Эд Горман - Stranglehold

“Maybe I’ll just go get drunk and call you later.”

“Ben and I will go with you. We’ll get you so bombed you’ll tell us everything.”

“Susan’s name may come up in the Monica Davies murder.”

“My God. Are you serious?”

“No, Kristin, I’m making it up because I enjoy watching you and Ben go into shock.”

“You don’t mean she actually committed the murder?” Again she glanced at Ben.

“I don’t have any way of knowing. But my guess is no.”

I spent ten minutes laying it out for them. The motel with the blood on the desk. Gwen and Bobby. Larson. The blackmail.

“And you don’t know anything about this red-haired man — this Craig Donovan?” Ben said.

“He’s Bobby’s father. You see the resemblance to Susan when you look closely at Bobby. But he doesn’t look like either one of them to any great degree.”

“So what the hell are we going to do now?” Kristin said.

“There’s only one thing to do,” I said. “Find Donovan and confront him.”

“How do you find him?”

“I’ll have to lean on somebody I don’t want to.”

They stood beside me while I made my next phone call.

The Stay-Rite was a grim little motel on the north edge of Aldyne. It made the place where Gwen and Bobby had been staying look upscale. Two long flanks fanned out from a central office in standard fashion. The white stucco exterior looked as if a giant had pissed on it, long ugly streaks of rust covering much of the surface. In spots the walkway in front of the rooms had been reduced to rubble. One window bore a poster of Toby Keith and a few showed Confederate flags. The motel must have had rates for lengthy stays.

I’d learned about the place when I’d called Gwen from the office.

“Is Bobby there?”

“He’s taking a shower.”

“Good. I need to know where I can find Craig Donovan.”

“Oh, God, Mr. Conrad, I can’t tell you that. Bobby would never forgive me.”

“I’m trying to help Bobby, Gwen, whether he knows it or not. You know that, don’t you?”

She hesitated and then said, “Please never tell him I told you.”

So here I sat on the edge of an industrial zone. The streets were lined with food franchises, tattoo parlors, convenience stores, and strip malls that looked like they’d been lifted from third-world countries.

I didn’t know how I was going to handle it. This was the man with all the answers, and I didn’t much care how I got them.

The sun was behind the clouds. The afternoon had a faint scent of winter on it. Dog shit, what appeared to be dried human vomit, and the stain from a broken bottle of tomato juice covered the walk in front of room 146. Jagged pieces of glass looked like piranha teeth. Welcome home.

A game show played behind the faded red metal door. A female voice shouted, “Go for it, you stupid bitch! Go for it!” I had to knock loudly to be heard.

If you were drunk and forlorn enough, you might take her home when the bar announced last call for the night. She was maybe thirty and pretty in a ruined way. The breasts were balloons trapped inside a yellow terry-cloth halter. The exposed belly was fleshy but not unattractive. The lower legs were shapely but the thighs were heavy. The red-and-blue cobra tattoos that climbed both her arms were nicely done. The teeth showed a heavy tobacco habit. And her right eye was her spiritual résumé. Somebody had punched her very hard and recently. She was a floozy. The hand on the hip, the cock of the head, the insolence of the brown gaze. “Who’re you supposed to be?”

I smiled at the way she’d said it. “Well, I’m supposed to be a doctor. That’s what my folks wanted. But it didn’t turn out that way. Who’re you supposed to be?”

“If it’s any of your business, I’m supposed to be cutting hair at my sister’s beauty shop right now, but she’s such a bitch, I can’t stand to be around her. So what do you want?”

“I’m looking for a man named Craig Donovan.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“I have a message for him.”

“I’m beginning to think you’re a cop. I hate cops.”

“Not a cop. Just a private citizen with a message.”

The insolence was now anger. “You’re lucky he isn’t here. He’d punch your face in.”

“The same way he punched yours in?”

Her stubby fingers touched her eye. The wound was fresh enough that she winced. “He didn’t mean it.”

“He mustn’t have meant it when he put those bruises on your arm and neck, either.”

Her cheeks colored. “Maybe I had it coming. I got a little drunk and I was talking to this guy at the bar while Craig was in the john and—” Then: “Why the hell am I telling you anything? This isn’t any of your business. Now, get out of here before he comes back.”

“Think he’ll kick you around a little more if he sees me here?”

“It’d be worth it just to see him pound your face in. Now go.”

Behind her the phone rang. She traipsed back to it. Her bottom had survived her years. Nice and tight. She picked up and said, “Well, I can’t fucking help it how busy you are. I’ve got the flu. I already told you that and I can’t come in.” Pause. “Well, what difference does it make if I’m sick in my apartment or sick over here?” Pause. “Well, you go right ahead and think I’m shacked up if you want. But I won’t be in until I feel better.”

She slammed the phone down and came back. “My sister’s a real bitch. She runs this beauty parlor down the street. She treats me worse than any of her other beauticians. They have a day or two off, she don’t say anything. I take a few days off...”

I had no doubt that she was an ideal employee. She had a good attitude and seemed easy to get along with.

Behind her the TV crowd erupted. I wondered if the contestant had taken her advice and gone for it after all.

“My name’s Dev Conrad. Tell him I work for Natalie Cooper and tell him that I’m staying at the Commodore Hotel.” I reached into the inside pocket of my suit coat and pulled out a loose card. “My cell phone number’s on there. Tell him to give me a call.”

She snapped the card from my fingers and looked at it. Fear played in her eyes now. She swallowed hard. “When I give him this card he’s going to say that you came into the room and I let you do something to me.”

“Grab your clothes. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. I don’t want to see you get hit anymore.”

“For your information, I’m in love with him. He told me he’d marry me.” She was beyond help again. “I’m not gonna spend my life working for my sister, that’s for sure.”

“What’s your name?”

“Why?”

“Just like to know who I’m talking to.”

“Heather, if it’s any of your fucking business.”

Somewhere in the ether the TV crowd had a collective orgasm.

She stepped back into the dank darkness of the room and slammed the door.

I was used to spending time with women who lived in apartments or condos. Chicago women mostly. It had been a long time since I’d pulled into a driveway and walked up to a door. Inevitably I thought of high-school days and facing parents in order to drag off their daughters for love or something like it. Even in your forties those memories are vivid. Too many of them were like opening night in front of a hostile audience. I always had to writhe through small talk while trying to seem as harmless as possible. Yes, sir, I promise to get your daughter home at nine-thirty, and with her virginity still intact.

At least Jane didn’t have a father on the premises. She opened the door in a rush of smiles and perfume and a small hand that squeezed one of mine. She wore a black wrap dress that emphasized her slender hips and small but most intriguing breasts. Her red beaded necklace matched the color of her lipstick. “This is exciting. A real date.”