Ridley Pearson - The Art of Deception

In military-like precision the six of them rounded the corner, moving swiftly but silently, her courage returning quickly as she thought of Margaret and the other girls in those showers, the jaundiced eyes of the drunk and the desperate peering in on them. She fed on these guys, her bread and butter. She opened up their heads like cracking nuts.

The patrolmen reached them first, knocking away the beer cans, taking them completely by surprise. But then there was a burst of activity to their right-not four guys, but more like ten, the other six scattering like seeds in the wind.

“Walker!” she called out, believing in the dim light she’d recognized the back of a head. Confusion, as two of the patrolmen took off after them. A flurry of cursing and yelling. One of the homeless guys vomited.

A patrolman who had run off in pursuit returned empty-handed.

“Yo! Listen up! You, too, turd breath,” LaMoia addressed the one who’d puked, a bearded guy wearing an old ratty jacket to what had once been a nice suit. “Po-lice,” LaMoia said, like a southern cracker. “Me and her, too. We’ve got a couple simple questions for you. This is not the ringtoss: You don’t get three chances. You talk, you walk. You lie, and it’s straight downtown to central booking-a night in the can courtesy of your city government. We’ll check for priors, warrants, parole status, and we’ll cash in our miles, all at your expense. So, for the next five minutes, try your level best to do something smart like listen, ’cause me and her, we know the way it is, and if you go all squirrelly on us, we’re gonna know that too, and trust me, you don’t want to see what happens next. Any questions?” No hesitation on his part whatsoever. “Okay, good. Then let’s keep our hands where we can see them, ladies. Sit your butts down on the ground, and we’ll do some business.”

A moment later, all six sat on the wooden planks of the ancient sidewalk like kids in kindergarten.

LaMoia asked about peeping the showers and got six heads all shaking no at him.

“Don’t know what I’m talking about?” LaMoia picked two out of the group, “Him and him,” instructing one of the patrolmen to cuff them and “get them downtown.” One of these two immediately spoke up, confessing the peeping, insisting, “Didn’t do nothing wrong.” LaMoia allowed this one to stay behind. He nodded, and the patrolman headed off down the tunnel with the other.

“Any other takers?”

They raised their hands sheepishly, all avoiding eye contact with Matthews.

“Let’s hear about it,” LaMoia said. “First to speak up gets a gold star.”

Matthews felt sick to her stomach as she learned that they’d treated the peeping like a drive-up window. It was guys like this that supported the stripper joints on First Avenue, the adult bookstores and video booths. Diluted beer and sticky floors.

LaMoia seethed beneath the veneer of comic impatience.

“Who here’s good with faces?” he asked. “It buys you a trip downtown tonight, but a hall pass the next time there’s trouble.

Community Chest time, people! Anyone interested?” No one volunteered. He selected the least drunk of the group, a guy probably in his late twenties who looked about fifty. Cheap booze did that. So did the street drugs. Or maybe he had the virus.

LaMoia and the other cops slipped on disposable gloves, indicating an end to discussions.

Matthews slipped on a pair as well, thinking disposable lives.

The final patrolman emerged from the dark with two more of the escapees. No sign of Walker.

Had she imagined that? Wishful thinking?

“Time to peep mug shots instead of naked teenagers, you perv.” LaMoia grabbed hold of the street person’s red handkerchief, knotted around the man’s neck, and led him like a dog back down the tunnel.

At Public Safety, LaMoia’s attempts to win the man’s cooperation ended with the detective providing him hot coffee and buying him a carton of Marlboro cigarettes. At two in the morning, he then worked him through a few dozen mug shots until confident of the man’s sobriety and his ability to make identification. The man picked out the faces of three vagrants he’d seen in the Underground. With an anxious Daphne Matthews monitoring the event from the corner of the small interrogation room, LaMoia arranged yet another array-six faces in small windows on a single card-and slid it in front of the homeless man.

Dirty fingers with jagged nails took hold of the card like a nervous gambler toying with his cards. The guy studied the faces in the cutout windows. The cracked skin of his dirty hands flexed as he stabbed a face-bottom left. “This guy’s been there a bunch.”

LaMoia turned the card around for Matthews to see as she stepped closer.

“He ever use the gallery? The peepholes?” LaMoia asked.

“Sure. All the time.”

His finger rested on the photo that was not a mug shot but a driver’s license ID. The face belonged to Ferrell Walker.

“We call him the fisherman,” the homeless man said, “ ’cause he stinks like shit.”

Matthews had been to one or two parties in LaMoia’s loft apartment, huge affairs, teeming masses, noisy, with music blaring.

Empty, it looked less like a bachelor’s pad than she’d expected.

The collection of modest, mostly mismatched furniture was complemented by the dramatic lighting-nothing but funnel lights on brightly colored wires. The focus of the area was the large, well-equipped kitchen and what was obviously a stunning view of Elliott Bay, for it looked so even at night.

“Wow,” she said.

“Yeah, I know.” Ever the modest one. He shut and locked the metal door with three locks. Like her and the houseboat, he’d bought his place for a song. He, at a time when the neighborhood had been a needle park and the mayor had been offering tax incentives. Riding the wave of “Californication” and the SoDo neighborhood’s gentrification (back when there had been a Kingdome), he now found himself with a piece of a trendy location rejuvenated by the construction of the Safe and the new football stadium. Like her own houseboat, the loft was now worth a small ransom, and like her, LaMoia would one day cash in on his good fortune and ride into the sunset in one of his trademark Camaros.

Blue sighed from the couch and thumped his tail on the cushion. LaMoia scolded the dog for being on the furniture but then greeted him warmly when the dog bothered to say hello. A weekend architect, LaMoia had constructed a few walls into the enormous space, dividing it nicely, but leaving much of it open.

Off the central living/dining area and kitchen was a master bedroom and a bath to the south that he showed her with pride, pointing out several details like high-speed Internet connection.

To the north of the kitchen was an office with a single twin bed as a couch and a guest bath across a wide hallway. He placed her bag in the office, left her for a minute or more, and returned with a red beach towel, making apologies for his linen.

The towel proved heavier than expected, and before she un-folded it he said, “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

“Understood.”

“The registration comes back expired. Previously owned by a man who smoked too much and died behind the wheel of a Ford Pinto.”

“I’ll return it the minute they lift my leave.”

“Just so we’re clear: I was not the officer who responded to that wreck. I’m clean. You can’t harm me with that, no matter what happens.”

“Got it.”

“The other thing in there,” he said, without naming the Taser stun gun she would later find, “is the same kinda story. Consider it a gift. No strings attached.”

“It’s all a gift, John. I appreciate everything you’re doing for me.”