"What kind of a car did he have?" Lucas asked.
She snorted and showed what might have been either a smile or a grimace. "A traveling gamer, on his way to California? What do you think?"
Lucas thought a minute, and then said, "A Harley."
"Absolutely," Gloria said. "A Harley-Davidson sportster. He tried to scam me: he said he'd love to take me with him, but he needed the money to trade up to a softtail. I told him to pick me up when he got it."
She had few details about David Ellers: she'd met him at a McDonald's, where he was arguing with some people about the MYST game. He didn't have a place to stay, and he looked nice, so she asked if he wanted to stay over. He did, for a week.
"I hated to see him go," she said. "He was intense."
He was from Connecticut, she said. "I think his parents had money, like insurance or something. He was from Hartford, maybe."
"What do you think?" Lucas asked Sloan when they were back on the street. McPherson was walking back toward them, eating a cheeseburger, carrying a McDonald's bag.
"I don't know," Sloan said. "If she was lying, she was good at it. But it didn't sound like the truth, either. Goddamn dopers, it's hard to tell. They don't have that edge of fear."
They got to the car just as McPherson did; she offered some fries to Lucas and Sloan, and seemed slightly chagrined when Sloan took some. "What happened?" she asked.
"She said he was passing through," Lucas said, briefly. "She said his name is David Ellers, he's from Connecticut, and he was on his way to the West Coast."
McPherson had taken a large bite out of the cheeseburger, but she stopped chewing for a moment, then looked sideways out the car window, shook her head at Lucas, finished chewing, swallowed, licked her lips, and said, "God: when you said that, Connecticut, it popped into my head. I asked this guy if he knew my friend David, because they both came from the same town. Wayzata. But he said he went to a private school and didn't know him."
"Wayzata?" Sloan asked.
"I'm pretty sure," she said.
"Gloria said his name was David," Lucas said.
McPherson shook her head. "It wasn't. I would have remembered that-I mean, two Davids from the same town and the same age and all."
Sloan sighed and looked at Lucas. "God, it's a shame the way young people lie to us nowadays."
"And the old people," Lucas said. "And the middle-aged." To McPherson he said, "C'mon. Let's go see if she remembers you, and if that helps her remember the guy's name."
"Jeez, I kinda hate to be seen with cops," McPherson said.
"Is that what they taught you in Wisconsin?" Sloan asked as they got back out of the car.
"Nope. They taught me that if I get lost, ask a cop. So I got over here at the U, and I got lost, and I asked a cop. He wanted to take me home. With him, I mean."
"Must've been a St. Paul cop," Lucas said. "C'mon, let's go."
They climbed the stairs again, but when they knocked on Gloria's door, there was no answer. "Could be visiting another apartment," Sloan said. But it didn't feel that way. The building was silent, nothing moving.
Lucas walked down to the end of the hall and looked out a window: "Fire escape," he said. An old iron drop-ladder fire escape hung on the side of the building. He checked the window above it, and the window slid open easily. "The window's unlocked from inside. Goes down the back."
He leaned out: nothing moved.
Sloan said, "She's running."
Lucas said, "And she knows him-you go that way."
Sloan ran for the stairs, while Lucas went out the window and ran down the fire escape. At the top of the lowest flight, he had to wait for a counter-weight to drop the stairs to a narrow walkway between the apartment and the next building. The walkway was filled with debris, blown paper, a few boards, a bent and rusting real-estate sign, and wine bottles. Lucas looked one way toward the street, and the other toward an alley that ran along the back of the buildings. If she'd gone out to the street, they should have seen her. He ran the other way, toward the alley, high-stepping over dried dog shit and a knee-high pile of what looked like cat litter. Just down the alley was the rear door of a pizza shop, with a window. Behind the window, a kid was hosing down dishes in a stainless-steel sink. Lucas went to the door and pushed through: and a woman leaned against a counter, smoking a cigarette, and the kid looked up. "Hey," she said, straightening up. "You're not supposed to…"
"I'm a cop," Lucas said. "Did either of you guys see a woman come down the fire escape in back of the building across the alley? Five, six minutes ago?"
The woman and the dishwasher looked at each other and then the dishwasher said, "I guess. Skinny, dressed in black?"
"That's her," Lucas said. "Did you see where she went?"
"She walked up that way…" The dishwasher pointed.
"Was she in a hurry?"
"Yeah. She sort of skipped, and she was carrying like a laundry bag. She went around the corner. What'd she do?"
Lucas left without answering, ran down to the corner. There was a bus stop, with nobody waiting. He ran across a street, into a bakery, flashed his badge and asked to use a phone: a flour-dusted fat man led him into the back and pointed at a wall phone. Lucas called Dispatch: "She might be on a bus, or she might be walking someplace. But flood it: we're looking for a tall, pale woman in her middle twenties, dressed all in black, probably in a hurry, probably carrying a bag of some kind. Maybe a sack. Check for a car registration and get that out."
Back on the street, he looked both ways: he could see three or four women dressed in black. One might have been Crosby, but when she turned to cross a street, Lucas, running up from behind, saw it wasn't her. A cop flashed by: two guys looking out the windows. Lucas turned back: there were students everywhere.
Too many of them in black.
Lucas walked back to the apartment's front door. Sloan turned the corner and walked toward him from the other end of the street. Sloan shook his head, took off his hat, smoothed his hair, and said, "Didn't see a thing."
"Goddamnit, this is just like the fuckin' game store. We were this close," Lucas said, showing an inch between his thumb and forefinger. He looked up at the building. "Let's see if there's a manager."
A glassed-over building directory showed a manager in 3A; his wife sent them down the basement, where they found him building a box kite.
Lucas explained the problem, and asked, "Have you got a key?"
"Sure." The manager had a thick German accent. He gave the box kite a final tweak, tightened a balsa-wood joint with a c-clamp, and said, "Gum dis vay." He didn't mention a warrant.
McPherson was waiting in the hall outside Gloria's room. "Could you take a cab?" Lucas asked.
"Well…"
"Here's twenty bucks; that's to cover the cab and buy you dinner," he said, handing her the bill. "And thanks. If you think of anything…"
"I've got your number," she nodded.
The manager let them into Gloria's apartment. They did a quick walk-through: something was bothering Lucas-he'd seen something, but he didn't know what. Something his eye had picked up. But when? During the talk with Crosby? No. It was just now… he looked around, couldn't think of it. Getting old, he thought.
"Do you know any of her friends?" Lucas asked the manager, with little hope.
The German went through an elaborate, Frenchlike shrug, and said, "Not me."
They knocked on every door in the building, with the manager trailing behind them. Few people were in their apartments, and nobody had seen her. Two patrol cops showed up and Lucas said, "Go with the manager. He has legal access, so you don't need a search warrant. Check every single apartment. Don't mess with anything, just check for the girl." As they were walking away, he called, "Look under the beds," and one of the cops said, with an edge, "Right, chief."
Lucas, scowling, turned and said to Sloan, "Find the best picture you can, get it back to the office, and get it out. Tell Rose Marie to hand it out to the press."