’s keep our eyes out for the vehicle. Also nothing we just heard budges Bitt off the radar. The whole Bitt-and-Felice thing is nuts. Old boyfriend moves next door?”

  Movement from inside the coffee shop caught our eyes. Iguana Man had looped one arm over Sarabeth Sarser’s shoulder. Smiling slackly, ripe with entitlement.

  His mouth got close enough to her left ear to insert his tongue. Maybe that’s what he did. Maybe he just spoke. Either way, she squirmed.

  His other arm moved, dangling over her meth-shrunk bosoms.

  He began eating her pie.

  Petra went in and said something to him. He bristled but slithered out of the booth and left the coffee shop. Making sure to avoid Milo and me.

  Petra returned with her phone out, read a text and smiled. “Aww, Eric claims to miss me. I’m straight home, guys.”

  She walked away, alert, gracefully athletic. To outward appearances a good-looking woman far too stylish for this section of Hollyweird. One hand rested near the gun beneath her jacket. We watched her slender form melt into the darkness, then headed for our cars.

  * * *

  —

  At the Seville, Milo said, “No more bullshit, tomorrow before Felice takes the kids to school, I’m calling her to see if she can convince Bitt to talk to me. She doesn’t want to cooperate, I’ll inform her there’ll be police banging on his goddamn door day in day out, the press will find out, the entire Westside’s gonna know she’s been in a sneaky relationship with someone who draws obscene, violent cartoons.”

  “The kids will be impacted.”

  “Got something better?”

  “Let me call and ask her.”

  “That would work because…”

  “I began something this morning, maybe I can build on it.”

  “Building rapport through psychological sensitivity,” he said.

  “That would be the hope.”

  “Rather than the spontaneous invasion of the Visigoth-Mongol-Hun known as me.”

  I laughed. “Yes, Attila.”

  He ran his hand over his face. “Fine. You get one try. Also, thanks. From the depths of my insensitive heart.”

  The following morning, Robin did her usual early rise, up at six, ready to work half an hour later. Usually, she’s way ahead of me. This morning, I was with her for coffee, had walked the dog, showered, and dressed, was ready to call Felic
e Corvin at seven fifteen.

  Before I got to my office phone, it rang. “Dr. Delaware, I’ve got a Ms. Corvin on the line.”

  I said, “How convenient.”

  “Pardon, Doctor?”

  “Please put her on.”

  “Good morning, Felice.”

  “I know it’s early but I wanted to catch you. I gave what you said a lot of thought, went over to Trevor and talked to him and he’ll speak to you.”

  “The key is talking to the police.”

  “I meant ‘you’ as in plural. I’d prefer it was just you, but I’m realistic. But could you be there? To monitor?”

  “I don’t monitor, Felice.”

  “Whatever you do, then,” she said.

  “Sometimes I do nothing.”

  “Well, just the fact of your presence, then. Instead of a…I don’t know, a regular police thing. Something…military.”

  I chose my words. “If I’m allowed to be there, I will be. But this is a double murder case and it will be a regular police thing.”

  Pause. “What I’m trying to get across is the issues are sensitive. They require a specialized approach.”

  Honest concern? An attempt to manipulate?

  I said, “Of course. I’ll pass that along to Lieutenant Sturgis.”

  “I guess that’s all I can hope for,” she said. “Would five p.m. today work out?”

  “I’ll let him know and someone will get back to you.”

  “Someone,” she said. “By the book.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “I guess I understand that, Doctor. People are dead.”

  * * *

  —

  People. Detached way to talk about a murdered spouse, even one you planned to divorce.

  I phoned Milo.

  He said, “Five today? Yeah, I can do that if Sean and Moe and a few others can.”