Faye Kellerman_Decker & Lazarus 02

by Sacred;Profane

  “You’re entitled.”

  He began to feel physically amorous. He suspected Rina was feeling the same way, because she broke away abruptly. He said, “Can you keep this for me until tomorrow? I’m not going straight home and I don’t want to take it with me.”

  “Where’re you going?” she asked.

  “To find out about a possible runaway. To glamorous Hollyweird.”

  7

  He parked on a side street off Sunset, east of the Strip, took off his yarmulke and tie, and unfastened the top three buttons on his white shirt. Slipping on a couple of gold chains, he checked himself in the rearview mirror. He needed a shave and that was good, but he was still not satisfied. Mussing his hair, he pulled a lock over his forehead down to his brow, then took off his brown suit jacket and donned a cheap baggy windbreaker that didn’t show the swell of his .38. He placed a pack of Marlboros and a penlight in a front pocket, opened the door of the Plymouth, and stepped outside.

  The underbelly of Hollywood was a vampire leeching out the blood of the city, he thought, the sidewalk teeming with action that thrives in the shadows. He found a spot that looked good—a fine vantage point from where he could see the pimps, hookers, addicts, dealers, and everyday desperados and degenerates. But the best part about the location was the number of independent streetwalkers. He needed a sucker not shackled to a pimp.

  It didn’t take long. The one he picked out was a skinny black girl in an electric blue tank top, denim cut-offs, and a knee-length black boots. Her hair had been cornrowed, her eyelids painted blue and pink. Two red slashes highlighted her cheekbones. He gave her the eye, then quickly averted his gaze.

  He’d always felt that the key to being a good undercover vice cop was thinking like a woman. You had to be coy and flirtatious. Most bona fide johns were pretty damn shy when approaching a hooker. There was usually some resistance, and it was the whore who made the moves. Any guy who came on too strong smelled of weirdo or cop.

  He pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and flashed a quick glance at Hot Pants. She cocked her head and gave him an open smile. He smiled back and returned to his smoke. He didn’t turn around, but he could hear her approaching.

  “Got a light?” she asked. Her voice was sultry.

  Decker slipped out his matches and lit her cigarette.

  “Thank you, Honey,” she said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “What are you doing out here all alone, Sugar?”

  He paused, then said, “Enjoying the air.”

  “Nature lover, huh?”

  He let his eyes drift slowly over her body. Her tight nylon top offered little support for her sagging breasts. Her crotch was bisected by sprayed-on shorts—cunt-cutters.

  “I love what nature has given us,” he answered trying to look hungry.

  “How much do you love nature, Sugar?”

  “How much does it cost to love nature?”

  “I think fifty dollars will give you an awful lot of raw beauty.”

  “What are we talking about here?” he said exhaling a plume of smoke.

  “What do you want, Honey?”

  “What are my choices?”

  “You tell me what you want,” she said.

  He wasn’t about to entrap her, so he changed course abruptly.

  “Listen, bitch, if you’re gonna fuck with my mind, forget the whole thing. I don’t need this shit.”

  He started to walk away, but she caught his arm.

  “Sugar, Sugar, don’t get so hot. Save it for when it counts.” She studied his face and decided to go for it. “Suck or fuck, take your pick.”

  “If I want both?”

  “Cost you twenty-five more.”

  “Let me see if I’ve got the bread.” He reached in his coat pocket, pulled out his badge, and grabbed her arm.

  “Aw Jesus,” she groaned.

  “C’mon, Hot Pants, just behave yourself.” He turned her around, leaned her against a building, and frisked her.

  “What you fuckers won’t do for a free feel,” she said.

  “Save it,” he said, cuffing her.

  “Asshole,” she said evenly. “Now, Sugar, just what do you think this is gonna do? You know I’ll be back here tomorrow night. Why do you waste everyone’s time?”

  He propelled her into a dark, secluded alley.

  “What are you doing, Sugar?” she said, suddenly concerned.

  He pinned her against a wall, boring his eyes into her face. Her lids widened with fear and her mouth dropped open.

  “What do you want?” she asked nervously.

  “Help.”

  “Say what?”

  “You’ve got a choice. You give me a little help and your ass is back on the streets in a few minutes. You jive me, you spend the night in the slammer.”

  “What do you want?” she repeated.

  “I’m trying to locate a runaway.” He pulled out Lindsey’s picture and showed it to her.

  She stared at it, then shook her head.

  “What makes you think she’s here?” she asked.

  “She’s not here. She’s six feet under now. But she may have stopped off here before she ended up in the morgue.”

  “You ain’t from Vice?”

  “Uh uh. Homicide.”

  The whore looked at the picture again.

  “Don’t know her.”

  He uncuffed her, but blocked her escape.

  “Where do the kids hang out?”

  “Same place we do.”

  “C’mon.”

  “It’s true. They’re still hookers, Honey, even if the pussy’s a little newer.”

  Decker grimaced. “Think about this—you’re a new runaway without a pimp yet. Where do you go?”

  “Put it that way, only one place to go.”

  “Where?”

  “Hotel Hell.”

  The five-story structure was set back from Hollywood Boulevard, burnt out and condemned, peeling paint on pocked concrete, stucco shedding in clumps. The building still retained some broken windows, but most of the sashes were nothing but open holes punched into the rotting plaster. The property was surrounded by a chain-link rent-a-fence with a missing section where a gate should have been. Some of the links had been clipped, leaving the metal spurs sharp and threatening.

  He entered the grounds—a jungle of tall, tangled weeds—and went inside the doorless building. The lobby flooring was cracked linoleum and dirt, and as he walked, the soles of his feet stuck to the grimy surface. It was dark and dank, reeking of urine, feces, and vomit. He waited for a moment for his eyes to adjust. The moonlight shone through the empty sashes, checkerboarding the floor. Looking down the long corridor, Decker began to make out figures and shadows scurrying and darting—live pawns on a chessboard. The hallway flickered with trash-can bonfires.

  A rat danced at his feet. Decker sidestepped and immediately tripped over a soft lump on the floor. He took out his penlight and shone it on a girl balled in a fetal position. A mutt was curled at her feet, whimpering. He gave her ribs a gentle prod, but she didn’t move. Bending down, he turned her over and she sprawled out, arms flopping randomly. Her skin was ashen and cold to the touch. She had no pulse.

  “Jesus,” he whispered.

  There was nothing he could do for her now. He’d take care of the body later. Standing up, he walked down the hall.

  Empty eyes, vacant stares, shreds of cloth that shrouded living cadavers, muted rodent sounds. Most of the zombies were trying to get warm, rubbing together hands encased in fingerless mittens: some were crouched in corners, rocking back and forth, humming dirges. Others were sleeping fitfully. As he passed the kids, the background noises hushed. A stranger. He had to be up to something—some kind of hustle.

  On the second floor he found a group huddled around a pile of burning newspaper and came toward them slowly, as one approaches a wounded animal. When he was next to them, he shone his penlight on the picture of Lindsey Bates.

  They took tu
rns looking at the snapshot, but the results were the same: dull stares and wordless shakes of the head. He moved on to the next group and came away empty again.

  Slowly he combed the building, sometimes gagging on the rot around him. They looked, they cooperated passively, a few even smiled, but the story was the same. Lindsey was a nonentity in Hotel Hell.

  The building turned icy, the stench stronger as the night winds died, leaving only stagnant chilled air. But noises returned as word passed that the stranger was only showing a picture. A few even came up to him, volunteered to look. Never saw her, man. The sounds grew boisterous—cackles, cries, retching, pissing. After canvassing all five stories, he felt fatigue begin to hood his eyes.

  He’d try again next week. There’d be new kids and some old-timers returning to the fold. He put the picture away, heading for the door but stopped suddenly. It was involuntary—a psychic paralysis that froze the muscles of his calves.

  He gasped as he stared at her. A moonbeam hit her smack in the face, illuminating her in deathly grays.

  The girl’s mouth was agape, framed by lips of orange: eyes dull and lolling. She had it all—the angle of the cheekbone, the point of the chin. But it was the hair—flaming red tresses setting off a pale, freckled face—that made his heart take off.

  Cindy!

  She was wearing a green sequined halter and an orange mini-skirt. She caught his eye and lowered her lashes. When he didn’t move, she made a funny face, swung out her hip and undid her halter, giving him a full view of voluptuous breasts. Cupping one in each hand, pinching pink nipples, she sashayed over slowly, seductively.

  “Twenty-five dollars,” she whispered.

  He wanted to kill her.

  Blinded with fury which he knew was irrational, he tried to stalk away, but she caught his arm. He turned, threw her against the wall, and slapped her hard, feeling the sting radiate through his hand. He grabbed her wrists.

  “I’m a cop, you stupid fuck!”

  The animal in her took over. She opened her jaws, hissed, and bit his right forearm through the jacket sleeve. He yelped and released her wrists, but she’d become wild, clawing and scratching, ripping his jacket. He managed to shield his face with his bare arm, but she continued attacking, raking the skin of his forearm. In desperation, he backhanded her, and she went flying across the hallway and into a wall.

  Oh shit, he thought.

  He started to approach her, but she scrambled to her feet and fled.

  His arm was wet, crimson, and shaking. Reaching for a handkerchief and finding nothing, he took off his jacket and tried to staunch the flow.

  You stupid shithead, he thought to himself. To let a dumb hooker get you like that. Your daughter is a good kid. Why the fuck do you go looking for trouble when there is none?

  He peeled back his soaked jacket. His arm was still bleeding although the scarlet stream had reduced to slow seepage. The flesh had already begun to swell and throb. He had to get out of there.

  He saw her out of the corner of his eye and felt he should say something, but nothing came out. It was she who approached him, offering him a roll of bandages. He took it with a nod and began to wrap his wounds.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Sure?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m sorry I hit you like I did,” he said. “I was just trying to get you off of me.”

  “I’m sorry I bit you like I did,” she said. “I was trying to get you off of me. You scared the hell out of me.”

  “Where’s a twenty-four-hour pharmacy?” he asked.

  “Don’t know.” She pulled out a cigarette. “You gonna arrest me?”

  “No.”

  “Are you really a cop?”

  “Yes.”

  “Whacha doing here?”

  Reaching in his pocket, he pulled out Lindsey’s picture. The redhead cautiously approached him to take a look.

  “Don’t know her,” she said. “How long has she been missing?”

  “She’s not missing. She’s dead.”

  The girl shuddered. He looked at her and saw a deep red palm print spread across her face.

  “I slapped you pretty hard,” he said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Are you kidding?” She shrugged. “Man, that’s just a warm-up for half the kinkies I get.”

  He shook his head in disgust, at the perverts, at himself.

  “Why’d you stare at me like that?”

  “You remind me of my daughter.”

  She let go with a machine-gun laughter.

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  He pulled out his wallet and flipped to Cindy’s picture. The girl’s eyes increased several diameters.

  “God, I really do.” She grinned. “No wonder you went cuckoo. Who’s the black-haired girl? Your other daughter?”

  He frowned.

  “My girlfriend.”

  She giggled.

  “Sorry.”

  “I’ve got to go.” He straightened up and began retreating.

  “Hey, Cop or whatever your name is?”

  “What?”

  “Give me the picture of the dead girl. I’m more likely to dig up dirt than you are.”

  He handed her the snapshot of Lindsey and his card.

  “Decker,” she said out loud. “It says here you work Juvey.”

  “I’m on loan to Homicide.”

  “Okay, Decker,” she announced. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Kiki. But you don’t contact me. I contact you.”

  “Fine,” Decker said. “Bye, Kiki.”

  “Hey, don’t informants get paid?”

  “Only if they produce.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To take care of my arm.” He walked away, but she followed him. A fucking gosling, he thought. She’d imprinted.

  “Maybe I do know where a pharmacy is.”

  He said nothing.

  “Hey, ya know, you gotta get an antibiotic for the bite.”

  He spun around. “Are you infected with something?”

  “Don’t worry. I don’t have AIDS or anything. Least not that I know of.”

  Swell.

  “It’s just that bites are dangerous,” she went on, “even if the person isn’t sick. I know that because a whole bunch of my johns bite me all the time, and if it wasn’t for antibiotics, I’d be dead probably.”

  He resumed his pace.

  “Hey, Decker, c’mon.”

  He kept walking.

  “I’ll look for this girl…What’s her name?”

  “Lindsey Bates.”

  “Yeah, Lindsey Bates. I got sources, you know.”

  He was outside of the building. Jesus, even Hollywood air felt good.

  “Hey, Decker, you got a spare dime or something?”

  He turned the corner and started sprinting up the quiet street, embarrassed by the hooker on his tail. Then he stopped abruptly and pulled out his wallet.

  “Come here,” he said, crushing a five in his fist. She held out her hand and he dropped the ball of money in her open palm. “Now don’t ask me for another thing or your tail’s in Juvey Hall.”

  “On what?”

  “Soliciting.”

  “Bullshit. I just said—”

  “Kiki, I’m a cop. You’re a hooker. No one’s going to listen to you. If I say you were soliciting, you’re going to be busted for soliciting. Then it’s Juvey Hall or foster homes or back to your old man, who’s probably been raping you since you were ten.”

  The girl’s face grew glum.

  “You must have worked a lot of Juvey.”

  He was silent. He knew it all too well.

  “I’m real sorry about your arm, Decker.”

  “I’m sorry about your face. Keep yourself out of trouble, huh?”

  “I’m gonna find her, Decker. You’ll see. I got contacts.”

  He slipped into the Plym
outh, found a nearby pay phone, and reported the dead girl he’d found in the building to Hollywood Division.

  8

  He awoke the next morning with an elephantine arm and cursed his stupidity at not going to an ER last night. He’d been too damn tired and now he was paying the price. Fever burned in his brain and his radial nerve shot spasmodic pain into his arm. Rousing slowly from a fitful sleep, he got up and went to the bathroom to change the dressing.

  The arm was swollen a dark purple and gouged by deep red, crusty lacerations. He found some alcohol in the medicine cabinet and began to swab the wound, his flesh sizzling at each application of the astringent. The skin turned bright red and cracked open, oozing blood and pus. He washed his arm several times and took out a packet of sterile gauze, a couple of extra-strength aspirins and four leftover penicillin pills. He downed the tablets and wrapped the wound.

  Once the bite had been dressed, he phoned the station and told them he’d be in later. A call to Mrs. Bates was next. Erin would be home at four, but the father wouldn’t arrive until seven—after the start of Shabbos. Decker told Mrs. Bates he’d see Erin and reschedule her husband for sometime next week. The third call he made was to Chris Truscott. No one answered, so he figured he’d take a drive out to Venice and check out the boyfriend’s place personally.

  He slipped on a shirt gingerly, wincing at each movement of his arm. It even hurt to breathe. Goddam it, he told himself. What the hell is wrong with you? So she looked like Cindy and it startled you. You’ve been a cop for almost twenty years. How could you let her get to you like that?

  It was time for shacharis. He put on a kipah and took out his tefillin. Kissing the two small prayer boxes, he fitted one atop his head, the seat of man’s intelligence, and the other on his left bicep, the symbol of his strength. He wound the leather strap down his arm, across his hand and around his middle finger. He looked at both arms. One was encased in black as a symbol of religious devotion, the other in white, thanks to a whore.

  Opening the siddur, he began the morning prayers, mumbling them in English by rote, his mind darting between the holy words he was uttering and the hellish images of last night. Thirty minutes later he closed the siddur, took off the phylacteries, and slipped on his shoulder harness. It was tight, the gun weighing heavily on his sore flesh.