Strip Search

by Rex Burns

  “A hot-and-cold. Over in a booth. First she makes her mouth real cold with an ice cube, and then she makes it real hot with a cup of coffee. Back and forth like that. It’s really a talent. You ought to buy her some champagne and see.” He looked past Wager to where the women sat looking bored on their cluster of barstools. “I wish I had enough to go to a booth with her. She really is nice.”

  Wager peered through the blue light at the man, looking for the irony in his expression that he didn’t hear in his voice. But it wasn’t there. The small, close-set eyes gazed down the bar with rounded admiration and then blinked and looked at Wager.

  “I got enough to buy you a beer, though,” he said hesitantly. “Can I buy you a beer?” He held out a hand that was equally hesitant. “I’m Douglas MacArthur Woodcock. No relation to Douglas MacArthur,” he explained earnestly. “My dad just liked the name, my mama told me.”

  Wager shook the soft hand. “Call me Gabe.”

  “That’s a nice name. I don’t think I ever met anybody with that name. Pat”—he held up a finger to the bartender—”a couple draws for me and my friend Gabe, here.”

  A new dancer came onstage and stood laughing and talking with the men at her feet as she waited for someone to put money in the jukebox. She wore a flaring dress with a lot of buttons down the front, and her laughter cut like glass through the deeper male voices. Behind him, Wager heard another female voice rise in self-righteousness, “I told her, ‘Honey, he only wants to see two things in your mouth, and one of them’s a cigarette.’ But she wouldn’t listen!”

  The bartender set the cold glasses down, his eyes flicking from Wager to the pudgy-faced man. He took the money without a nod.

  “Cheers,” said Douglas MacArthur Woodcock.

  Wager sipped. “So you spend a lot of time here?”

  “Sure. There’s always something going on. And the floor shows are real neat—the performers are real talented. Better than anything on TV,” he said again. And there was still no note of irony, just earnest conviction, like a tour guide afraid Wager might miss the real beauty of the scene. “Since Mama died, I don’t have noplace else I want to be. I don’t have no family, you see. My dad was killed before I was born,” he smiled. “In Korea. He was a soldier, and that’s how I got my name.”

  Wager wondered if he was supposed to say “That’s nice.” “Have you seen a white-haired man come in? Not gray—white. Like an albino.”

  “Sure. He comes here maybe two or three times a week.”

  Someone started the jukebox and a nasal voice loudly moaned about waking up in a cold bed with a hot pillow in his arms. The girl on stage stepped and wriggled awkwardly to the dragging beat and undid two or three buttons. Wager had to lean forward to hear. “Do you know him?”

  “No. I thought you did—I heard you ask Pat about ‘Whitey.’“

  “That’s just what I call him,” said Wager. “I want to find him—I owe him something.”

  “Gee, I wish I could help. But I just see him, you know?”

  “Does he come in regularly? Does he have any special days he comes in?”

  The man thought a moment and then shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m here all the time, so it’s hard to tell what day it is. He just comes in, that’s all.”

  “Did you ever see him with anybody?”

  “No. … It’s so hard to remember. I think he goes on back. They have a back room where it’s not so loud. But you can’t see the shows from there.”

  “Where’s this room?”

  “On the other side of the stage. But it’s for private parties. I’ve been back a couple times to help clean up, but it’s mostly for private parties.”

  The music ended and the girl on the platform played with the line of buttons, undoing every other one and swinging her hips to some imaginary beat. Someone put another fifty cents in the jukebox to bring a tune with a faster rhythm, and the girl smiled and caught the beat and began working the rest of the buttons as she twirled. The recorded voice sang, “She always pours her beer down the middle because she likes the head.”

  “You people want another round?” Pat the bartender stood behind Wager and peered at him through the dimness.

  Wager nodded and watched the girl undo the last button and shrug out of the dress with her arms upraised, bra and panties glowing pale blue when she pirouetted out of the smoky spotlight to kick her clothes somewhere.

  “That’s Maggie,” Woodcock said. “She’s got nice fingers.”

  “What?”

  “In the booth—she uses her fingers, you know? And she’s real good. I like it when there’s two or three of us there. She’ll take two or three of us over and it’s real friendly and mellow.” Douglas MacArthur Woodcock glanced at Wager and smiled. “It don’t cost so much that way, either, and it’s lots better than doing it by yourself.”

  Wager drained his beer. “Here—” He laid ten dollars on the bar. “Have another one.” He added, “If you can find out the name of the white-haired man, I’ll give you enough to buy a bottle of champagne for any girl here.”

  The close-set eyes rounded. “A whole bottle? By myself? Gee!”

  As he left, Wager saw the bartender’s face in the dim light of the mirror. It followed him until Wager reached the door, then the slope-shouldered man moved toward Woodcock and began collecting the dirty glasses. Through the loud wailing of guitars, a woman’s voice called after him, “So long, Big Spender!”

  He shaved carefully the next morning, angling the corner of the razor along the welt of flesh that had dried and darkened but showed no signs of infection. It still caught Axton’s eye, but his partner said nothing about it. Instead, he laid in front of Wager a handwritten note from someone on an earlier shift. It said, “Word on street is Wager is looking for white-haired man. What’s up?”

  He looked at his partner. “The word’s right.”

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  “If it stays with you.”

  “That’s what partners are for.”

  Wager told him some of it—the part about the two bums. Max listened closely as he gazed through the sealed windows and out over the stubby buildings toward a distant forest of construction cranes, lacy and graceful in the clear morning light. Wager finished and Axton was silent for a while.

  “Gabe, you can’t do it by yourself.”

  “Don’t start with that ‘team concept’ crap.”

  “It’s not that. Well, it will be, if the Bulldog finds out what you’re up to. But it’s not that with me.”

  He had a good idea what Max meant, but he asked anyway. “Then what?”

  “You went off on your own before. It was wrong then, and it’s wrong now. Gabe, honest to God, I can’t let it happen again. I shouldn’t have let it happen that other time.”

  “You didn’t let it happen. You didn’t have much to say about it.”

  “I didn’t tell Doyle about it, either.”

  That was true. Wager had set up a man to be killed because the law couldn’t touch him, and Max knew about it. He knew about it before Wager did it, and he watched in silence when Wager arranged things. The case—the Tony Ojala murder—was still in the Open drawer and always would be. But if the act hadn’t been legal, it had been just, and it wasn’t his fault that Max didn’t see it that way. “You want a medal?”

  A tinge of red colored the side of his neck. “I don’t want it to happen again, that’s all. You know what I think of lynch law.”

  “I’m trying to find this man, Max. Not lynch him. I want to find him without scaring him off. I’m the only one on his tail, and he’s not running because he figures he can handle me. But if we get the whole damned team thumping after him, he’s gone.”

  “You’re sure he has something to do with the stripper killings?”

  “I’m sure he had something to do with Doc’s murder.” Wager’s thumb dragged along the mark on his cheek. “And Doc was asking questions about the girls. And the m.o.’s the same. That�
�s all I’m sure of.”

  Axton shoved a large hand through his sand-colored hair. “You’re right—it’s a lead, and a good one.” He looked sharply at Wager. “What makes you think he’s not already running?”

  “This.” He touched his cheek again. “He’s not afraid. Not yet, anyway.”

  “That is a bullet burn, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Jesus, Gabe. … Tell me about it.”

  Wager gave him the rest of it. When he finished, Max just shook his head and said “Jesus” again. Then, slowly, turning his heavy shoulders away, “That’s a shitty thing to do to me, Gabe.”

  He was puzzled. “What thing?”

  “Trying to get your ass shot off. Not telling me what was going on. I’m your partner. You get yourself killed … hell, I’ll have to break in a new partner. You didn’t even think about telling me, did you?”

  Wager decided that Max was joking. “Yeah, well, maybe you’ll get Munn. He’s already broken in.”

  “I’m not joking! We’re partners. That means something to me—it means when I stick my neck out, you’ll back me up. The same thing goes for you. But you didn’t even give me a chance to stand by you. You knew it was a trap and you went into it and you never even gave me a chance to cover you! What the hell’s the matter, Wager, I’m not good enough to be your goddamned partner?”

  Max never got angry. Wager, jaw sagging, gazed at the large, flushed face and the blue eyes hot with anger. This angry glare wasn’t Max.

  “Well, crap on you!” Axton wheeled and bumped into a desk, knocking it two feet into the aisle and tumbling its lamp with a clatter. “I’m due in court.” He jammed the lamp upright. “You make up your mind—I’m your partner or I’m not!”

  He watched the figure lunge out of the office, shoulders hoisted rigidly around his neck. When he disappeared, the fluorescent lights overhead buzzed sharply as Wager tried to figure out what he had said that had hurt the big man’s feelings.

  He still didn’t know the next day, and Axton said nothing more. There may have been a touch of coolness in his “Good morning,” but it disappeared in the soothing routine of daily reports and queries. Wager’s puzzlement was shortlived, too, but for a different reason. When, in the past, someone had laid obscure claim to him, Wager had found no answer to the “Why?” so he tended to ignore it. He had seen in others, especially as a kid, an attractiveness that made people immediately like them. But never in himself. It was an admission he made with neither regret nor longing—it was just a fact: he was not one of those “likable guys” and that was fine. He didn’t yearn to be, like he didn’t yearn for blond hair or blue eyes. So when someone was hurt because he showed the distance he felt between himself and those who called him friend—or even partner—it surprised him. He did not need that kind of camaraderie, and it surprised him that anyone else sought it from him. But that was their problem, not his; at the deepest, bedrock level of his being, he knew that he needed no one at all, and he was content with that knowledge. If he needed anything, it was only his work.

  He scanned the crime report sheet from neighboring agencies, his eye snagging homicides and names that rang familiarly from past cases. Douglas County reported a teenaged girl raped and killed, but it was a strangling, not a small-caliber weapon to the back of the head. Still, Wager jotted it down just in case. Another hit-and-run up in Boulder, vehicular homicide. Deceased and unidentified male found in the woods in Jefferson County; treated as a homicide victim until the cause of death could be determined. From other neighboring counties came lists of burglaries and disturbances that he went over quickly, until one entry in the Assault section stopped him. Douglas MacArthur Woodcock. He had been found, severely beaten, by the Adams County sheriff’s office, and was now listed in critical condition at the University Medical Center.

  CHAPTER 13

  THE WARD NURSE did not question their jurisdiction. She recognized him and Axton for cops and scarcely glanced at their badges; her nod at their request was only confirmation of what she already knew.

  “The other officers couldn’t get much out of him, and he may still be sedated. Would you register here, please?”

  Wager signed his and Axton’s names and the time on the visitor’s log, then followed her directions down the wide hall to the third door. Woodcock’s bed was surrounded by a clutter of equipment. Most of it stood unused, but a tube ran into his nostril, and his right arm was slung and strapped firmly to his bandaged chest. Another tube ran liquid into his left arm. His swathed head rested in a padded brace that lifted his chin awkwardly, and the purple, egg-shaped lumps and crusted dots of stitching across his face almost hid the pulp that had been his nose. The heavy door thudded softly as it closed, and the man on the bed made some kind of sound.

  “Woodcock—can you hear me?”

  A stuttered moan between dry, puffed lips.

  “I talked to you last night, remember? I asked you about the white-haired man.”

  One of the swollen lids struggled open and a blood-streaked eye rolled toward the sound of the voice. Even beneath the puffy flesh and the pale-green sheet, Wager could see a tenseness come into the man’s body. He grunted, gasped, and tried to grunt again as Axton murmured, “Take it easy—don’t try to talk. Just whisper.”

  A sigh of relaxing effort. Wager and Axton leaned toward the sour, clogged breath. “You remember, Woodcock? My name’s Gabe—you bought me a beer.”

  The answer was more like a breath than words, but they heard it: “Go away.”

  Wager held up his badge case. “I’m a cop, Woodcock. I want to get the people who beat you up.”

  “You? Cop?”

  “That’s right. I want to get the people who did this. Who was it?”

  “Uh unh.”

  “Did the white-haired man do this to you?” There was no answer. Wager leaned closer. “Woodcock—did the white-haired man do this to you?” Behind him, Wager heard the door thump again and the ward nurse’s shoes creaked on the floor wax. “Woodcock—you can hear me. Come on, now, we’re trying to help you. Did the white-haired man do this?”

  “Can’t go …” The words faded.

  “What? Can’t what?”

  “… back. Can’t go back.” In the purple corner of one of the eyes, a tear spilled into the creased and swollen flesh. “Only place … Can’t go back.”

  “What’s he mean?” muttered Axton.

  “No more hand”—Wager’s eyes caught the nurse’s—”shakes at the bar.” He leaned over the man again. “Come on, Woodcock, give me a name. Who did it?”

  “Uh unh … go way. …”

  The nurse said briskly, “I’m sorry, gentlemen. Maybe he’ll change his mind when he feels better. Sometimes they do.”

  And sometimes they didn’t. A lot of times it was the other way around after the victim had had a week or so of thinking about what else could have been done to him. Wager left a business card on the metal table beside the bed. “Here’s my office number, Woodcock. If you change your mind, call that number. Any time of day or night. You hear me?”

  The figure lay with its eyes closed and made no answer. The fluorescent ceiling light caught on another drop, like a bead of sweat, squeezed through the oily, puffed slit of eyelids.

  On the way to their car, baking in the cloudless sun beside a bright yellow curb, Max asked, “Do you think he’ll testify?”

  Wager shook his head. “Whitey broke his spirit. The poor bastard didn’t have much to start with, and now even that’s gone.”

  “You think it was Whitey?”

  “I do. The bartender heard us talking about him.”

  It was Axton’s turn to drive. He pushed the shuddering, underpowered sedan through the weaving traffic and out into the crowded lanes of Colorado Boulevard. “Maybe we should lean on that bartender. Or get the locals to do it.”

  “I’d like to. But it might scare off Whitey. Whatever he’s up to, he’s still trying to protect it—he’s not running yet.”
And Wager guessed that the man had not figured that the Taco Kid and Detective Sergeant Wager were one and the same; Woodcock had been beaten as a warning to that scruffy Mexican who had been asking the bartender all those nosy questions.

  “He knows you’re after him.”

  “Yes. And I want him to keep thinking I’m the only one interested.” He felt Max stifle a comment, and neither man hinted anything about yesterday’s outburst. But a few minutes later, Wager added: “When we’re ready, we’ll nail him, partner.”

  For some reason, that made Axton very happy.

  Homicide Detective John Lee of the Adams County sheriff’s office was not very happy to run across Detective Wager again. He demanded to know what the hell Wager was doing sticking his nose in a case that had no clear ties to the city and county of Denver. “You left Woodcock your goddamn business card, Wager. You told him if he changed his mind, he should call you. The nurse heard what you told him. Now what in hell is going on? If you’ve got information about a case in my jurisdiction, I got a right to know what it is!”

  Newport Beach didn’t teach their cops manners either. “I knew the victim, Lee. We were drinking buddies. He gave me some information awhile back, and I dropped by to see how he was doing.” It wasn’t untrue. And what was Wager supposed to do? Tell Lee he’d been undercover without clearing it first with Adams County? Or even with his own boss?

  “Yeah? An informant?” The line was silent while the man on the other end turned over that item. “All right. So why’d you ask about a white-haired man? It sounds like you know something, Wager, and you’re looking for corroboration.”

  Lee wasn’t quite as dumb as he looked. “Only a possibility. He and a white-haired man had a beef. I thought that’s who it might be. Woodcock couldn’t tell me a thing.”

  Another meditative silence. “And you know nothing about it?”

  “Not a thing, Lee. I thought you were Homicide. What are you doing on this case?”

  “Crimes Against Persons. That includes Assault. It damn near was a homicide, though. I’ve seen people worked over before, but Woodcock got it by an expert. Or a sadist. Whoever did it enjoyed it.”