Michael Connelly - Chasing the Dime

"You're already talking to him."

"So you haven't seen her when you've been over there?"

"Come to think of it, a lot of times she'd come out and say hello when I was there cutting the lawn or working the sprinklers. Or she'd bring me out a Pepsi or a lemonade. One time she gave me a cold beer. But she hasn't been there the last few times I've been there.

Her car was gone. I didn't think anything of it. People have lives, you know."

"What kind of car was it?"

"Gold Lexus. I don't know the model but I know it was a Lexus. Nice car. She took good care of it, too."

Pierce couldn't think of anything else to ask. Wainwright wasn't much of a help.

"Mr. Wainwright, will you check the application and then call her mother? I need you to call me back about this."

"Are the police involved? Is there a missing-persons report?"

"Her mother's been talking to the police but she doesn't think they're doing much. That's why she asked me. Do you have something to write with?"

"Sure do."

Pierce hesitated, realizing that if he gave his home number, Wainwright might recognize it as the same number he had for Lilly. He gave him the direct line to his office at Amedeo instead. He then thanked him and hung up.

He sat there looking at the phone, reviewing the call repeatedly and coming to the same conclusion each time. Wainwright was being evasive. He either knew something or was hiding something, or both.

He opened his backpack and got out the notebook in which he had written down the number for Robin, Lilly's escort partner.

This time when he called he tried to deepen his voice when she answered. His hope was that she would not recognize him from the night before.

"I was wondering if we could get together tonight."

"Well, I'm open, baby. Have we ever dated? You sound familiar."

"Uh, no. Not before."

"Whacha got in mind?"

"Um, maybe dinner and then go to your place. I don't know."

"Well, honey, I get four hundred an hour. Most guys want to skip the dinner and just come see me. Or I go see them."

"Then I can just come to you."

"Okay, fine. What's your name?"

He knew she had caller ID, so he couldn't lie.

"Henry Pierce."

"And what time were you thinking about?"

He looked at his watch. It was six o'clock.

"How about seven?"

It would give him time to come up with a plan and to get to a cash machine. He knew he had some cash, but not enough. He had a card that could get him $400 maximum on a withdrawal.

"An early-bird special," she said. "That's fine with me. Except there ain't a special rate."

"That's okay. Where do I go?"

"Got a pencil?"

"Right here."

"I'm sure you have a hard pencil."

She laughed and then gave him an address of a Smooth Moves shop on Lincoln in Marina del Rey. She told him to go into the shop and get a strawberry blitz and then call her from the pay phone out front at five minutes before seven. When he asked her why she did it this way she said, "Precautions. I wanna get a look at you before I bring you on up. And I like those little strawberry thingees anyway. That's like bringing me flowers, sugar. Have 'em put some energy powder in it for me, would you? I get a sneaky idea that I'm gonna need it with you."

She laughed again but it sounded too practiced and hollow to Pierce. It gave him a bad feeling. He said he would get the smoothie and make the call and thanked her, and that was the end of it. As he cradled the phone he felt a wave of trepidation sweep through him. He thought about the speech he had given Monica and how she had correctly turned it right back at him.

"You idiot," he said to himself.

At the appointed time Pierce picked up a pay phone outside of Smooth Moves and called Robin's number. Turning his back to the phone, he saw that across Lincoln was a large apartment complex called the Marina Executive Towers. Only the building didn't really qualify as a tower or towers. It was short and wide -three stories of apartments over a garage. The complex covered half a city block and its length was broken up by color gradations. Its exterior was painted three different pastels -pink, blue, yellow -as it worked its way down the street. A banner hanging off the roofline announced short-term executive rentals and free maid service. Pierce realized it was a perfect place for a prostitute to carry out her business. The place was probably so large and the turnover of renters so high that a steady procession of different men coming in and out would not be noticeable or curious to other residents.

Robin picked up after three rings.

"It's Henry. I called -"

"Hey, baby. Let me get a look at you here."

Without trying to be too obvious about it, he scanned the windows of the apartment building across the street, looking for someone looking back at him. He didn't see anybody or any curtain movement but he noticed that the windows of several apartments had mirrored glass. He wondered if there was more than one woman like Robin working in the building.

"I see you got my smoothie," she said. "You get that energy powder?"

"Yes. They call it a booster rocket. That what you wanted?"

"That's it. Okay, you look all right to me. You're not a cop, are you?"

"No, I'm not."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Then say it. I'm taping this."

"I am not a police officer, okay?"

"All right, come on up then. Go across the street to the apartment building and at the main door push apartment two oh three. I'll see you soon."

"Okay."

He hung up and crossed the street and followed her instructions. At the door, the button marked 203 had the name Bird after it. As in robin, Pierce thought. When he pushed the button, the door lock was buzzed without any further inquiry from Robin over the intercom. Inside, he couldn't find the stairs, so he took the elevator the one flight up.

Robin's apartment was two doors from the elevator.

She opened the door before he got a chance to knock. There was a peephole and she apparently had been watching. She took the smoothie from his hand and invited him in.

The place was sparsely furnished and seemed devoid of any personal object. There was just a couch, a chair, a coffee table and a standing lamp. A museum print was framed on the wall. It looked medieval: two angels leading the newly deceased toward the light at the end of a tunnel.

As Pierce stepped in he could see that the glass doors to the balcony had the mirrored film on them. They looked almost directly across to the Smooth Moves shop.

"I could see you but you couldn't see me," Robin said from behind him. "I could see you looking."

He turned to her.

"I was just curious about the setup. You know, how you work this."

"Well, now you know. Come sit down."

She moved to a couch and gestured for him to sit next to her. He did. He tried to look around. The place reminded Pierce of a hotel room but he guessed atmosphere wasn't what was important for the business usually conducted within the apartment. He felt her hand take his jaw and turn his face to hers.

"You like what you see?" she asked.

He was pretty sure she was the woman in the photo on the web page. It was hard to be certain because he had not studied it as long and as often as the photo of Lilly. She was barefoot and wore a light blue tank top T-shirt and a pair of red corduroy shorts cut so high that a bathing suit might have been more modest. She was braless and her breasts were huge, most likely the result of implants. Nipples the size of Girl Scout cookies were clearly outlined on the T-shirt. Her blonde hair was parted in the middle and cascaded down the sides of her face in ringlets. She wore no makeup that he could see.

"Yes, I do," he answered.