Dean Koontz - Whispers

"I served him a couple."

"So you saw his ID."

"Yeah."

"What was it--driver's license?"

"Yeah. He was thirty, for God's sake. He looked like he was in maybe eleventh grade, a high school junior, maybe at most a senior, but he was thirty."

Frank said, "Do you remember what the name was on the driver's license?"

Otto fingered his shark's tooth necklace. "Name? You already know his name."

"What I'm wondering," Frank said, "is whether or not he showed you a phony driver's license."

"His picture was on it," Otto said.

"That doesn't mean it was genuine."

"But you can't change pictures on a California license. Doesn't the card self-destruct or something if you mess around with it?"

"I'm saying the whole card might be a fake."

"Forged credentials," Otto said, intrigued. "Forged credentials...." Clearly, he had watched a couple of hundred old espionage movies on television. "What is this, some sort of spy thing?"

"I think we've gotten turned around here," Frank said impatiently.

"Huh?"

"We're supposed to be the ones asking questions," Frank said. "You just answer them. Understand?"

The bartender was one of those people who reacted quickly, strongly, and negatively to a pushy cop. His dark face closed up. His eyes went blank.

Aware that they were about to lose Otto while he still might have something important to tell them, Tony put a hand on Frank's shoulder, squeezed gently. "You don't want him to start munching on a glass, do you?"

"I'd like to see it again," the blonde said, grinning.

"You'd rather do it your way?" Frank asked Tony.

"Sure."

"Go ahead."

Tony smiled at Otto. "Look, you're curious, and so are we. Doesn't hurt a thing if we satisfy your curiosity, so long as you satisfy ours."

Otto opened up again. "That's the way I see it, too."

"Okay," Tony said.

"Okay. So what's this Bobby Valdez done that makes you want him so bad?"

"Parole violations," Tony said.

"And assault," Frank said grudgingly.

"And rape," Tony said.

"Hey," Otto said, "didn't you guys say you were with the homicide squad?"

The band finished Still the Same with a clatter-bang-boom of sound not unlike the derailment of a speeding freight train. Then there were a few minutes of peace while the lead singer made unamusing small talk with the ringside customers who sat in clouds of smoke that, Tony felt sure, had come partly from cigarettes and partly from burning eardrums. The musicians pretended to tune their instruments.

"When Bobby Valdez comes across an uncooperative woman," Tony explained to Otto, "he pistol-whips her a little to make her more eager to please. Five days ago, he went after victim number ten, and she resisted, and he hit her on the head so hard and so often that she died in the hospital twelve hours later. Which brought the homicide squad into it."

"What I don't understand," the blonde said, "is why any guy would take it by force when there's girls willing to give it away." She winked at Tony, but he didn't wink back.

"Before the woman died," Frank said, "she gave us a description that fit Bobby like a custom-made glove. So if you know anything about the slimy little bastard, we've got to hear it."

Otto hadn't spent all his time watching spy movies. He had seen his share of police shows, too. He said, "So now you want him for murder-one."

"Murder-one," Tony said. "Precisely."

"How'd you know to ask me about him?"

"He accosted seven of those ten women in singles' bar parking lots--"

"None of them in our lot," Otto interrupted defensively. "Our lot is very well lighted."

"That's true," Tony said. "But we've been going to singles' bars all over the city, talking to bartenders and regular customers, showing them those mug shots, trying to get a line on Bobby Valdez. A couple of people at a place in Century City told us they thought they'd seen him here, but they couldn't be sure."

"He was here all right," Otto said.

Now that Otto's feathers had been smoothed, Frank took over the questioning again. "So he caused a commotion, and you did your beer glass trick, and he showed you his ID."

"Yeah."

"So what was the name on the ID?"

Otto frowned. "I'm not sure."

"Was it Robert Valdez?"

"I don't think so."

"Try to remember."

"It was a Chicano name."

"Valdez is a Chicano name."

"This was more Chicano than that."

"What do you mean?"

"Well... longer... with a couple Zs in it."

"Zs?"

"And Qs. You know the kind of name I mean. Something like Velazquez."

"Was it Velazquez?"

"Nah. But like that."

"Began with a V?"

"I couldn't say for sure. I'm just talking about the sound of it."

"What about the first name?"

"I think I remember that."

"And?"

"Jaun."

"J-U-A-N?"

"Yeah. Very Chicano."

"You notice an address on his ID?"

"I wasn't looking for that."

"He mention where he lived?"

"We weren't exactly chummy."

"He say anything at all about himself?"

"He just drank quietly and left."

"And never came back?"

"That's right."

"You're positive?"

"He's never been back on my shift, anyway."

"You got a good memory."

"Only for the troublemakers and the pretty ones."

"We'd like to show those mug shots to some of your customers," Frank said.

"Sure. Go ahead."

The blonde sitting next to Tony Clemenza said, "Can I get a closer look at them? Maybe I was in here when he was. Maybe I even talked to him."

Tony picked up the photographs and swiveled on his barstool.

She swung toward him as he swung toward her, and she pressed her pretty knees against his. When she took the pictures from him, her fingers lingered for a moment on his. She was a great believer in eye contact. She seemed to be trying to stare right through his brain and out the back of his skull.

"I'm Judy. What's your name?"

"Tony Clemenza."

"I knew you were Italian. I could tell by your dark soulful eyes."

"They give me away every time."

"And that thick black hair. So curly."

"And the spaghetti sauce stains on my shirt?"

She looked at his shirt.

"There aren't really any stains," he said.

She frowned.

"Just kidding. A little joke," he said.

"Oh."

"Do you recognize Bobby Valdez?"

She finally looked at the mug shot. "Nope. I must not have been here the night he came in. But he's not all that bad, is he? Kind of cute."

"Baby face."

"It would be like going to bed with my kid brother," she said. "Kinky." She grinned.

He took the pictures from her.

"That's a very nice suit you're wearing," she said.

"Thank you."

"It's cut really nice."

"Thank you."

This was not just a liberated woman exercising her right to be the sexual aggressor. He liked liberated women. This one was something else. Something weird. The whips and chains type. Or worse. She made him feel like a tasty little morsel, a very edible canapé, the last tiny piece of toast and caviar on a silver tray.

"You sure don't see many suits in a place like this," she said.

"I guess not."

"Body shirts, jeans, leather jackets, the Hollywood look--that's what you see in a place like this."

He cleared his throat. "Well," he said uneasily, "I want to thank you for helping us as much as you could."

She said, "I like men who dress well."

Their eyes locked again, and he saw that flicker of ravenous hunger and animal greed. He had the feeling that if he let her lead him into her apartment, the door would close behind him like a set of jaws. She'd be all over him in an instant, pushing and pulling and whirling him around as if she were a wave of digestive juices, breaking him down and sucking the nutrients out of him, using him until he fragmented and dissolved and simply ceased to exist except as a part of her.