“What time?”
“Two, three, four.”
“A.M.”
Strobe stared at her, stunned by the idiocy of the question. “Yeah,” he said.
“What were you doing there, Duncan?”
“Hanging.”
“Who were you hanging with?”
“No one.”
“Hanging all by yourself.”
“Hey,” said Strobe, “least I know I got good company.”
Hollywood near Bronson was only a short stroll from Hospital Row on Sunset. Perfect place to score pills from some corrupt doctor or nurse or pharmacist, then back to the boulevard for resale. More than theory. Petra knew last year Narcotics had busted a surgical resident playing wholesaler. Idiot studies that hard, gets that far, only to blow it.
She said, “I’m figuring you were doing a little trading.”
Strobe knew exactly what she meant and he flashed a gap-toothed grin. Green stuff grew on his gums. Lord.
Petra said, “Tell me exactly what you saw.”
“She’s a crazy, right?”
“Was.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what I saw, a crazy, acting crazy, walking up and down crazy, talking to herself. Like any other crazy. Then some car picked her up. A john.”
“You’re saying she was hooking?”
“What else do bitches do at night when they’re walking back and forth.” Strobe laughed. “So what, he cut her? We got a Jack Ripper or something?”
“You’re amused by all this, Duncan.”
“Hey, you get your laughs where you get ’em.”
“Do you know for a fact that she was hooking?”
“Well… sure. Why not?”
“There’s ‘sure’ and there’s ‘why not,’ “ said Petra.
“I gotta choose one again?”
“Cut the crap, Duncan. Tell me what you know for a fact and there’s another twenty in it for you. Keep this up, and I take back the first bill and book you on something.”
“Hey,” said Strobe, in that same scary voice. Petra figured she’d probably averted something nasty between him and the hot-tempered falafel vendor. For the time being.
Strobe’s eyes were all over the place, and his emaciated frame had tightened up. Checking out an escape route.
Or planning something aggressive?
Then he glanced at Petra’s purse.
Her gun was inside, right on top. Her cuffs were on her belt, riding the small of her back.
He wouldn’t be that nuts- would he?
She smiled, said, “Duncan, Duncan,” grabbed him, spun him, bent his arm back, fumbled with the cuffs, got one wrist, then the other.
“Aw, ‘Tective!”
A quick frisk produced a crumpled, half-empty pack of Salems, a baggie of pills and capsules, and a rusted pocketknife.
“Aw,” he repeated. Then he began bawling, like a baby.
She put him in the backseat of her car, stuffed the cigarettes in his shirt pocket, ditched the dope down a sewer drain- sorry, Pacific Ocean- pocketed the knife, got in front, unzipped her purse, placed her hand on her gun.
Tears drizzled from the kid’s eyes.
“I’m real sorry, ‘Tective Connor,” he said, sounding around twelve. “I ain’t trying to jerk you aroun’, I’m just hungry, is all, need a sandwich.”
“Not enough business?”
Strobe looked in the direction of the storm drain. “Not no more.”
“Look,” she said, “I don’t have time for games. Tell me exactly what you know about Erna Murphy and what you saw three nights ago.”
“I don’ know nothing about her, don’ even know her name,” said Strobe. “I just seen her like I told you, I know she’s one a the crazies-”
“She hang with any other crazies?”
“You gonna arrest me?”
“Not if you cooperate.”
“You gonna take these off?” Shifting his arms. “It hurts.”
His wrists were tiny, and she’d ratcheted the cuffs tight. But no way was he in pain. She’d been careful, she always was. Everyone an actor…
“They come off when we’re finished.”
“Ain’t this illegal?”
“Duncan.”
“Sorry, sorry- okay okay okay what I know… what was the question?”
“Did she hang with other crazies.”
“Not any I saw. It’s not like she was there all the time, like a part of the scene. She’d be there, then she wouldn’t. Know what I mean? I never talked to her, no one talked to her, she didn’t talk to no one. She was crazy.”
“Do you know for a fact that she was hooking?”
Strobe’s fuzzy tongue traveled along the meager, parched strip of grayish tissue that passed for his lower lip. “No. I can’t say that. I just assumed. Cause she got in the car.”
“What kind of car?”
“Just a car,” he said. “Nothing fancy- no Beemer or Porsche.”
“Color?”
“Light.”
“Big or small?”
“Small, I guess.”
Kevin Drummond drove a white Honda. Milo’s call about the car turning up near the airport firmed Kevin up further as their guy. The plan was to wait until the vehicle was processed, then she’d be bracing Kevin’s parents, again.
Strobe’s story kicked things up several notches. Time and place, a perfect fit.
Kevin decides Erna’s expendable, picks her up, drives her a few blocks away, plies her with booze, does the deed, ditches the car in Inglewood, makes the short hike to LAX and is heavenward.
Milo had called her early this morning, before she left. No sightings of Kevin at the airport, yet.
“The car,” she said. “Give me a brand, Duncan.”
“I dunno, ‘Tective Connor.”
“Nissan, Toyota, Honda, Chevy, Ford?”
“I dunno,” Strobe insisted. “That’s the truth, I don’t wanna give you some bullshit and then you find out different and you think I’m lyin’ and you come back for me- could you please take these off, I can’t stand being tied up.”
Something in the kid’s tone- a genuine plaintiveness that spoke of past indignities- tugged at her heart. Runaways came to Hollywood for a reason. For a horrible moment, Petra visualized a younger, rosy-cheeked Duncan Beemish tied up at home by some pervert.
As if sensing her unease, Strobe broke down and cried even louder.
Petra cut him off mentally. “Not a van? Definitely a car?”
“A car.”
“Not an SUV?”
“A car.”
“Color?”
“Light.”
“White, gray?”
“I dunno, I ain’t lying to you-”
“Why’d you assume she was hooking, Duncan?”
“Because she was on the street and the car pulled up and she got in.”
“How many people in the car?”
“Dunno.”
“What did the driver look like?”
“Didn’t see him.”
“How far were you from the car?”
“Um um um, maybe half a block.”
“This happened right on the boulevard?”
“No, a side street.”
“Which one?”
“Um… Ridgeway, yeah I think it was Ridgeway, yeah yeah Ridgeway. It’s real dark there, go there and check, all these broken streetlights.”
Ridgeway was a block from where the surgeon had been busted. The city had probably fixed the lights, only to have them vandalized by the freelance pharmacists.
Petra said, “Before she got in the car, did she talk to the driver?”
“No, she just got in.”
“No negotiating? No scoping out for a U.C. cop? That doesn’t sound like a hooker, Duncan.”
Strobe’s eyes widened. Speedfreak insight. “Yeah, you’re right!” He squirmed some more. “Can you take these off? Please?”
She pumped him a while longer, got nothing, left the car, returned to Mr. Gold Tooth and ordered a jumbo kabob combo with double hot peppers and an XL cola. Once again, he tried to freebie her, once again she insisted on paying in full, and Tooth’s dark eyes clouded.
Some ethnic insult, no doubt. “I give you extra bebbers.”
Returning to the Honda, she placed the food on the trunk, pulled Strobe out, uncuffed him, had him sit on the curb, a few feet away. He complied readily and she brought him the food and another twenty-dollar bill.