Faye Kellerman - Moon Music

“You’re a very savvy woman. Just take care.”

“Always.” She softened, kissed his nose. “Good luck and good night.”

He shut the door softly behind him. A moment later, he heard the loud click of the deadbolt. Thinking of Brittany’s mutilated face … good that Honey had taken him seriously.

It was a typical minimum-wage apartment, but it was neat and clean and had tasteful repros on the wall—cubic forms and sketches. Poe’s eyes jumped from the walls to Minors nervously flattening the carpet. The blackjack dealer had slipped on a gray sweatshirt and jeans, but hadn’t quite gotten around to shoes. He had hairy feet. His face was long, with even features except for the mouth. Thin, tight lips gave him an unforgiving expression. To stop him from pacing, Poe asked for coffee. Minors brewed up a batch as bitter as his mood.

Angrily, he said, “I can’t believe that Brittany sank that low.” A pause. “Not that I’m not saying it was her fault that she got murdered.”

“That’s good.”

The dealer reddened, looked down. “You’re sure? That it’s actually … her?”

Poe sipped his wretched java, didn’t respond right away. He drummed his fingers against the cup. Actually that was a good question. Newel had been found nude, without a purse, and half her face had been mangled. But the other half was identifiable as the woman in Havana’s posed portfolio photographs.

Poe said, “We’ve had some preliminary identification—”

“So you’re not sure?”

“We’re proceeding as if it is Brittany Newel.” Poe put down his cup. “You seem very angry at her.”

Minors’s face tightened, frowning lips turning into lines.

“Why do you say that? I haven’t seen her in months.”

Poe took out a notebook. “I’m angry at people I haven’t seen in years. Was the breakup amicable?”

“I was happy about it.”

“Why’d you two break up?”

“She was out of control.”

“Drugs?”

“What else?”

“How long had she been blowing crystal?”

“Long enough for me to say good-bye.”

“When you two met, was she using?”

Minors sank down on a chair, drooped like a water-starved plant. “Nothing heavy.”

“Pot?”

“Occasionally.”

“Why’d she turn to a heavier case load?”

“Who knows?” Minors muttered. “It’s this damn city. Takes over your life.”

Poe said, “She was turning tricks.”

Minors muttered, “Case in point.”

“Is that why you beat her up?”

Minors blushed brightly. “I didn’t beat her up—”

“You smacked her around, Trent. Save us both some energy and don’t play Mr. Who Me?, all right?”

“So I got pissed a couple times—”

“A couple of times?” With dubious eyes, Poe gave him a look. “Who was really out of control?”

Minors blurted, “I didn’t give a flying fuck about her whoring ! Okay? ”

Poe licked his lips, tapped his pen against his notebook. “Why not?”

Quietly, Minors said, “’Cause we had this understanding.”

“What kind of understanding?”

The dealer got anxious. “Just that we didn’t butt into each other’s business.”

“Each other’s business,” Poe repeated. “Do you mean personal or professional business?”

“Both.”

“So her whoring was okay because it brought in money?”

“It was her thing, Sergeant!” Minors exploded. “Her business, her money. I didn’t have a thing to do with it. I wasn’t her pimp, okay ?”

“But you knew about it.”

Minors was quiet.

“If you had this understanding about her whoring, Trent, why did you toss her?”

“Who told you I hit her?”

Poe ignored his question. “Did you beat her because you thought she was holding money back?”

“I told you I wasn’t her pimp!”

“Then who was?”

A heavy sigh. Minors said, “She told me she was set up by hotels.”

“Havana?”

“All of them.” He swallowed hard. “She got around.”

“And you didn’t care?”

“I didn’t say that,” Minors whined. “I just said I knew about it and tried not to interfere.”

Poe said, “Can we go back to my original question? If you knew about it, had this understanding … why did you beat her?”

Minors said nothing, leaving Poe to wonder what information he was sitting on.

“Did she take up with someone else, Trent?” Poe asked.

Minors stiffened. “Hey! I kicked her out. Not the other way around.”

“After you found out she was shagging … who?”

Minors bolted upward. “I don’t have to talk to you—”

“Sit down!” Poe commanded. He put the mug on the coffee table. “Stop acting so … emotional.”

A long silence. Then the dealer sat down.

Poe stated, “Brittany had gotten involved with someone. Tell me who it was, and then I don’t drag you downtown. You make my life easy, I don’t have to say it came from you.”

Minors cleared his throat. “She took up with the boss.”

Poe paused. Did he mean Havana’s pit boss? “Are you talking about Pete Delatorre?”

“Bigger than Havana.” Minors hitchhiked his thumb in an upward motion. “And higher up.”

“A casino manager—”

“Higher still.”

Poe tried to keep cool. “This isn’t twenty questions, Trent. Give me a name.”

“How about Parker Lewiston?”

Poe opened his mouth and closed it. Lewiston owned half of downtown Vegas. Generally his taste in women ran a little older—mid-twenties and a hell of a lot more classy than Brittany Newel. Honey had been one of Parker’s ladies. Before he had put Honey out to pasture, he had fixed her up. The papers to a condo plus a yearly stipend. So what had happened with Brittany? And why would Parkerboy be attracted to a cheap whore like her in the first place?

A pause.

Of course, to paraphrase Virginia Hill’s statement to the HUAC, Newel, in her prime, could have been the best cocksucker in America.

“Hard to believe, huh?” Minors had turned acerbic. “Brittany with Parkerboy. ”

“Lewiston takes care of his women, Trent.”

“I told you. Brittany was out of control!”

But Parkerboy never allowed his women to get out of control. If they used, he provided for them … kept them happy and content. Poe was suspicious.

Minors was saying, “… threw it in my face constantly.” He turned his voice high-pitched and shrewish. Imitated, “ ‘You keep whopping me and I’m gonna tell Parker on you.’ ”

“But she never did. Because if she had, you wouldn’t be working here … in this city.” Poe waited a beat. “She was using big-time when she died. Who’d she get her stuff from?”

Minors shrugged. “Maybe Lewiston.”

“Not if he dropped her.”

“Then I don’t know.”

“Who’d she get her stuff from when you knew her?”

“Lewiston.”

“She told you that?”

“Yeah.” Angrily, he said, “Parkerboy made her what she is today.”

“A corpse?”

Minors turned crimson, stammered, “No, no, I’m not saying … I’m not implying Mr. Lewiston had anything to do—”

“Stop sweating, Trent. He ain’t in the room.”

Minors looked over his shoulder. “All I meant was … well, she wasn’t using heavy until she hooked up with him. He turned her into a crack whore.”

Poe noticed that Minors had dropped his voice a notch.