“Let go of me,” the hooker cried, hitting Delta with her purse.
Delta grabbed her wrist to keep her from bolting down the street. “Please, listen!” Delta yelled above the noise of the city. “Please, I’m not going to hurt you. I need some information, that’s all.”
The hooker struggled to break Delta’s grip on her wrist.
“I don’t have any. Let go of me.”
Delta released her arm and took a step away. “You know I’m a cop, don’t you?” The woman straightened her dress and looked the other way. Delta stepped closer. “You do know who I am.” It was not a question.
The woman rubbed her wrists, but did not return Delta’s penetrating gaze.
“And you knew my partner as well.” Delta stepped even closer. The woman was an inch or so taller than Delta, but she seemed to shrink from Delta’s strong presence.
“I don’t have to talk to you,” the woman said, showing a perfect row of bright teeth. “You have no right to just stop me and ask questions.”
Delta realized the interrogative nature of her posture and backed off. “I’m sorry. I’m not looking for any trouble. It’s just that I saw you at my partner’s funeral . . . I’m sorry if I hurt your wrist.”
The blonde stopped rubbing her wrist and looked at Delta coolly. “You’re not going to bust me?”
“No. I swear. I told you, I saw you at the funeral, and I’m looking for some answers, that’s all. I thought—”
“That I was banging your partner? What makes you think I would even give you that kind of information?”
Delta shrugged and backed away, feeling dazed and confused. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to hear this. “Look, I’m terribly sorry for chasing you out of the funeral the other day and for grabbing you just now. I think, maybe I need a break. I’m . .. really sorry.” Jamming her hands in her pockets, Delta turned and walked away. She had never felt so lost in her life.
“Delta, wait!” Catching up to her, the woman lightly touched her arm.
Delta turned to face her. She was not wearing her red lipstick. “You do know me.”
“Well, sort of. It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time.” Delta wanted to laugh. Miles probably thought that very thing. “And I’ll pay for it.” The woman straightened her dress and looked Delta in the eye. “Damn right you will.”
“How much?”
The woman pretended to think it over. “Hmm. About a dollar?”
Delta cocked her head. “A dollar?”
“Or a cup of coffee and a danish. Whichever is more expensive.”
Delta didn’t know if she was kidding or not. “I’d say coffee and a danish would be more expensive, wouldn’t you?”
Awry smile appeared on the woman’s smooth face. “I ,wouldn't know. You cops spend all your time at Wi n c h e l l ’s Donut Shop. You tell me.”
Delta hesitated a moment. “You’re serious?”
“You want to talk or don’t you? Buy me a cup of coffee and we can talk.”
Delta did not move. She didn’t know what to say.
Suddenly, the woman’s expression changed. “Miles was a great guy. You don’t have to be a cop to know that. I imagine the last few days have been rough on you.”
Delta nodded. Rough wasn’t even close. “The hardest days of my life. Look, I’m really sorry about the other day. It’s just—”
“Forget it,” the woman interrupted, waving the thought off with one of her manicured hands. “Other than the broken heel of my shoe, no harm done.”
“A good friend of mine calls me Storm because—”
“Because you used to storm all over the place? I know... Miles told me ” Her smile widened. “Seems to me your old habits have resurfaced.”
Reaching her hand out, more in gratitude than formality, Delta smiled. “Let’s start over. You seem to have the advantage. You know who I am, but I don’t know who you are.”
The blonde smiled, knowingly. “My name is Megan,” she said, accepting Delta’s hand firmly in her own. “You can call me Ms. Osbourne.”
Delta’s eyebrows raised.
“I’m only kidding. Geez, you cops can be so stuffy.”
“Well, Ms. Osbourne, if you’ll be so kind as to call us a cab, I’ll gladly pay the fare.”
“You’re a fast learner, Officer Stevens.”
Watching Megan Osbourne confidently hail a cab, Delta smiled. She liked her already.
Her eyes were a deep, sapphire blue, twinkling now and then when the light hit them at just the right angle. She was prettier than Delta remembered, and far more gracious and well-spoken than most hookers Delta had run into. She liked that Megan wasn’t about to let anyone stereotype her into the Hollywood idea of a prostitute. But then, after spending a few minutes with Megan Osbourne, it was easy to see why she wouldn’t.
After ordering two cups of coffee and some pie, Megan smiled gently into Delta’s face. “I can tell that you’re sitting there trying to be polite and contain yourself, but you’re jumping out of your skin with questions. Why don’t you just go ahead and ask me?”
Delta let a slow grin creep over her face. “How could you tell?”
“Darlin’, it’s my business to know people. To watch them.”
“Is that what you were doing for Miles?” Delta saw her opening and dove for it.
“Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“Yeah. See, lots of our girls service your guys in blue. At first, Miles wanted me to keep track of who was coming and going—if you’ll excuse the pun.”
Delta rested her chin on her hands. Megan had perfect rows of pearl-white teeth. “For what purpose?”
“I don’t know. Does this have anything to do with his death?”
Delta fidgeted. She was, afterall, on the opposite side of the coin where the law was concerned. “What makes you ask that?”
Megan shrugged. Clearly, two could play this game.
Before Delta could ask another question, Megan leaned over the table. “Miles trusted me.”
Delta nodded. “Yes, he did. What I don’t understand, if you’ll excuse me for asking, is why?”
“As hard as it may seem, Miles and I were very good friends.”
“I don’t doubt that you were. It’s just—”
“What? That you thought you knew everything about him, and suddenly, there’s a prostitute in the picture?”
“Something like that.”
Megan leaned against the back of the booth and draped her arm over the back. “As I’m sure you know, Miles didn’t think prostitutes were the scum of the earth. We had a very nice friendship. That was all.”
Delta inhaled deeply and clasped her hands together. “I believe you.”
Megan leaned forward, her eyes now a shade of ice blue. “You better. Miles told me you had exceptional intuitive powers. Look me in the eye, Delta Stevens, and tell me what your gut tells you now.”
Delta leaned forward and did as Megan asked. There was an honesty about Megan that permeated the air around her. Clearly, this was a no-bullshit kind of woman.
“Well?”
Backing away from the intense blue of her eyes, Delta nodded. “Will you help me?”
Megan didn’t move and was halfway across the table. “What is it you need?”
“You know what I want. Miles was investigating something big, and you know what it was.”
“You base this on one look at the two of us?”
Delta nodded. “You handed him something. You don’t have to work in Vice to know that it’s usually the other way around.”
Megan ran her hand through her hair. “True.”
Delta drew a breath in through her teeth. “It’s possible that’s why he was killed.”
Megan’s eyes narrowed. “Then you do think the two are connected.”
“I don’t have a shred of evidence one way or the other. All I know is, my partner was doing something surreptitiously one minute and is dead the next. Maybe I’m grasping at straws, but he was up to something, and it involved you. You tell me what to believe.”
“I don’t know.” Megan slowly opened her purse and pulled out a matchbook. “I was going to leave this at the funeral, but I thought maybe I should keep it.” Tossing it on the table, she sighed. “I can honestly tell you that I don’t know what Miles was looking for.”
Delta picked up the matchbook and looked inside. On the inside of the cover was a list of numbers, different from the ones Jennifer found on the notepad; shorter. Next to each number was another number, two or three numbers in length.
“What’s this?”
“I kept track of the patrol car numbers when they came by and listed whether or not they visited one of the girls. Miles has four more ”
“Four more matchbooks?”
Megan nodded. “Yes.”
Delta turned the matchbook over in her hand. “Did he tell you why he wanted this information?”
“Not really. One time, he said something about the Red Carpet being a rat’s nest, but that was about it. All I know is, I gave him the matchbooks and he tossed me fifty; which, by the way, I usually tossed right back. I make more than Miles ever did.”
Delta reached for her wallet, but Megan put out a hand to stop her. “I don’t want your money. I want to help.”
Delta looked up from Megan’s neatly polished hand resting firmly on hers. There was a warmth and a softness to those blue eyes that caught Delta off-guard.
“I did it as a favor.”
Delta grinned. “A favor? Were you sweet on him?”
Megan tossed her head back and laughed. “I suppose at one time I might have been. One time a very long time ago.” Delta did not move her eyes from Megan’s. “Miles and I go way back. We were childhood friends from long, long ago.”
Delta sat up. “No kidding?”
“We went all through school together until I dropped out of high school when I was sixteen. We weren’t best friends or anything like that, but we grew up in the same neighborhood. We walked to grammar school together almost every day. Once we got to high school, he discovered sports and I discovered sex.” This made Megan laugh to herself. “Anyway, to make a short story long, Miles and his first partner, a real dick, mind you, were rounding up the girls one night, and there I was. He didn’t know what to say.”
Delta was mesmerized by both the story she had never heard and the eyes that danced when she spoke.
“Did he haul you in?”
Still smiling, Megan shook her head. “No. We went for coffee when he finished work and caught up on each other’s lives. We got into a great discussion about victimless crimes. I must have won the argument because as far as I know, he hasn’t arrested any of us since.”
Delta grinned. She had wondered where Miles got his liberal attitude on the oldest profession.
“And after that?”
The smile faded from Megan’s lips. “He came to see me late one morning after his shift. It was a few days after you guys busted that pusher at his kids’ grammar school. I think that sent Miles toward the edge. He came to me wanting to know more. He wondered if I could get a handle on where the drugs were coming from, and said he wanted whoever it was that was putting it back out on the street. He wanted them bad.”
“There has been more dope on the street lately.”
Megan nodded. “Hell yes. Lots, cut, and bad. Even the bigger pushers don’t know where it’s coming from. I did a lot of asking around for Miles, but came up with nothing. Wherever these drugs are coming from, nobody on the street knows. ”
“That’s odd.”
“It’s weird. I have a client who’s a family member, and even he said that it isn’t their stuff. I thought for sure it was mob-related. He was very offended when I inquired. This shit is apparently being cut with some pretty rank shit. The family prides itself in good cuts.”
This made Delta smile. Megan brought the world of crime into a unique and colorful light- “What does Miles’s preoccupation with street drugs and patrol car numbers have in common? Alot of cops have their own hookers.”
Megan winced. “We prefer the term escorts, or, if you must, prostitutes. Hooker to us is like pig to you.”
Delta blushed. “I’m sorry. Cop jargon.”
Megan grinned. “I understand Miles never could get it either.”
Delta waited for the waitress to deliver the coffee before saying anything. “So you took notes about patrol car numbers?”
Megan nodded. “And anything else I had time to notice, such as, how long they stayed at the hotel. I wasn’t real thorough because I had my own job to do.”
“And you say that Miles has four more?”
“I’m telling you, those cop cars came by on a regular basis.”
“Did you, ” Delta hesitated, not sure if she was overstepping her bounds. “Did you . . . service any of these guys?”
Megan shook her head and smiled. “I don’t do cops.”
“Oh. ”
Reaching across the table, Megan touched Delta’s wrist.
“Because they want it for free. I have a hard time with giving things away.”
“Aren’t you afraid they’ll bust you if you don’t?”
The smile suddenly vanished from Megan’s face. “Now I am. I wasn’t afraid before because I had Miles.”
Sipping her coffee, Delta did not take her eyes off Megan’s. The genuine sadness at her loss was evident.