Authors: Lynn Hightower
“That's smooth, David. And if you're going to the Continental, wear your gun outside your shirt. That way you'll blend in.”
A weary voice drifted up from the backseat. “Greet the officers from vice for me, Detective David.”
Mel grinned. “The Elaki makes a joke.”
TEN
The district attorney had once told David that half the crimes he prosecuted originated at the Continental Inn. Where were you staying, sir? The Continental Inn. Ma'am, can you tell me where the meeting took place? The Continental Inn. Where did you first hear of the incident? The Continental Inn.
Interesting place for Teddy Blake.
Sweat had dried, salty on his back, and David felt grimy.
The sensor that should have registered his presence was out of commission. If this place burned, they'd never get an accurate body count.
The lobby had a musty, sour smell and a thin, blue-patterned carpet that looked like a fine layer of sponge on the floor. In the corner, a fig tree dropped a spray of waxy green leaves in a last-ditch bid for attention.
David felt a thrum of vibration under his armpit and touched his gun, stroking the alarm chip. The hotel had a field going. Weapons would not work here.
Not a bad policy, for a hotel like the Continental.
The desk clerk was short enough that the counter came up to his chest. He was bald, a faint stubble of hair intimating that he was bald by choice. He had a dimple in his chin, and his left ear had five piercing holes but no earrings.
David showed his ID. “Teddy Blake. What room?”
A curious stillness settled over the desk clerk, and his smile was surface tension only.
“Three fifty-two.” He did not check the computer.
David gave him a cop look. “Just like that? Off the top of your head?”
The man touched the stubble on his scalp with a sudden, self-conscious motion. He put his hand back on the counter, voice soft and bland to the point of being offensive. “Three fifty-two. Sir.”
David shrugged, bypassed the elevator for the stairs.
It was hot in the stairwell, and David started sweating again. He heard footsteps behind him and moved to one side. A familiar-looking man in blue jeans and a polo shirt took the steps two at a time. The guy had the buffed-up physique and expensive tennis shoes that said vice cop, and he carried a grease-spotted pizza box. David sniffed. Onions and sausage.
“String says hello,” David said softly, after the man was out of earshot.
The hallway was dimly lit, and cooler than the stairwell, but not by much. Clean enough, David decided, if one did not mind water-spotted ceilings and a grey film of grunge in the corners. Same carpet pattern as in the lobby, this one red.
David turned a corner, frowned, tried to understand a numbering system that stopped dead at one end, then started fresh at random in the middle. He heard the roar of a crowd and an excited male mumbleâsportscaster. Someone's television was way too loud. David looked at the number over the door. Three fifty-two.
He ran a hand through black curly hair, thinking maybe he'd gotten it cut too short last time. He knocked hard, wondering if Teddy Blake would hear him over the ball game.
She was psychic, she ought to know he was there.
David waited. Heard screams from the crowd, the announcer going wild. An unladylike shoutâ“Go, go, go!” David knocked again.
“I'm coming, Detective, have some patience, okay?”
The volume muted. David heard a woman sobbing softly in the next room. He looked over his shoulder, unpleasantly reminded of the kind of motels where the department put him up when he traveled. The only hotel rooms that did not depress him were the unaffordable kind.
The door swung open. He almost didn't recognize her.
Her hair was pulled loosely back, and she wore a thin tank top that was bright orange and said
TENNESSEE VOLS
. Her cutoff jeans were rolled to an indecent level at the tops of her thighs, making David wonder if the room air-conditioning was on the blink.
She was tan, her arms firm and muscular; the tan was too imperfect to be chemical. David decided she had to be the only person on Earth who hadn't had a fear of skin cancer drummed into her head since birth.
“Come on in, if you're coming.” She turned her back on him and dashed back into the room.
He followed her in, closing the door softly. She was watching basketball, no surprise, on an old-fashioned television whose thin screen covered the entire side of the wall. A radio was playingâtwangy music with guitars and a sax, and simple, mournful lyrics. A paperback novel was open on the bed.
David checked the book cover.
My Sweet Savage
, etched in gold and pink over a bare-chested man and a bosomy woman who chastely held hands and stared into each other's eyes.
“Good book?” David asked. He smelled pizza.
Teddy turned away from the television with the same look of irritation he gave his kids when they interrupted. She looked confused, followed his gaze to the book on the bed, and blushed.
Her shoulders straightened. “What's it to you?”
She was direct, that much he would give her.
“Kind of late to be dropping by, isn't it, Detective? Back home, we call first, if we think it might be inconvenient.”
“In the city, people always find it inconvenient for the cops to drop by. How'd you know it was me at the door?”
“I didn't.”
“You said Detective.”
“Well. I
am
psychic.”
David tilted his head to one side. “The desk clerk called you.”
She shook her head at him. “A nonbeliever.”
The tank top was oversized, and the armholes dipped all the way to her waist. She wore a white lacy half shirt underneath. David did not think she had on a bra. Maybe the lacy thing was supposed to be instead of a bra.
Her toenails were painted livid red. David looked away from her long slender legs, glancing at the television.
“Who you for?”
She glanced back at the screen. “Volunteers, of course. That's my team.”
“You from Tennessee?”
“Yeah.”
“What player you hooked into?”
She grinned at him. “This hotel's not what you'd call equipped, Silver. You have to watch it the old-fashioned way.”
David glanced around the room. She was reading, watching TV, and listening to the radio, all at the same time.
She turned the music down. Over her shoulders, a coach signaled time out.
“Hang on,” she said.
She opened the white pizza box on the bed, put a piece on a Styrofoam slab, then handed it to him. “Hope you like sausage.”
She went to a tiny refrigerator that was stashed next to the dresser and a dirty coffeepot, and got out a beer. Retro Beer, the cheapest brand on the market. David hadn't had one since he was a broke kid in Little Saigo. He wondered if it was as bad as he remembered.
“I'm not hungry,” David said.
“Pretend. I feel funny if I eat and you don't, and this pizza just got delivered.
Carpe diem
.”
David took a bite. The crust was crisp and chewy and the cheese was hot. There was a lot of sausage, oozing orange fat over the cheese and the onions. It tasted wonderful.
“I didn't think these places delivered anymore.”
“Not in this neighborhood, that's for sure. Friend of mine picked it up.”
David remembered the vice cop running up the stairs. He cocked his head to one side. There seemed to be an interesting microcosm of society in this hotel, and Teddy Blake fit right in. The desk clerk warned her of cops at the door, and the guys in vice brought her pizza.
David opened the beer, watching her eat. She was dainty about it, but fast, like she was starving.
She caught his eye. “Excuse me. Haven't had a bite all day.”
“Why not?”
“Forgot.”
It seemed like her, forgetting to eat. She opened the pizza box and gave him another slice. Cheese threaded from the bottom of the box, then pulled away. The beer had a bitter, watery taste, but it was cold.
“Jenks and his boy are at the Rialto,” David said.
“You think I don't know?”
“He wouldn't put you up there? This isn't the greatest hotel in the world, for a woman on her own. Or a man, for that matter.”
“I do okay.”
Not good enough for Jenks to put her up in style, David thought.
“Jenks got me a suite there, or tried to. I just told him no. I bill for expenses, and I don't gouge people.”
“How much do you charge?” David said.
“That's kind of rude, just to ask.”
“Maybe I want a reading.”
“I don't do readings. And I don't believe in astrology, so don't tell me your sign. I don't read palms or tea leaves or tarot cards, and I don't charge for what I do. Just expenses, if I go out of town or something, 'cause otherwise I couldn't go. I'm not rich, you know.”
David nodded. She did not look rich. But she'd have it socked away, lots of it, good as she was. This was just for show.
She chewed a piece of crust. “Besides, I'm from a small town. Hotels like the Rialto make me uncomfortable. They don't want people like me there.”
Her eyes were very large and brown, and David felt an odd pang. She ate all of the crust before she took another piece of pizza. Frugal, David thought. She passed him another beer. It still tasted bad, but he wasn't minding it.
“Pretty bad fire you had. Sorry we intruded in the middle. I tried to get Jenks to wait a day, but he's not the kind of manâ”
“He's not the kind of man who waits.”
“Nice of you to finish my sentence for me, Detective, but I can do it myself, no trouble.”
“Tell me about yourself, Ms. Blake.”
She rocked from side to side in her chair. “Like what?”
“History. Born?”
“Flatwoods, Tennessee. I know, you never heard of it.”
“Age?”
“Thirty-two.”
“You look twenty-two.”
“You don't.”
He smiled at her. It was cute, her trying to get under his skin. He'd survived worse. “Married?”
“No, thanks.”
“Brothers? Sisters? The seventh child of a seventh child?”
“Two. Brother is dead. Sister isn't.”
“Sorry.”
She rolled her head one way, then another. Grimaced. “Thank you.”
“Parents alive?” He saw that there was pizza sauce on her chin. He fought the urge to wipe it off with a napkin.
“My mama.”
“Place of residence?”
“Flatwoods, I told you.”
“Still there, huh? How did you connect with Jenks?”
She tilted her head to one side. “Guy named Bruer, Chicago Police Department. We've worked together before.”
That surprised him. She even had Chicago fooled. Unless she was the genuine article.
Not possible, he thought.
“Where were
you
born, Detective?” A piece of cheese slid off the pizza onto her lap. She picked it up and ate it, then scrubbed at the spot of grease on her jeans with a balled-up napkin.
“Chicago, actually,” David said.
“Brothers or sisters?”
“Only child.”
“Parents alive?”
David knew his face was red. “I thinkâ”
“Married, I guess.” She pointed at the wedding band. “You look like a daddy.
Seven
kids, I'm guessing.”
“Three.”
“Sexes?”
“All girls.”
“You find your lizard?”
He shook his head.
“Sorry I teased you about it. That was mean. I'm like that sometimes.”
“Mean?”
She gave him a sideways look and a guarded smile. The brown, sun-warmed skin was oddly erotic.
He settled back in his chair. “Didn't your mother ever tell you that too much sun is bad for you?”
“Every day of my life. I have a garden, I like to be out in it.”
“Flowers?”
“Vegetables.”
The woman was practical. David thought of his own garden, wild and untended. “You can do garden work at night or in the morning, like regular people.”
“I like the heat.”
“I don't,” David said.
“In Flatwoods, all we got is heat. You learn to like it.”
“Do you still think Theresa Jenks is dead? Ms. Blake?”
Her smile faded. She put the half-eaten slice of pizza back in the box and wiped her hands on a grease-spotted napkin, smoothing the wad of paper on her knee.
“If you're feeling friendly, Detective, you can call me Teddy, or even Ted. My friends do. Otherwise call me Ms. Blake, but in a different tone of voice. Be respectful. I don't like it when people say my name like it's an obscenity.”
Her gaze was steady.
“Ms. Blake.” He said it respectfully, wondering if she was looking for time to collect her thoughts. “Do you still think Theresa Jenks is dead?”
She stood up, turned off the TV. The blank screen was huge, grey, and depressing. It demanded attention, but gave nothing back.
“No, Detective, I don't think Theresa Jenks is dead, I know she is.”
“How did she die?”
Teddy Blake put a hand to her throat. “I don't know.”
David leaned forward in his chair. “Why did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Put a hand to your throat when you said you didn't know.”
She took a step backward, though he had not moved in the chair. She looked distracted, her eyes focused and inward-looking in a way that made him feel excluded. He stood up, set his beer can on the floor, moving in close enough to touch her.
“You know how she died, don't you, Teddy?”
She seemed small suddenly. She stepped backward and lost her balance, and he grabbed her arms.
He expected her to protest, to pull away. Her arms were strong and firm; he felt the tensile strength of her muscles. He felt ill suddenly, like a bully, and he let her go. His fingers left red marks.