Lawrence Block - Eight Million Ways to Die

"I know it," Garfein said.

"You get anything with the other guests? She musta made some noise."

"You kidding? Cheaters? 'I didn't see nothin', I didn't hear nothin', I gotta go now.' Even if she did some screaming, in a job like this everybody'd figure it was a new way to have fun. Assuming they weren't too busy having their own fun to notice."

"First he checks into a decent midtown hotel and phones up a fancy call girl. Then he picks up a TV streetwalker and drags her to a cheater's motel. You figure the cock and balls came as a shock to him?"

Garfein shrugged. "Maybe. You know, half your street prostitutes are guys in drag. Some sections it's more than half."

"The West Side docks it's a lot more than half."

"I've heard that," Garfein said. "You talk to the johns, some of 'em'll admit they prefer if it's a guy. They say a guy gives better head. Of course there's nothing queer about them, see, because they're just receiving it."

"Well, go figure a john," Durkin said.

"Whether he knew or not, I don't think it put him off much. He went and did his number all the same."

"Figure he had sex with her?"

"Hard to tell unless there's traces on the sheets. He doesn't figure as her first trick of the evening."

"He took a shower?"

Garfein shrugged, showed his hands palms up. "Go know," he said. "The manager says there's towels missing. When they make up the room they put out two bath towels and two hand towels, and both of the bath towels are missing."

"He took towels from the Galaxy."

"Then he probably took 'em here, but who knows in a dump like this? I mean who knows if they always remember to make up the room right. Same with the shower. I don't figure they gave it a scrub after the last party left."

"Maybe you'll find something."

"Maybe."

"Fingerprints, something. You see any skin under her nails?"

"No. But that's not to say the lab boys won't." A muscle worked in his jaw. "I'll say one thing. Thank God I'm not a medical examiner or a technician. It's bad enough being a cop."

"Amen to that," Durkin said.

I said, "If he picked her up on the street, somebody might have seen her get into the car."

"A couple of guys are out there now trying to take statements. We might get something. If anybody saw anything, and if they remember, and if they feel like talking."

"Lots of ifs," Durkin said.

"The manager here must have seen him," I said. "What does he remember?"

"Not a whole lot. Let's go talk to him some more."

* * *

The manager had a night worker's sallow complexion and a pair of red-rimmed eyes. There was alcohol on his breath but he didn't have a drinker's way about him, and I guessed he'd tried to fortify himself with liquor after discovering the body. It only made him vague and ineffectual. "This is a decent place," he insisted, and the statement was so palpably absurd no one responded to it. I suppose he meant murder wasn't a daily occurrence.

He never saw Cookie. The man who had presumably killed her had come in alone, filled out the card, paid cash. This was not unusual. It was common practice for the woman to wait in the car while the man checked in. The car had not stopped directly in front of the office, so he hadn't seen it while the man was checking in. In fact he hadn't really seen the car at all.

"You saw it was missing," Garfein reminded him. "That's how you knew the room was empty."

"Except it wasn't. I opened the door and-"

"You thought it was empty because the car was gone. How'd you know it was gone if you never saw it?"

"The parking space was empty. There's a space in front of each unit, the spaces are numbered same as the units. I looked out, that space was empty, that meant his car was gone."

"They always park in the proper spaces?"

"They're supposed to."

"Lots of things people are supposed to do. Pay their taxes, don't spit on the sidewalk, cross only at corners. A guy's in a hurry to dip his wick, what does he care about a number on a parking space? You got a look at the car."

"I-"

"You looked once, maybe twice, and the car was parked in the space. Then you looked later and it wasn't and that's when you decided they were gone. Isn't that what happened?"

"I guess so."

"Describe the car."

"I didn't really look at it. I looked to see that it was there, that's all."

"What color was it?"

"Dark."

"Terrific. Two door? Four door?"

"I didn't notice."

"New? Old? What make?"

"It was a late-model car," he said. "American. Not a foreign car. As far as the make, when I was a kid they all looked different. Now every car's the same."

"He's right," Durkin said.

"Except American Motors," he said. "A Gremlin, a Pacer, those you can tell. The rest all look the same."

"And this wasn't a Gremlin or a Pacer."

"No."

"Was it a sedan? A hatchback?"

"I'll tell you the truth," the man said. "All I noticed is it was a car. It says on the card, the make and model, the plate number."

"You're talking about the registration card?"

"Yeah. They have to fill all that in."

The card was on the desk, a sheet of clear acetate over it to preserve prints until the lab boys had their shot at it. Name: Martin Albert Ricone. Address: 211 Gilford Way. City: Fort Smith, Arkansas. Make of Auto: Chevrolet. Year: 1980. Model: Sedan. Color: Black. License No.: LJK-914. Signature: M. A. RICONE.

"Looks like the same hand," I told Durkin. "But who can tell with printing?"

"The experts can say. Same as they can tell you if he had the same light touch with the machete. Guy likes forts, you notice? Fort Wayne, Indiana and Fort Smith, Arkansas."

"A subtle pattern begins to emerge," Garfein said.

"Ricone," Durkin said. "Must be Italian."

"M. A. Ricone sounds like the guy who invented the radio."

"That's Marconi," Durkin said.

"Well, that's close. This guy's Macaroni. Stuck a feather in his hat and called it Macaroni."

"Stuck a feather up his ass," Durkin said.

"Maybe he stuck it up Cookie's ass and maybe it wasn't a feather. Martin Albert Ricone, that's a fancy alias. What did he use last time?"

"Charles Owen Jones," I said.

"Oh, he likes middle names. He's a cute fucker, isn't he?"

"Very cute," Durkin said.

"The cute ones, the really cute ones, usually everything means something. Like Jones is slang, it means a habit. You know, like a heroin jones. Like a junkie says he's got a hundred-dollar jones, that's what his habit costs him per day."

"I'm really glad you explained that for me," Durkin said.

"Just trying to be helpful."

" 'Cause I only got fourteen years in, I never had any contact yet with smack addicts."

"So be a smart fuck," Garfein said.

"The license plate go anywhere?"

"It's gonna go the same place as the name and address. I got a call in to Arkansas Motor Vehicles but it's a waste of time. A place like this, even the legitimate guests make up the plate number. They don't park in front of the window when they sign in so our guy here can't check. Not that he would anyway, would you?"

"There's no law says I have to check," the man said.

"They use false names, too. Funny our boy used Jones at the Galaxy and Ricone here. They must get a lot of Joneses here, along with the usual run of Smiths and Browns. You get a lot of Smiths?"

"There's no law says I'm supposed to check ID," the man said.

"Or wedding rings, huh?"

"Or wedding rings or marriage licenses or anything. Consenting adults, the hell, it's none of my business."

"Maybe Ricone means something in Italian," Garfein suggested.

"Now you're thinking," Durkin said. He asked the manager if he had an Italian dictionary. The man stared at him, baffled. "And they call this place a motel," he said, shaking his head. "There's probably no Gideon Bibles, either."