Playing God (10 page)

"What is it," he demanded. "that you're trying so hard not to tell me?"

She pouted, thrusting out her lip and folding her arms. "What makes you think I'm not telling you something?"

"Almost thirty years on the job."

"It's like I told you before. I have to live here. On the street. With these people. So I just don't know—"

"Alana, a man is dead."

"Maybe he deserved to be."

"People might say that about you. Say 'oh it's no loss, she was nothing but a hooker.' I don't make those judgments. In my book, death matters. No one gets to appoint him or herself executioner. So?"

"You'd miss me. You'd think I was a loss, wouldn't you, Joe?"

"Of course I would." He studied her tense posture, the evasive eyes. "What are you holding back?"

She lowered her eyes and took a deep breath. "This is just street gossip, Joe. I don't know anything. I don't even know names, though probably I heard some of it from Lulu."

"Heard what?"

She flung it at him the way you'd throw a stick to a dog to make it go away. "That people got drugs from Dr. Pleasant."

"Talk to me," he said.

She stood looking out at a view which was the side of another brick building. "Nothing to tell," she said. "I just heard people got drugs from him... or through him... that's all. You know me. I don't do drugs, don't want to get close to the people who do. It's the quickest way to hell I can think of, and I'm trying to put hell behind me."

"Remember who you heard it from?"

She shrugged, her back still toward him. "No."

"Who I should talk to?" Silence. "What drugs?"

"Painkillers. Oxycontin." Silence again, then, exploding, "Jesus, Joe, we're talking bad people here. You don't care what happens to me if it will help solve your murder."

"Alana..."

"Just leave, will you. Go sweat some of the others. You're good at getting people to talk. Find that big prick, O'Leary, and sweat him."

"And leave you in peace, right?"

"Right. I've got a living to make. Unless you want to shuck the rest of those clothes and let me show you how it feels with a real woman."

"As opposed to what?"

"Your hand," she snapped, turning away from the window. "Go bother someone else. Rhianne. Or that old hag, Polly. She knows more about drugs than the rest of us put together. Or find that mystery woman and ask her what happened. You ask me... and, yes, Copman, I know you didn't... she's the key to this. Your mystery lady. I may be the best, but I'm not the only girl in this city."

"How am I going to find her? You got any ideas?" But Alana was in one of her snits. "Mind if I use your phone?"

"Would you care?"

He picked up his shirt and pulled it on, buttoning it with one hand while he dialed Kyle with the other. "You pick up a cute little black-haired number named Lulu?" Kyle made an affirmative sound. "What about her pimp, guy named O'Leary?"

"Kevin O'Leary? No. You want us to?"

"If you can. And hold her until I get there. Maybe she knows about the party with Pleasant last night. Alana says O'Leary set it up. How's it going?"

"Vince was right. It is like a roomful of cats around here."

"Getting anything?"

"Got offered a year's worth of blowjobs."

"With respect to our late doctor."

"He was well known. Nothing about last night, though. You coming in?"

"On my way." He put on his sweater. Alana was still at the window. "Hey," he said, "I'm going. Thanks for the massage."

"I'm still waiting for the day you say you're coming." She didn't turn around. "You know, Joe. I met somebody once who says she had sex with you. She's a burned-out old hag now, so it must have been a long time ago. But I can't help wondering. Why her and not me?"

This was the heart of the matter. Why she'd been so difficult. Not that Alana was ever easy. He shrugged on his jacket and left, crunching down the empty street through the gray cloud of his own breath. He got into his cold, dark car and sat, not turning on the engine. He wanted to be cold right now. It took time to get over being that close to Alana. Alana, who thought he was messing with her mind while she was messing with his.

She was right about the sex. It had been a long time ago, his first year on the job, but it was the kind of a mistake that could come around someday and bite you on the ass. He was just back from Vietnam. Still having nightmares. Night sweats. He could go the range, gunshots all around, and be cool, but a random shot in the night, a firecracker, a car backfiring, and he'd be face-down on the pavement, shaking.

Just a brand-new baby cop, doing a door-to-door about a barroom brawl that had spilled into the street and left someone dead. A steamy summer night, full of noise and food smells, people bringing their hibachis out on the sidewalk. He remembered radios blaring "Summer in the City," long-haired girls in tank tops and cut-offs, guys without shirts. Bare skin, musk and incense everywhere.

He'd been hot in his dark uniform, sweat-soaked and nervous, the weight of his gun belt chafing his hips and making his back ache, moving through the crowds, asking his questions, getting called names, trying to keep his temper. Learning how it was to be a cop in America after Kent State, the Chicago convention, Kennedy, King and the riots. He'd knock on a door, get cussed out, ask his questions, go to another and do it all again. His head was pounding, his shirt slimy with the acrid fug of his own sweat. His feet hurt and another long block and hours of his shift stretched ahead of him. Hours of taunts and dirty looks and being called a pig.

He knocked on another door—it could have been his twentieth or his hundredth—bracing himself for the stares and the resistance, and found himself looking down at a diminutive blonde in a blue-flowered dress. Waves of cool air spilled out around her. Her lips were soft pink, her blue eye rimmed with liner, hair to her waist. She smelled like roses. "Close the door," she said. "I've got air conditioning."

Just as he was shutting the door, something exploded in the street below. He yelled, 'get down!', and threw himself to the floor, grabbing her and taking her with him. He landed on top of her, panting and shaking. Instead of protesting, she put her arms around him, stroking his sweaty hair and his sweaty back, murmuring soothing things. Then she pulled his face to hers and kissed him. He let himself take the comfort there that he desperately wanted. He'd never done it again.

The phone rang. Kyle. "You bringing Alana in?"

"Why?"

"Lulu just coughed up the gem that Alana was one of two girls partying with Pleasant last night."

"Fuck!" Burgess said. That explained why she knew so much.

"Aw, Jeez, Joe," Kyle said in mock sympathy, "Don't tell me you were just lied to by a whore?"

"Screw you, Terry."

"Ain't nobody screwing either of us, Joe, despite the company we keep. At least, not in any way we'd find pleasant. Only one who gets happily screwed is Stan. Want me to come get her?"

"Meaning I'm too pissed to be civil? Don't worry about it. I don't think civil's the right approach, anyway."

"Not feeling fond of the lady?"

"Not right now."

He got out, slamming the door, and crunched back down the empty street. Banged on her door. When she opened it, he said, "Did you think I wouldn't find out?" She had the grace to look embarrassed.

"Get your coat," he said. "We're going for a ride."

Chapter 8

He drove through the gray-black evening back to the station, Alana silent and tight-lipped beside him, steeling himself for the clamor waiting inside. The benches along the corridor held a rag-tag collection of Portland's ladies of the night, arguing, sitting sullenly, or loudly voicing their objections to being kept from their work. They greeted Alana with catcalls and whistles and remarks about him. Alana just stuck her chin out and ignored them. She'd been right about not covering her ass. What she called a coat was a waist-length fake shearling in baby blue. Below it, there were just a few handbreadths of black vinyl and some absurdly high black boots.

Kyle, looking henpecked and worn, took charge of her. "Let her cool her heels a while," Burgess said. Kyle nodded and led her away. Burgess flung himself into his chair, shoved the pink message slips into a pile, and started reading them.

Stan Perry, looking disgustingly fit and energetic, drifted past. "Patrol stopped by O'Leary's. Nobody home. Neighbor says he left in a hurry this morning and hasn't been back."

"You run a check on him?"

"We're working on it."

"So Lulu says Pleasant was partying at O'Leary's place? Get a warrant and you and Kyle can take some crime scene people over there."

Perry nodded. "Will do. Partying with Alana and some gorgeous blonde babe. I think Lulu's pert little nose is out of joint because she wasn't invited."

"She say why she wasn't?"

"Her tits are too small."

"That's one thing we don't need to worry about."

Perry grinned. "Maybe you don't. I worry about it all the time. Where I'm going to get my hands on a pair of nice big tits."

Burgess rolled his eyes. "Go back to uniform. That's what excites the girls. Not us. What do we know about the blonde?"

"Fuck all. No one's ever seen her around before. Be just as happy if they never do again. Lulu says she's a looker. A hooker who's a looker."

Burgess went back to the messages, giving himself a few minutes to calm down. Some detective he was, letting himself get conned like that.

"I'm getting me and Kyle pizza. You want some?"

"Anything but Hawaiian or anchovy. I can't stand hot ham and pineapple."

"Fine with me. How long you been up, Joe?"

"I've lost track." Perry wandered off and he looked down at the messages. Top one was from Mr. VIP himself, Ted Shaw. Shoot. He'd been too busy getting a backrub from a whore to practice his curtsy. He reached for the phone.

Shaw answered himself. "I appreciate the call, Detective. I'm sure you know what I called about. I'm concerned for my daughter, about how all this is handled. It's a difficult time for her. I was hoping you could come by, we could discuss the situation." He had a big, self-satisfied voice, used to getting what it asked for, expecting its booming, genial tones to get a positive response.

"Mr. Shaw, we're in the first twenty-four hours of an investigation."

"Ted," the voice boomed. "Please. Call me Ted."

He didn't want to be on a first-name basis with this man. "Mr. Shaw," he repeated, "I'm sure we can find some time tomorrow to meet." Cote's voice in his ear. Be tactful.

"I have a very busy day tomorrow, detective. Tonight is better. I won't take up much of your time."

He thumbed through the messages. The next was from Jack Kelly. The credit card list was ready. He'd pick it up himself, ask Jen some questions that shouldn't wait. It was almost seven. He could be there by eight, eight-thirty, depending on Alana. "I'm sorry, Mr. Shaw—"

"Tonight." Shaw swatted away Burgess's words and began reeling off directions.

"Hold on," Burgess said. His headache was coming back, but it was nothing compared to the one he'd get listening to Cote's prune-faced whine if Shaw complained they weren't being cooperative. He grabbed a pencil. "It'll be late. Ten, maybe even eleven. I'm tied up 'til then."

"No problem. Whenever you can get here." Mollified now that he was getting his way. Shaw repeated the directions and hung up with neither good-bye nor thank you. Perhaps manners were for his peers or perhaps the corrosive effect of a lifetime of people saying 'yes'. Adults could be spoiled as easily as kids and wore it with even less grace.

He found Jack Kelly's message and called. Kelly answered. "Mr. Kelly? It's Sergeant Burgess again. I was hoping I could swing by in an hour or so and get that information?" Kelly made an affirmative noise. "I'd also like to speak with your daughter, if you think she's up to it?"

"Jen's in a bad way," Kelly said. "Maybe it would help her to talk about it. I don't know. But listen, you've got to be gentle with her. She's always been real sensitive."