Little Girl Lost (Hard Case Crime)

by Richard Aleas

  I dodged to one side and he tried to dodge to the other, but she followed him with the can, spraying into his eyes with a cloud of pepper spray that made me wince even from two feet away. Roy screamed, tried to wipe the stuff out of his eyes. With his other arm he was waving blindly in front of him, trying to knock the can away. Susan kept spraying, even once it was useless, just hitting the back of his sleeve. I took her arm and ran out into traffic with her, dodging cars, holding up my hand to get others to stop. One driver after another started honking.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” I said, pulling her along.

  We were on the other side now, and Roy was still clutching at his eyes down the block from the Derby, cursing, with a crowd gathered around him at a distance of a few feet. Some of the people were pointing at us, and one seemed to be running to find a policeman.

  “We need to get out of here,” I said. “Come on.”

  We ran toward Twenty-third Street, turned in and raced to the subway station. My side was aching again and I was out of breath. At the turnstile, I fished in my pocket and she fished in her purse. I found my MetroCard and slid it through the readers of two turnstiles. “Go. Go!”

  We pushed through to the platform. Behind us we could still hear noises from the street, shouting, cars honking. A train rumbled into the station and we got on it without even checking what train it was. It was going somewhere, and anywhere was better than here.

  Miraculously, there were two empty seats together. I collapsed into one of them. She sat in the other and put her face in her hands.

  “You shouldn’t have done it, Susan,” I said.

  She raised her head and I saw that she was crying. “What should I have done? Let him take you away?”

  “I would have gotten away from him. Somehow.”

  “I can never go back there now.”

  “No, probably not. Not there.”

  “You think anyone else will hire me? They all talk to each other.”

  She put her face back in her hands.

  We’d gotten on a downtown train, which was fine if we wanted to go to the Village or Soho or Chinatown. But where did we want to go? I didn’t know where she lived, assuming she lived in the city at all — it had sounded like she was on some sort of circuit, traveling from club to club, and for all I knew her permanent home was in some other part of the country entirely. We could go to my apartment or my office, but neither of those seemed especially safe right now — where I worked was no secret, and though my home number was unlisted, it wouldn’t take much effort to turn up my address. We needed a place where she could crash and where we’d be sure no one would look for her.

  There weren’t too many choices. Leo commuted in from a one-bedroom in Jersey, and I wasn’t going to drag her out there. We could take a hotel room, but I didn’t have enough cash on me, and charging a room to a credit card with my name on it — or hers — didn’t seem too smart. I could only think of one other place in the city that no one knew about or would connect with me, a place where I could stow her and she’d be safe, a spare bedroom I knew about because I’d lived there once, years ago.

  I could take her home to mother.

  When had I seen my mother last? It had been months. Her disappointment in me showed in her face, but she was much too polite to say anything, especially in front of a guest. I introduced Susan as Rachel, and had a strange feeling as I watched them shake hands. Mom, this is Rachel. She’s a stripper on the run from a thug she blinded with pepper spray and his boss, who works for a drug dealer who may also be a murderer. Can she stay here with you under a false name?

  “How long have you known each other?” my mother asked. Before either of us could answer, she said, “I’m sorry, where are my manners? Would you like some tea? I know John doesn’t drink tea, but would you like some?”

  Susan shook her head.

  “Some juice? Coffee? I don’t have any soft drinks, I’m afraid.”

  In a small voice, Susan said, “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “Well, all right.” Now my mother waited for the answer to her first question.

  “Rachel is involved with a case I’m working on,” I said.“We only met a few days ago.”

  “All right,” she said again, slowly. “I just thought, if you’re bringing her to meet me—”

  “I’m not — it’s just that she’s got no place to go.” On the way down, Susan had confirmed that she’d been staying at a hotel, and that the staff at the Sin Factory knew which hotel it was. “There are problems at the place she’s working, and she can’t go back there or go home, and I was thinking she could stay here for a few days.”

  “Well, of course, John, you know that’s still your room and you can use it any time you want.” That was what she said. What she meant was, but I never expected you to show up out of the blue and put a strange woman in it. You and I are going to need to have a talk about this later, when we’re alone.

  “Mom, you remember Miranda Sugarman?” Her face lit up. She’d always liked Miranda, had made no secret of her hope that we’d eventually get married. I put my hand on her arm and stroked it gently. “Miranda was shot a few days ago. She’s dead.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Rachel worked with Miranda at the place where it happened, and she’s not safe there. I’m trying to help her. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.” It was as if a curtain had dropped, and my mother suddenly looked her age. She’d turn sixty-one in a few weeks, and though I didn’t like to think of her that way, she was starting to look more like an old woman each time I saw her. Her hair had gone grey when I was a kid, but while I was living there she’d had it dyed every other week. No more. Her face was narrower than it had been, her nose sharper. And though she stood as straight as ever, the top of her head only came up to my shoulder now.

  “I should call Barbara,” she said, and stood up to head to the phone.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I went there, and Barbara’s—” Was there a good way to say it? They hadn’t been close, but they’d talked from time to time, no doubt conspired about the grandchildren we’d give them. “They told me she had a heart attack seven years ago.”

  My mother sat down again. “Everyone’s going,” she said quietly. “Every day, you turn on the news and it’s someone else. Last week it was that actor, the one from all the westerns.”

  “Michael Tynant,” I said. “I saw that.”

  “You know who else died? Elyse Knechtel. Right here, 14-D, you remember. Just the other day, they found her in her bed, like she was asleep.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “And you know who else? Maria, who used to run the bakery on Seventh Street? Her daughter. She was only twenty-nine. Your age. Some sort of disease, muscular something. Everybody’s dying.” She looked at Susan, who’d been standing silently by the door, watching us. Susan’s eyes were red and her hands were shaking. “Listen to me, talking about things like this. Of course you can stay here, sweetheart. Let me get you some sheets and a towel.”

  We sat in my old room, I on the room’s one chair, Susan on the twin bed with its fresh sheets. My Reservoir Dogs poster was still on the wall and I was sure none of the old clothing I’d left in the closet when I’d moved out had been touched.

  “So, what happens now?” Susan asked. She sounded numb, dazed. I couldn’t blame her.

  “You stay here for a few days while we sort everything out,” I said. “First thing is you give me your hotel key and we get your things out of your room and bring them back here.”

  “You can’t go there.”

  “No, but my boss can. They’ve never seen him, and even if they’re watching the hotel, they wouldn’t know what room you’re in.”

  “Unless someone at the front desk told them.”

  “If there’s anyone watching the room, Leo won’t go in. He knows what he’s doing.”

  “What if they’re waiting inside the room?”

  “He’s an ex-
cop, Susan. He can take care of himself better than either of us.”

  “Okay.”

  “Next, I’m going to need your help. I need to know how Miranda ended up at the Sin Factory. You know people in this business. I want you to make some calls for me.” I explained my theory about how Miranda and Jocelyn had gotten started, gave her the timeframe and the geography, and asked her to find out anything she could. “Where did they work, what did they do, when were they there — anything.”

  “I’ll help if I can,” she said, “but I’m not sure I’ll be able to find anything.”

  “I think you will.”

  “I’ve worked in a lot of clubs,” she said, “but there have got to be ten times as many that I’ve never heard of.”

  “You probably know people who know them.” She looked uncertain. “You know more than I do, anyway. Please. Just do the best you can. It’s important.”

  “All right,” she said. “And what will you be doing while I’m calling all the strip clubs in America and your partner is breaking into my hotel room?”

  “I’ll be talking to Murco Khachadurian,” I said.

  Chapter 13

  I called Leo from the hallway outside my mother’s apartment. It was after seven and normally he’d be heading to Port Authority soon to catch the 7:47 bus back home, but there was another bus at 9:40, and if he missed that there was a train. I explained what I needed him to do and told him I’d be at the office in twenty minutes to give him the key.

  “Every day I seem to be getting more involved in this project of yours,” he said. “Don’t I remember you telling me when all this started that you didn’t need my help?”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t need it. I said I wasn’t asking for it.”

  “And now you’re asking?”

  “It’ll take you twenty minutes. Not even. Fifteen.” He didn’t say anything. “Yes, I’m asking.”

  “Should I take a gun?” he said.

  “It’s just picking up a couple of bags from a hotel room.”

  He thought about it. “I’ll take a gun,” he said. “You probably should, too.”

  I didn’t much like carrying a gun, but there were times when it was called for. “Yes. I probably should.”

  I pushed the button for the elevator, and while I was waiting, a woman came out of 14-D carrying an armload of cardboard hatboxes. She looked a little like Mrs. Knechtel, thin brown hair framing an oval face seamed with tiny wrinkles. A sister, I guessed, or maybe a close cousin. She tried to push the door to the garbage room open with her hip. I opened it for her and held it while she lowered the boxes to the floor. Two framed posters were already there, leaning against the wall.

  “I heard what happened,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s just so sudden,” she said. “And there are so many things to go through. I don’t know where to start.”

  I knew how she felt.

  We traded, the key for the gun, and then each headed off in our own direction: Leo to the Martinique on Broadway and Thirty-second, I to my apartment. I watched him through the back window of my cab, saw him with his arm raised to hail one of his own. In the midwinter darkness, in his heavy overcoat and wool cap, Leo suddenly looked old to me, too.

  There was no one walking in the street as we pulled up to my building, and just a few cars were parked at the curb. The front door was glass and the hallway beyond was well lit. I could see all the way in to the stairs, and there was no one there. But there were plenty of places someone could stand and not be visible. Behind the door leading down to the basement was one choice; the second, third, or fourth floor landings were others. And there was always inside my apartment itself. I’d installed a Medeco lock and a police bar, but neither was a guarantee against intruders, especially when the building’s windows were so insecure.

  I thought about going around to the back, up the fire escape, and in through the window myself, but apart from the noise it would have made and the fact that anyone in my apartment would have a clear shot at me long before I’d have one at him, I just didn’t have it in me tonight.

  I gripped the gun in my right hand inside my jacket pocket and readied the front door key in my left. No one came while I was opening the door or, once I was in the vestibule next to the mailboxes, while I waited for it to swing closed. No one stopped me on the stairs. No one fired down on me from above or came up behind me from below. I took each flight slowly, pausing at each landing to release my grip on the gun, wipe my palm, and re-grip. The stairwell was silent, aside from the muffled sounds of television coming from behind some apartment doors.

  When I got to the fourth floor, I listened at my door for a full minute before unlocking it and cautiously pushing it open with my foot. I had the gun out, held before me in both hands to steady my aim if I needed it. I let the door slam shut behind me and quickly turned left and right to look into the kitchen and the bathroom. No one was standing behind the shower curtain or behind the kitchen door. There wasn’t room for anyone in the apartment’s one closet, but I checked anyway. I turned in a circle, trying to spot anything that looked like it had been disturbed. Nothing did. I lowered the gun, went back to the front door and locked it.

  Murco Khachadurian’s number was where I’d left it, next to the piece of paper with Kirsch’s and Mastaduno’s. I slipped both pieces of paper into my pocket along with whatever cash I had in my desk drawer. I unplugged the cell phone charger from the wall, coiled up the cord and put the whole thing in my jacket pocket. No way of knowing when I’d be back here next. What else might I need? I looked around. The Serner files were still lying on the bed. I slipped the rubber band back over them and put them under the bed. Not much of a hiding place, but it also wasn’t the end of the world if they got stolen.

  What else? I could change my clothes. I could take another hot shower. I could try to get some sleep, start with a fresh head tomorrow. These were all reasonable things to do, and they were all just excuses to put off what I had to do.

  I dug out the cell phone number and dialed it.

  His voice, when it finally came, sounded hoarse, like he’d spent the night talking in a crowded bar or the past twenty years smoking two packs a day.

  “Hello, who is this?”

  “Mr. Khachadurian?”

  “Yes? Who is this?”

  “My name is John Blake,” I said. “I’m a private investigator.”

  “Blake? You’re calling me? How did you get this number?”

  “It sounds like you know who I am,” I said. “That means you probably know I’m looking into the death of Miranda Sugarman.”

  Silence. Then: “I can’t talk to you now. I’m with company. I’ll call you back.”

  “Why don’t you tell them it’s a personal call and you have to take it,” I said.

  “Don’t push me,” he said. “We’ll talk when I’m ready to talk.” The line was disconnected.

  I put the cell phone down on my desk and watched it. Like the proverbial pot, it didn’t boil. But that was the number Khachadurian would be calling on if he did call back, since that was the number that would have shown up on his phone’s display.

  I wondered what he was doing. Company, he’d said, and in the background there’d been the noise of conversations, the sound of cutlery and dishes. It could have been a dinner party in Scarsdale or a restaurant just down the block. No way to tell.

  He’d known my name. Of course, all that meant is that Lenz had told him about the incident at the club, or maybe that one of the cards I’d handed out to the girls had made it back to him — but all the same it made me anxious. I had the feeling that Murco Khachadurian had been paying closer attention to me than I had realized.

  The more time passed without his calling back, the more nervous I got. What if he did know where I lived? It was certainly possible. That risk was why I hadn’t brought Susan here, and it was a good reason for me not to stick around either. Maybe there hadn’t been someone waiting for me in my apartment
, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t someone watching the building from the street, or that there wouldn’t be momentarily.

  I grabbed the cell phone and the gun, took one last look around for anything I might be forgetting. I was locking the door behind me when the cell phone started buzzing. I pocketed my keys and flipped the phone open left-handed, holding tight to the gun in my other hand.

  “I ended my dinner early for you, Mr. Blake,” he said. “Now I’m ready to talk.”

  “Good.” I started down the stairs.

  “I want to know everything you know about Miranda Sugarman,” he said.

  “That’s funny,” I said, “I was about to say exactly the same thing.”

  “Well, then, maybe we can sit down together, share some information.”

  “I appreciate the invitation, but I prefer the phone. Scarsdale is a little out of my way.”

  “Who said anything about Scarsdale? We’re right here, Mr. Blake.”

  I rounded the corner to the last half-flight of stairs. An enormous man was standing with one foot on the lowest step and a gun held casually in his fist. Behind him, a thin man with a grey crew cut was talking into a cell phone. He saw me and flipped it closed, raised the gun in his other hand. “Put your gun down, Mr. Blake. And the phone. You won’t need them.”

  Chapter 14

  Maybe in his prime Leo would have gone for the double play. Or maybe he would have turned around and run for it, back up the four floors and into the apartment, or maybe up five and out onto the roof. And maybe he’d have pulled it off. I didn’t have a chance.

  I lowered the gun, put it down on the stairs, snapped my cell phone back into its holster.

  The younger man came up to meet me, leaned over to snatch up my gun, and gestured me down to the foot of the stairs. He stood well over six feet and had a neck like a linebacker’s packed into a collarless shirt. It looked like he used the same grease in his hair that Lenz used. This must be Little Murco, though it had clearly been years since the nickname had fit.