Brian Freeman - The Cold Nowhere

Stride looked the kid up and down. He’d probably arrested him twenty times over the years. Curt Dickes had a radar for scams and an addiction to cash, which usually didn’t last long in his pocket. ‘Look, I’ve known you for a long time, Curt. You’re not a bad kid, but there’s a big difference between selling fake Yanni tickets outside the DECC and getting in the middle of prostitution and drugs. That can go bad for you in a lot of ways. If someone gets hurt or killed, you could be staring at real time.’

‘Thanks for the warning, Lieutenant, but I’ve got friends looking out for me now.’

Stride ran a hand over the car’s spoiler. ‘Friends like Lowball Lenny? Did he give you the car?’

‘It’s more like an extended test drive,’ Dickes said. ‘You know Lenny, he takes care of people.’

‘Yes, he does.’

Stride had bought a Ford Bronco himself from Lenny years earlier. It was his first Ford; he’d driven a Chevy Blazer until then. Lenny insisted on selling him the new truck at cost, as appreciation for Stride’s work in putting away the burglar who’d shot Lenny’s wife. Lenny was also a candidate for City Council at the time, and it made good headlines to play nice with the police. Since then, their relationship had soured. As a politician, and a good friend of the chief, Lenny liked to throw his weight around, and Stride didn’t like back-seat drivers on his investigations.

‘I know about Lenny’s party on the boat, Curt. Somebody saw you arrive with the girls.’

Dickes shrugged. ‘So what?’

‘I talked to one of them. You gave her money.’

‘I hired girls to dress up a party. That’s not a crime.’

‘Not to have sex?’

‘Hey, what they do with the guys is their business, not mine. Come on, Lieutenant, who are we kidding? This is a college town. Tuition keeps going up. A sophomore at UMD can work thirty hours a week toasting sandwiches at Quizno’s or she can spend a couple hours with a bored convention rat and make twice the dough. Your own cops know these girls need the money. Most of the time, they look the other way.’

‘I’m not interested in the college girls. I’m talking about a street girl. Her name’s Catalina Mateo.’

‘Sure, I know Cat. Men will pay big for a face like hers.’

‘She’s sixteen.’

For the first time, Dickes paled. ‘Fuck, no, no way! She had a license, it said eighteen.’

Stride shook his head. ‘Sixteen.’

‘Hey, I don’t mess around with kids.’

‘Like I said, this is the kind of business that can get you into real trouble. Tell me about Cat.’

‘Not much to tell, man. She comes and goes. Sometimes I don’t see her for weeks. When she needs cash, I hook her up.’

‘She thinks someone is coming after her. You hear anything about that?’

‘She told me about a car almost running her down near the shelter. That’s all I know. I figured it was some drunk.’

‘Did you set her up with any creepy guys? Stalker types?’

Dickes shook his head. ‘Nobody worse than anybody else. Come on, the guys up here are mostly bald Swedes on business trips, not serial killers. Besides, if some john got obsessed with her, I figure he’d come to me to find her again. Nobody did.’

‘No one asked for her by name?’

‘Nope.’

‘Do you have a list of guys you set her up with?’

Dickes groaned. ‘What, do I look like I take American Express? It’s not like I check IDs.’

‘What about parties? Could Cat have seen something that she wasn’t supposed to see?’

‘I don’t see how, man. Most of the time, it’s bachelor parties and high school reunions.’

‘Okay, tell me about Lenny’s party. Someone knew Cat was going to be there. He waited for her outside. How would anyone know about that?’

‘I put the word out,’ Dickes told him. ‘Girls talk. Lots of people probably had the lowdown. It was all over town.’

‘Cat also says someone was asking around about her a few weeks ago,’ Stride said. ‘Did you hear anything about that?’

‘Nah, that’s news to me. Who told her that?’

‘One of the street girls named Brandy.’

Dickes whistled. ‘Whoa, Brandy, she’s a trip. You don’t mess with Brandy. With those eyes of hers, she’s like an alien. Like something out of Area 51. She scares the shit out of me. I count her money twice, because you don’t want Brandy thinking you’re trying to rip her off.’

‘Brandy told Cat someone was trying to find her. This was down near the graffiti graveyard under the freeway.’

‘Yeah, if I was looking for a street girl, I’d check there.’

‘But you don’t know who it could be?’ Stride asked.

‘I don’t.’

‘Have any of the girls talked about someone hassling them?’

‘Nothing they couldn’t handle. If anyone was causing problems, I’d hear about it.’

Stride frowned. He wasn’t finding any answers. ‘Where does Brandy hang out?’

‘Brandy goes wherever there’s money. It’s Saturday, so she’ll probably be cruising around here this evening. There’s always business on the weekends no matter what time of year it is.’

‘What about right now?’

‘Now? Who knows? It’s daylight, man, that’s when the vampires stay inside. Your guess is as good as mine.’

‘So make a guess,’ Stride said.

Dickes shoved his hands in his coat pockets. ‘Okay, but you did not hear about this from me. If the girls find out I’m rousting their hiding places, it’s bad for business.’

Stride waited.

‘Check over at Central High,’ Dickes went on. ‘Ever since they closed the school, some of the smart ones have figured out how to get inside and treat the place like a motel for hook-ups. Brandy’s definitely one of the smart ones.’

*

The old high school had one of the prime locations in the city, with sweeping views down the hillside to the lake. Stride parked near the entrance to the brick building. The school was vacant, a victim of shrinking enrollment, but there were still torn posters for the Trojans taped to the windows, as if classes were in session and students would walk through the doors. He couldn’t visit this building without seeing ghosts in the hallway from his teenage years.

This was his school. He and Cindy had both gone here.

Stride got out of his truck and breathed in the cold afternoon air. It was almost dusk. He began a slow walk around the perimeter of the building. The area was oddly desolate, like an abandoned town. The parking lots were empty. So were the athletic fields. At the school windows, he squinted and saw deserted corridors and overturned chairs, their metal legs jutting up like a field of nails. Each classroom carried an imaginary echo of voices, but the echoes wouldn’t last. Soon enough, the building would be torn down, replaced by more soulless condos. Sometimes he wondered if he would recognize the city in a few years.

When he cupped his hands on the glass at one window, he saw a shadow move. It was there and gone, as swift as a spirit. It could have been someone inside, or it could have been a trick of the light. He stayed at the window, watching, but he finally decided that he couldn’t trust his eyes.

He continued to the rear of the school. A separate building for the physical plant was built in front of a large inset in the school walls. The plant facility created a U-shaped concrete passageway that was partly hidden from view. When he checked the passage, he found evidence of habitation. Musty blankets. Old food wrappers crackling as they blew in the wind. Broken glass. Someone had been urinating against the wall. When he peered through the rear windows, he saw debris inside. Curt Dickes was right; people had been coming and going, using the school as a refuge.