I set Angel down, and she immediately ran past a pile of dogs fighting over a stick and over to a huge Rottweiler. Leaping up, she latched her needle teeth onto his upper lip. The big dog tried to shake her off, but she would tumble in the mud, get up and charge again. She made up for her lack of poundage with pure guts and tenacity.
“Bruiser!” A large lady in a faded denim jumpsuit called out to the Rottweiler. “Play nice, or when she gets her size, you’ll wish you had.”
I turned and started to walk away. Angel was cute enough, one of these dog lovers would take her in and I could get on with whatever the fuck I was going to do.
“Are you friends with Kelly?” The big woman called out to me, “Well, I mean you must be, you’re walking her dog.”
“You know Kelly?” I asked, startled to hear her name spoken here.
“Yeah, I know that beautiful girl.” She was smiling openly as she came over to me. “Angel loves my Bruiser. She attacks him like this every morning. Luckily he’s so not alpha.” She talked to me in a comfortable way I wasn’t used to. Like Angel was my ticket into her secret society. “Every morning for the last month Kelly’s brought Angel down to play with my Bruiser. Sometimes we go get a cup of coffee at an outdoor cafe down the street. Tell you the truth when I first met Kelly I was hot for her. She told me she didn’t swing that way but I though I might convert her. Men can be such pricks… I mean not you, well maybe you I mean the jury is still out on that one, but you know what I mean.” She was speaking a mile a minute, like a speed freak on the end of an all night jag. But, it turned out Helen was a TV crime writer who drank too much coffee and spent way too much time alone, just her, her keyboard and Bruiser. After it was clear she wasn’t getting into Kelly’s shorts, they had struck up a true friendship. Kell was like that, easy to like, and I don’t ever remember her judging anyone. Once I asked her what she thought about the men who came into the club, the men who got lap dances. She said, “Like my grandma used to say, just people doing people things.”
“Look, I don’t know you from nobody, but do you think you could take Angel. I’m just not up to being, whatever.”
“Where’s Kelly?” Helen’s face dropped, she braced herself for bad news, as if she knew it was coming.
“I don’t know, she’s gone, ok. Can you take the dog or not?”
“Where is Kelly?”
“Fuck, I’ll keep the damn mutt.” Picking up Angel I walked out of the dog park. I could feel Helen’s eyes following me all the way to the street.
After depositing Angel back at my crib I went into Club Xtasy. Parking my bike I noticed the unmarked LAPD car out in front of the bar. I thought about rolling on, but they would want to talk to me sooner or later so it might as well be now. I slipped my.38 into a specially built hidey-hole under the seat of the Norton, the last thing I needed was to have them find an unregistered piece on a registered felon.
Inside the club, Piper came rushing over to me, “It’s Kelly, Mo. Did you hear?” Before I could answer her, a thick-necked, short-haired, butch detective moved in on me. She had on jeans, running shoes and a nylon windbreaker. She was six feet if she was an inch. Big but not soft, she looked as though she lifted weights and hated men, me most of all.
“You Moses McGuire?” she asked, daring me to deny it.
“Yes.” I said in a dead tone. I’d spent enough time with cops to know smiling and saluting them only bought you contempt. The moment she saw me she knew we stood on opposite sides of that thin blue line that most straights don’t even know exists. She could smell the time I’d done.
“Would you mind coming with me?” She asked, but it wasn’t a question so I followed her into the back office. Turaj was there, looking less bold than usual. An older White detective was sitting behind the desk; he had a crew cut, graying hair and sad tired eyes. “Take a seat,” the female detective told me. So I sat facing the White detective, with his partner towering behind me.
“Moses McGuire?” The older detective asked. I nodded yes and he continued in a calm, even voice, “I’m detective Lowrie, that’s Sanchez, would you mind telling us where you were yesterday afternoon?”
“If you tell me what’s going on,” I said. Sanchez smacked the back of my head, not as hard as she wanted, but hard enough to get my attention.
“We ask, you answer. Is that simple enough for you?” Sanchez said, resting her hand on my shoulder. I looked at her hand then coldly up into her eyes.
“Unless your next move is to bust my ass, you better take your hand off me.”
“Or what? I’m not one of your bikini bimbos. I’m not your punch of the week. I’m Detective First-Class Sanchez. You want a dance, then we’ll step out back. No? Afraid a girl might kick your ass?”
“Mary Cruz. I’m sure Mr. McGuire wants to help us out.” Lowrie’s eyes flicked to her hand on my shoulder.
“I’m sure he does, Stan,” she said, clamping her vice grip before removing her hand in a show of mock politeness. Rodney King, the LA uprising, the descent decree and two new Chiefs might have made the LAPD more citizen-sensitive but it hadn’t changed their hearts. Sanchez was a bully who would love nothing better than to play racquetball with my head while her partner held a gun on me. Lowrie looked up at her, shaking his head slowly.
“My partner doesn’t like you. I keep telling her to switch to decaf, but she doesn’t listen,” Lowrie said in friendly tone.
“You the good cop?”
“No, I’m just a tired civil servant who’s been up all night staring at a girl’s brains on a wall and I would like some straight answers.”
“Ok, I was here ‘til after four, then I went for a ride, ate a Tommy’s burger around ten then hit the rack,” I said, trying to keep my voice even and calm. Lowrie let out a long sigh. Rubbing his temples he stared at me with his tired eyes.
“We know you went to see Kelly Lovelace after you left the club,” he said. My eyes flicked over to Turaj who looked down, the spineless prick had sold me out.
“What happened to Kelly?” My question was answered with another smack to the head, this one harder.
“Not real good at following directions are you?” Sanchez said. “We got you. Your life is a turd circling the toilet bowl right now and you don’t even know it.”
“What happened to Kelly?” I said, looking Sanchez square in the eyes.
“Here’s a hint, I’m a homicide detective. Help any smart guy?” she said. I looked from her to Lowrie, who simply nodded.
“Should I lawyer up?” I asked him.
“Only if you want to go down to the cop shop, make me fill out a bunch of unnecessary paperwork.” Lowrie said. I liked him. He was just another guy doing a job.
“Ok, straight deal,” I leaned in close to Lowrie, making it clear I was talking to him, not Sanchez. “Kelly called me yesterday from the club. She sounded scared so I told her I’d come get her. When I got here, she was gone. So I went by her crib, but she wasn’t there either. Truth is, I figured it was just stripper drama.”
“What was your relationship to Miss Lovelace?”
“We were friends. Just friends.”
“That’s not what we heard.” Lowrie said with no judgment.
“Yeah, but it’s the truth.”
“Did you wish it was more?” Again no judgment.