Strip Search

by Rex Burns

  She was back again, the white of her plastic purse and the glow of her pink miniskirt competing with the other bright colors crowding the sidewalk. Wager cruised past once and slowed, catching her eye. He turned right and circled the block, pulling into the curb lane as she watched the car approach and ease to a stop.

  His arm was on the steering wheel and his face half-hidden behind it. “Hop in, Mama—let’s go for a ride.”

  She glanced into the backseat, found it empty, then opened the door. “Sure, honey. I been waiting for you.” Getting in quickly, she told him, “Go around the block, honey, and let’s talk business first.”

  Wager pulled away. “You’re looking good, LaBelle.”

  He felt her squint toward him with sudden suspicion. The faint tang of marijuana puffed out of her clothes. “You know me? Who are you?”

  “I’m a cop, LaBelle.”

  “Shit—lemme out. Right now, goddamn you!”

  “Relax, baby. If I was looking to bust you, I’d give you the money before I gave you the word.”

  “Yeah? Now you want to shake me for a free sample? Stop over there in the light, pig, I want to see who you are.”

  He kept driving; she wouldn’t jump from a moving car. “I’ll tell you who I am: Gabe Wager.”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  “I put you away for three-to-five, LaBelle.”

  “You fucking greaser son of a fucking bitch.”

  “That’s right, LaBelle—no hard feelings.” From the corner of his eye he saw her gather herself for an attack. “But before you get busted for assaulting an officer, I got a deal for you.”

  “What kind of deal? I don’t deal with pigs. You know that.”

  “Everybody knows that. Which is why I want to talk with you.”

  “You tried it before—it didn’t work, piggy.”

  “And I respect you for it.”

  “Shit.”

  “Really, LaBelle. I asked you to fink on your friends, and you didn’t do it. I respect that. But this is something different—you don’t know the people, and it could be worth some real money to you.”

  “I know you. That’s enough. You stop this thing and you let me out.”

  “I don’t look for dopers now, LaBelle. I’m in Homicide.”

  “I ain’t killed nobody. Not yet.”

  “Somebody’s killing girls along the strip.”

  “What somebody?”

  “That’s part of the deal.”

  She looked at him and then out the window. Her hands began rustling in her purse and, under Wager’s quick glance, came up with a handmade cigarette and lit it. The sharp odor drifted through the car and she watched for his reaction. “This here’s an illegal substance, piggy. You want a hit?”

  “I never smoke anything, LaBelle.”

  “You just blow smoke, that’s all.”

  “I’m after a guy who blows off the backs of girls’ skulls. Girls that work the strip.”

  “What’s their names?”

  He told her.

  “I don’t know them. They don’t mean shit to me.”

  “You know the Cinnamon Club and Foxy Dick’s.”

  “That who it is? Them amateurs? They can waste all of them, as far as I’m concerned.” She drew deeply on the joint and held the smoke down a long time. “Cheap-assed amateurs, hustling johns!”

  “I don’t think either one of them was in the life. But I’d like to know for sure.”

  “That’s what you want? Me to find out if they was hustling?”

  “That, and anything else you can pick up about them or their clubs. Who they were seen with. Any deals they might have going. Anybody working out of the clubs in a regular way. Anything at all.”

  “Well, that’s real sweet. What’s in it for me?”

  “Depends on what you get. I can go as high as a thousand if it gets me the right people.”

  “You want to make me a state employee, is that it?”

  The money came out of his own pocket. Doyle had to authorize in advance any funds paid to informants, and Wager knew that none of this would be approved. But he didn’t have much to spend it on anyway—certainly nothing that would bring him as much satisfaction as nailing a killer. “You don’t get any retirement benefits, but it’s tax-free.”

  She grinned, a sight verging on the ugly. “So I can still get my food stamps, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I’ll think it over.” Pointing, she said, “Let me out over there where it’s dark and I’ll walk back. I don’t want to be seen getting out of no Spickmobile.”

  CHAPTER 7

  THE NEXT HOMICIDE victim on the strip was a male, and there was no indication that the murders were related. Wager and Axton had rotated to the day shift—eight-to-four—and now most of their time was spent in court, or following leads that the other shifts couldn’t trace when offices and shops were closed, or finishing up the paperwork on bookings. If the team concept had any benefit, it was in areas like that; but, Wager knew, they had always covered for each other anyway, and had done so without having given up authority over their own cases.

  Axton leafed quickly through the file left by Ross and Devereaux before he headed for the City-County Building and its long, echoing corridors of marble slabs and frosted glass doors. “Looks like a get-even hit,” he said. “But give me a call if you need me—I’m in Wolford’s court today.” He handed Wager the file.

  “Good luck,” said Wager. Max would need it. Wolford was one of those judges whose sense of legal majesty outweighed his sense of the law. He liked an audience and insisted that every officer involved in a case be present throughout the entire hearing, whether the officer’s role was material or not. Wager had tried to get Bulldog Doyle to run one of his time studies on the manpower wasted sitting in front of the pompous Wolford, but the division chief had only shoved out those lower teeth a little farther and said he knew damned well how much time was lost in that courtroom and it wasn’t Wager’s business to worry about it.

  It was his business to worry about homicides, and Wager opened the manila folder of this, the latest, of the city’s violent deaths. He warmed up his coffee and read of the killing of one Richard Goddard. Identified by his fingerprints and a slender information jacket in the police files, he had been found burned, carved on, and beaten to death late the preceding afternoon. The official crime report and the medical report were accompanied by unofficial notes that were far more interesting—speculations and street rumors picked up by the investigators. These indicated that the killing was a revenge slaying, which, of course, pointed toward the victim’s good buddies and friendly associates, several of whom were listed on the contact cards in Goddard’s jacket. That dossier also listed half-a-dozen contacts by Narcotics officers and two arrests for possession with intent. But no further action—no arraignments, no trials, no convictions. It was a pattern inferring that someone had used the arrests to turn Goddard into an informant, and Wager telephoned the man who might know.

  “Sergeant Politzky, Vice and Narcotics.”

  “Hello, Ski—Wager in Homicide. We have the remains of one Richard Goddard. Was he somebody’s snitch over there?”

  “Goddard … I can’t place him. Let me ask around.” He couldn’t resist adding, “He won’t be going anywhere, right?”

  Politzky watched a lot of sitcoms on TV. It was one of the hazards of talking with the man. “He’ll stay put, Ski.”

  “If he doesn’t, I want to know what vitamins he uses—ha!”

  “Just call me if you get anything, Ski.” He hung up as the man was asking what Wager wanted him to call him. Spreading the papers across his desk, he read through a statement by Goddard’s parents taken early this morning by Devereaux and Ross. Several names they mentioned as friends of their son also appeared on the contact cards. Some of those were marked as having jackets of their own down in Records, and—given the probabilities—those were the people to start with. Ross and Devereaux had gotten as fa
r as listing the addresses of the most promising before going off duty this morning. With Max in court, the legwork was left to Wager, and he drained his coffee and got going.

  Judging from their record of arrests and rumors, two names looked good: James, AKA Jimmy, King; and Charles, AKA Lizard, Plummer. Plummer was still on parole; his address would be current. Wager started with him.

  The man who answered the apartment door tried to pretend that Wager wasn’t a cop. “I don’t want to buy nothing.”

  He had his badge case in hand. “Police. Are you Charles Plummer?”

  He had high cheekbones and tiny black eyes in puffy, wrinkled lids that accounted for his nickname. His black hair, brushed back and slicked over to hide a balding spot on his crown, ran far down his neck and ended in a little shaggy fringe that curled up in what used to be called a duck’s ass. “I’m him. What do you want?” When he spoke, his lips scarcely opened, and his voice verged on a husky, private whisper.

  “I want to know about Richard Goddard. Do you want to talk here in the hall, down at headquarters, or inside your apartment?”

  Plummer blinked once or twice, then stepped aside and held open the door. “Come in.” He closed the door behind him. “You with Homicide?”

  “That’s right. Detective Wager.”

  The man lit a cigarette and wagged the match out; a little swirl of smoke hung in the air for a moment and caught the light in a pearly question mark. “I heard of you. People say you’re a hard-ass.”

  “I’m one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet, Lizard. Warm and affectionate. Do you have an alibi for yesterday morning?”

  “That’s when Rick bought it?”

  “More or less. The fun and games lasted awhile.”

  He sucked on the cigarette and cupped the butt under his palm, prison style. “I read about it this morning. Too bad.” He drew again. “I was here. Home.” His glance went around the box of a room. In an alcove, a small refrigerator was tucked under a hot plate. The cold-water sink served both people and dishes.

  “Anybody see you?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. The mailman, maybe. I sleep late. I get off work between eleven and midnight and sleep late.”

  “What do you do for a living, Lizard?”

  “I’m a dishwasher. Holiday Inn.” For the first time since answering the door, he looked straight at Wager. “I don’t have nothing to do with it. I swear.”

  “You did some time for dealing. We figure Ricky either ripped somebody off or was nailed for a snitch. And you’re a known associate.”

  “I’m clean. I did my time and I been clean since.”

  “You’re still on parole, Lizard. It doesn’t take a trial to put you back in the can for consorting with a known felon.”

  “Hey, I didn’t know Goddard was a felon. He never said nothing to me about being busted.”

  “He’s got a jacket. That’s a public record.”

  “Man, all we did was drink beer and talk! I always have a few beers after work and I’d run into him now and then. And that’s all it was: talk!”

  “What about?”

  “Things—everything. Hell, I don’t know. What do you talk about when you drink beer with a guy?”

  “You might talk contacts. You might talk buying and selling. You might talk about the profit margin in an ounce of pure.”

  “I’m out of the action, Wager. I told you—I’m clean now. And I don’t know nothing about Rick dealing, either. He never said nothing about that to me.”

  “I’m just telling it the way a parole officer might see it, Plummer. One who doesn’t want any black marks on his record.”

  The man sucked again on the cigarette and then pinched out the fire between his fingers. He stripped the paper from the butt and dumped the remaining tobacco in an ashtray that held a little pile of earlier remains. The pellet of paper shot into the trash. “I had nothing to do with it, Wager.” He looked up, black eyes two glittering specks. “You’re trying to turn me, aren’t you? You want me in your stable, don’t you?”

  “I can always use the help of a concerned citizen.”

  He shook his head. “I’m clean. You got nothing on me. Nothing!”

  “Consorting, Lizard. Suspicion of homicide. Failure to cooperate in a police investigation. Violating the fire code with a dirty ashtray. I’ve got all I need, because it doesn’t take much for a parolee.”

  “I didn’t know the guy had a record!”

  “That makes no difference and you know it, Plummer. Your name came up in the contact cards as a known associate of a murdered dealer. All I have to do is whisper that to your PO. What do you have left, four years? One whisper, and you’re doing them inside.”

  The man turned and walked the three steps to a narrow window that looked across two feet of air at a grimy brick wall. From somewhere came the muffled thump of a stereo, like a manic hammer against the ceiling. Plummer glared up at the sound. “Fucking kid and his fucking record player!”

  Wager shifted his weight to his other leg and waited.

  “What is it you want?” Plummer spoke to the glass and the wall beyond.

  “If you were in on it, I want you to turn state’s evidence against whoever helped you out.” Wager continued as the man turned angrily. “Or, if you had no part of it, I want you to find out who did.”

  “That’s all? You just want me to walk down the street asking, ‘Hey, who rubbed Goddard?’”

  “I want you to go out and listen, Lizard. Just tell me what you hear.”

  “Sure—just like Goddard. You say he got it for being a snitch and now you want me to stick my neck out.” A thought struck him. “Was he one of yours? Is that what you’re doing—putting me in his place?”

  “I don’t know if he was a snitch. Maybe he shorted somebody on a deal.”

  “Which is what you want me to find out.”

  “That’s part of it.”

  “Part? What the hell more?”

  “Let me know what you hear about these two.” He tore a leaf of paper from his little notebook and wrote down the names of Sheldon and Williams. “They worked at the Cinnamon Club and at Foxy Dick’s. I want to know if they were dealing.”

  Plummer frowned as he read the names. “Pussy palaces—that’s not my turf. That kind of crap just turns me off. It’s too damn depressing.”

  Wager lifted some twenties out of his wallet and set them on the arm of the worn sofa. “Expand your horizons. As my guest.”

  Plummer looked at the bills and then at him. “You’re not really after the guy who snuffed Ricky, are you? You want the one who did for these broads, don’t you?”

  “I want them both. But Ricky will be easier—it took more than one person to beat him to death, and they did it that way for a message. Sooner or later somebody’s going to spill. But those two … I can’t even come up with a motive on them.”

  “The paper said they were raped—a sex crime.”

  “That’s one theory. Maybe the guy’s still around. Maybe you can buy him a drink and he’ll tell you all about it.”

  “Great.” The man’s eyes swiveled back to the small stack of twenties; finally, he told Wager where he spent his time drinking and where he’d met Goddard: a hole-in-the-wall bar called the Eveready Lounge. It was halfway down the Colfax strip and there might have been a little dealing going on. “I mean, who can tell, you know? It’s small, it’s quiet, there’s a few girls work there steady, and a lot of regulars, so you know who’s around. If I was in the action—which I am not—it’s the kind of place I’d like.”

  “Does Jimmy King hang out there?”

  “King? You know about him?” Plummer spat a shred of tobacco. “Yeah. He likes to think he’s big-time. A punk like that! He wouldn’t last twenty minutes in Cañon City. His asshole’d be as big as Eisenhower Tunnel in twenty minutes.”

  “Is that where he met Ricky?”

  “Once in awhile. Him and somebody name of Clinton. I don’t know him too good. A few o
ther dudes once in awhile.”

  “Any names?”

  He shook his head. “Wasn’t my business to ask.”

  “What did they look like?”

  “People. They didn’t look like hoods or street scum, if that’s what you mean. Just people. Straights.” He thought back. “One guy had a big mustache and glasses. Another looked like an albino—you know: white hair and pink skin. There was one big guy—not too tall, but heavy, you know, with his hair brushed up like a brush. Just people.”

  “But King had business with them?”

  “I guess. Him and Clinton, anyway. The punk’s got his own booth in the back. Thinks he’s a real godfather, you know? He sits back there and these people come in and talk with him. But I don’t know what about, Wager. I never asked.”

  “What’s Clinton look like?”

  The cigarette crackled faintly as Plummer thought. “About forty-five. White guy. Not too tall, not too short. Likes to wear suits all the time like he’s a salesman or something. Brown eyes. He’s got brown eyes.”

  “Color of hair?”

  “Dark, I guess. It’s got a lot of gray in it.”

  “And Ricky had some business going with him and King?”

  “Yeah. He did.”

  “What do you think it was?”

  “I guess maybe Ricky was dealing a little. It wasn’t big-time, but he wanted to be big-time. I guess he thought King was something hot with his own booth and all. But, shit, I seen bigger in the Boy Scouts.”

  “Where does Clinton fit in?”

  “I’m not sure. He may be the supplier. He’s bigger than King, that’s for sure.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, you can tell—Clinton comes in once in awhile and goes back to King’s booth and that kid’s sucking right up to him. Waving his fucking hand at the bartender for a drink for his asshole buddy Clinton, and all. But it’s Clinton does the talking and King listens. King’s stooging for him, that’s what it is.”

  “Do you have a line on Clinton? Do you know him from anywhere else?”

  Plummer shook his head. “That’s the only place I ever seen him. Like I told you, Wager, I’m out of it. I go to work, I go there for a few beers, I go home—that’s it.”