“I already knew that much. What I want you to run is his firm. See if there’s anything that raises questions—suspicious lawsuits or any complaints that stand out.”
“I’m about to go home, but I’ll get on it,” she said, and then, “Thanks for understanding.”
“You know I can be an ass sometimes,” Tip said.
“We all do,” I said from behind him.
We worked for a couple of hours, and then Tip looked at his watch and stood. “Gianelli, let’s go find us a whore.”
I grabbed my phone from the desk and followed. “That’s why I like you, Denton. You’ve got such a classy vocabulary.”
We headed down to Texas Avenue, fighting traffic all the way. It was nothing like Brooklyn traffic, but it was bad enough to put a person on edge. Tip pulled up to the valet parking, and we got out. A young guy who looked to be in his twenties greeted us with a big smile.
“Here for the night?” he asked.
I flashed my badge. “We won’t be long, so keep the car handy.” I then showed him the picture of Lipscomb. “Do you know this guy? He might have been here Tuesday night.”
“Not me, but I only work two nights a week.” He turned toward another guy, older, maybe early forties. “Greg, did you work Tuesday?”
The other guy came over. “Yeah, I did. Why?”
Tip gave the kid a ten-dollar bill, and he took the car. I showed Greg the picture. “Did you see this guy Tuesday night?”
He stepped toward the door so he had better light. “He was here. He came in around nine, if I remember right, and left not long after, maybe ten or ten thirty.”
“Did he leave alone?” Tip asked.
Greg smiled. “Mr. Lipscomb almost never leaves alone.”
I stepped in close. “So who was the lucky girl Tuesday night?”
“I’d never seen her before, but she was young and pretty.”
“Describe young and pretty,” I said.
Greg thought for a few seconds and said, “Late twenties or thirty. I think she had brown hair, dark brown.”
“You’re sure about that? She wasn’t blonde?”
“I can’t swear to the hair color, but she wore a really short skirt, and she had great legs.”
“You’re saying you never looked at her hair,” Tip said.
“I only saw her for a second,” Greg said. “It was busy.”
“Okay, thanks,” Tip said and handed him ten dollars and a card. “Call me if you think of anything else.”
“So much for witnesses,” I said, as we turned to leave.
We went inside and waited for the bartender to catch a break. Tip showed his badge and the picture of Lipscomb. “He was in here Tuesday night. Do you remember him?”
It didn’t take the guy two seconds to respond. “Mr. Pinot Noir. He sat right next to where you are now, and he spent most of his time trying to hit on a woman sitting next to him—a strawberry daiquiri.”
“You remember what time he got here?” I asked.
He seemed to struggle with that. “I tend to lose track of time when I’m working. If I had to guess, maybe halfway through the shift. No later.”
“What’s your shift?” Tip asked.
“I come on at six and get off at two.”
“What about the girl?” I asked. “You remember what she looked like?”
“Brunette. Maybe early thirties. She looked great and had a sexy smile. Sexy as hell.”
“You sure she wasn’t blonde?” I asked.
He was shaking his head before I finished.
“No way. Dark hair, with skin to match.”
I liked his answer. If a witness was confident enough to contradict what a cop suggested as the description, that meant they were pretty certain of the ID.
“Describe her again,” Tip said.
“Short, dark hair, knockout body, short skirt. Business-woman look. You know, a professional. Like I said, sexy.”
I looked at Tip then back to the bartender. “You’re saying professional as in business woman. Not a working girl?”
He laughed. “Working girl? No way. She looked like a salesperson or somebody in marketing—a job like that.”
Tip wrote something in his notepad. “And you’re sure she wasn’t blonde? Maybe she wore a brown wig.”
“Like I said. This lady wasn’t a blonde. She didn’t have blonde skin. It was darker, with a hint of a Mexican accent. And she was definitely in her thirties. I can tell by the eyes.”
The bartender waited for Tip to finish writing notes, then asked, “What’s up with the questions, anyway? What did this guy do? Did he hurt her?”
“He got himself killed,” I said.
The bartender cocked his head and looked at me. “No shit? I’d have thought the other way.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“The guy’s a creep. He was always trying to pick up young women. He tried hiding it the other night, but he stalked that woman. Watched everything she did, almost drooling over her when she wasn’t looking.”
“Did she leave with him?” I asked.
He shook his head. “She was waiting for somebody, but the guy never showed. She asked me to call her a cab, and when the creep heard that, he offered her a ride. But then she got a call from her guy just before leaving.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I heard her answer it. I think she called him ‘Andy.’ Something like that.”
“Andy?” I said. “Are you sure?”
He seemed to consider it, and then, “I can’t swear to it. It could have been Mandy or Randy, but it was something similar.”
“With all the people in here, why’d you take interest in them?”
“Like I said, she was sexy as hell. And I was dying to see that fool make an ass of himself.”
I handed him a card and asked him to call if he remembered anything else. He said he would, and I believed him.
We left the bar and questioned the valet-parking guy again before leaving. He stuck with his story that Lipscomb left about ten or ten thirty with a woman in a short skirt, with brown hair and great legs.
Tip got on the freeway and started for home. “Let’s go over what we’ve got,” I said, and made a list, which we reviewed.
• Lipscomb left the bar around 10–10:30.
• According to the hotel’s cameras, he got there about 10:35.
• The bartender said the brown-haired woman left without Lipscomb.
• The parking attendant said Lipscomb left with a brown-haired woman.
• Lipscomb checked into the hotel with a blonde.
“It’s not more than ten minutes from the bar to the hotel, even with traffic,” Tip said.
“What the hell went on here?” I asked. “Lipscomb left the bar with a woman he just met. A few minutes later, or even half an hour later, he checked into the hotel with a different woman. Did he drop the dark-haired woman off somewhere?”
“The bartender did say she got a call from the guy she was supposed to meet—Andy or something.”
I thought about that. “So where did she go? And how did Lipscomb hook up with Tiffany?”
“He could have dropped the girl from the bar off somewhere and then called Tiffany,” Tip said.
“Maybe, but there weren’t any other calls on his phone after he called his wife.”
Tip switched to the right lane and slowed down almost to the speed limit. “We have to assume he had this set up beforehand.”
“He had to,” I said. “Remember, LaDonna said that Tiffany had a big-money client.”
Tip looked over at me, and said, “So if Lipscomb had it set up with Tiffany, what was he doing trying to get lucky with the woman at the bar? It doesn’t add up.”
We rode in silence for a half mile or so. LaDonna’s words were bugging me, about how Tiffany had turned down two hundred dollars. “Lipscomb didn’t line this up out of the blue,” I said. “If he was willing to pay a lot more than $200, he must ha
ve spent time with her before.”
“Then there’d be a record of him calling her,” Tip said. “Either he’d have to have called from work or from somebody else’s phone. Julie said his cell was barely used.”
We drove another couple of miles, and I said, “Nothing works, Tip. Even if we assume he had things set up with Tiffany ahead of time through someone else, it still leaves us with the God-awful coincidence of the woman at the bar happening to be leaving at the same time Lipscomb did to get to the hotel to meet Tiffany. And it doesn’t answer the question of why she got in the car with him.”
“You’re right,” Tip said. “That dog just don’t hunt.”
“I wondered how long it would be before you brought out one of your sayings.”
“Now you know.”
“Maybe someone else made the arrangements,” I said.
“Like the concierge,” Tip said. “Let’s have another go at him. He may be more of a pimp than he’s letting on.”
When we dropped in on Sebastian, the place was swamped. He was less than excited to see us, probably recalling how Tip embarrassed him earlier with the cuffs.
“What is it you want?” Sebastian said. “As you can see, I am very busy.”
“We need to know about Tiffany,” I said. “How often she came here, where else she plied her trade, and who set up her appointment that night.”
Sebastian’s head was shaking before I’d finished. “She had one or two appointments a week here,” he said. “As to where else she worked, I have no idea, and as I told you before, I have no idea who set up her appointment that night.”
“Did you get your cut on this one?” Tip asked.
“I don’t ever get a cut from the ladies. They keep everything.”
“Who pays you?” I asked.
He smiled at a patron passing by, waved to another, and then looked at me and whispered. “Occasionally a gentleman sees it fit to leave me a tip.” He was quick to add, “But I never ask for anything.”
“Weren’t you concerned when Forrest didn’t leave you a tip?”
“For the last time,” he said, “I wasn’t here that night, and I had nothing to do with them getting together. Now do what you will, but I have customers to take care of.”
“Go on,” Tip said, and we headed back to the car.
Chapter 13
A Friendly Conversation
“Where are we headed?” Connie asked.
“We’ve still got to find Tiffany, but first I need to have a chat with someone.”
“Who?”
“Bobby.”
It took him three calls to find out where Bobby was—at a bar with a not-so-good reputation. Tip parked across the street, checked his gun, and got out. “Stay here,” he said. “I won’t be long.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“It’ll go better if you don’t.”
Against her better judgment, Connie let him go in alone.
Bobby was sitting at the end of the bar with another cop. Both had been undercover longer than they should have been, and they looked the part. Two black guys occupied stools a few seats away from them, and a couple of Mexicans sat in a booth near the back. Other than that, the place was empty. The bartender, rail thin, greeted Tip.
“What’ll it be?”
Tip never took his eyes from Bobby. “Nothing for me,” he said, and moved toward the back. His holster was unbuckled, and he had a backup gun in his waistband. Bobby looked his way.
“Denton! What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Came to see an old friend,” Tip said.
Bobby looked around, a surprised expression on his face. “An old friend? Where is he?”
The guy with Bobby laughed. Tip looked to the blacks and Mexicans, but they hadn’t moved. “You didn’t tell me he was back in town, Bobby.”
Bobby set his drink down, a scowl forming on his face. “I don’t know who he is, but it don’t matter much, ’cause it’s none of your business.”
Tip gave him one of his hard-eyed glares, the kind where his eye twitched and the scar on his face twisted. “How much is he paying you?”
“That’s a dangerous question to ask, considering where you are.”
“I’m still asking.”
Bobby and the cop with him stood. The two Mexicans did too and moved slowly toward Tip.
Connie walked in the door. “No need to get up for me, boys. I just came to take my partner home for dinner.”
They kept moving. Connie came alongside Tip, her hand resting on her gun. “I think everyone better sit.”
Bobby glanced at the Mexicans, then back to Connie.
Tip stepped away from the bar. “Better do what she says. She’s crazy enough to shoot you.”
Bobby and his men sat again, staring as Tip and Connie backed out of the bar. “Y’all enjoy it while it lasts,” Tip said. “I’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“You better have a plan for when you get there, Denton.”
“Don’t worry, Stenson. I’ve always got a plan.”
Tip got in the car and started it. Connie climbed in, taking the passenger side. “You want to tell me what good you did coming down here?”
“I let that son of a bitch know I was onto him,” Tip said.
“You could have done that with a phone call.”
“But then I wouldn’t have been able to see his eyes. I needed to see how he’d react.”
“And did that do you any good?”
Tip shrugged. “He didn’t react like I thought he would, but I don’t know what it means yet.”
Tip put the car in gear and made a U-turn. “I know we don’t always agree, but sometimes I like to do things my way.”
“Just sometimes?” I asked.
Tip laughed. “Have I told you I like you as a partner?”
“Just drive, asshole. We’ve got a case to solve.”
Chapter 14
Old Enemies
Carlos pushed his plate to the side and wiped his mouth with a napkin. Manuelo brought a fresh carafe of coffee, poured a cup for Carlos, and placed it on the table.
“Thank you,” Carlos said. “Tico and I have business to discuss.”
“Si, señor,” Manuelo said, and left the room.
Tico took the seat across from Carlos. “You wanted to talk, señor?”
“Updates, Tico. What have you discovered since we’ve been in Houston?”
“After talking to our men on the streets, I have a better picture. In six months, we should control the Houston market. We’ve increased distribution by 250 percent since you lowered the price four months ago. Every dealer not with us is suffering. We have regained almost all of our territory, and we have moved into new operations.”
Carlos sucked on a piece of hard lemon candy. “And the police?”
“We have made inroads. Enough to give us information and some protection.”
“We need more.”
“It is early,” Tico said. “We have things working.”
“We need it to happen sooner. It won’t take long to control the market in Texas, and once we own the distribution, we can raise the price. The demand will be there.” Carlos picked another candy from the bowl. “I have been looking into things myself. That unfortunate event in Wilmington cost us more than a few men. Now the police are poking into our affairs.”
“That will settle down. The cop who did that is gone, and—”
“Tico, sometimes you’re so smart, and at other times…” Carlos finished his cup of coffee and lit a cigarette, a Fortuna. “A policeman in the United States is not going to kill eleven men and then disappear. And the police don’t burn down houses.”
“But, señor.”
“Someone else did this, and we need to find out who. Have our men look around Wilmington, see who benefitted the most from our misfortune.”
“The black gang, the one run by the man called Monroe.”
“Now you’re thinking, Tico, and while we’re on the subject o
f thinking, what are we doing with our money?”
“Señor Snider has resisted all attempts, and the man we used before is under investigation.”
“It seems as if we will have to convince Señor Snider. Leave that to me. I already have things working.”
The phone rang. Tico pushed the speaker button and answered. “Your line is secure?”
“I wouldn’t call otherwise. We have problems.”
“Describe them.”
“Tip Denton is asking questions. He’s not the kind of cop you want to mess with.”
Tico looked at Carlos then asked, “Who is he working with?”
“His old partner from New York. She just came back.”
“Keep me informed,” Tico said, and hung up.
Carlos crushed his cigarette in the ashtray, grinding it until it was flat. “I thought she was half dead. That’s what you told me.”
Tico sighed. “Don’t get ideas, señor. You can’t kill cops in this country. Forget about her.”
“Who said anything about killing? She’s a dirty cop associated with the mob. All we have to do is expose her.”
“We have no proof of her being dirty.”
“But Mangini helped her in Brooklyn. And a mystery person killed two men in the hospital in Houston. Someone is her guardian angel. We need to find out who and why. Have one of our men in New York look into this. I want everything he can find on the detective, her mother, and the man who is supposedly her father.”
Tico got up to leave. “Si, señor. I will have it done.”
Chapter 15
Surveillance
The man handling the surveillance on Patrick Snider brought the pictures to Carlos. “These are good. He won’t be able to explain them away.”
“Let me see,” Carlos said, and thumbed through the photos—explicit images of Snider in compromising situations with his lover—a former employee of the bank. “Good work, my friend. Now tell me about the routine.”
“She checks into the hotel, and within a couple of hours, he shows up and goes to her room. She gets the same suite every time, so he must have it reserved. Sometimes she comes down afterward and has a drink at the bar, but only after he leaves.”
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