“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“We also believe he was in contact with this woman as a potential information source. One of the people we talked to thought she might work here.”
“Get you another beer, Papa?” Ellie said.
“Yes, thanks.” I looked at Knowles. “She wasn’t one of ours. I remember everyone who takes one of the girls out.”
“Everyone?”
“It’s my job.”
Ellie replaced my old bottle with a new one.
“Maybe he connected with her after hours.”
“I would have found out,” I said, then took a drink of my beer. “Mr. Knowles, there are a couple thousand girls who work in the bars here. Who knows where she came from?”
Knowles nodded. “You’re right.”
“Why do you think she’s so important?”
“We don’t know for sure, but we think maybe she set him up.”
“Sounds like you’re reaching,” I said, trying to appear sympathetic.
Another nod from Knowles. “I won’t take up any more of your time.” As he pushed himself off the stool, he said, “If we have any more questions, we’ll get back to you.”
“I’ll be here,” I said, then saluted him with my bottle.
Knowles smiled, then walked around our new stage and out the front door.
I knew Perdue was trouble when he stared at me after I told him I didn’t recognize the picture of Ernesto. There was no bluff in his gaze, no false toughness. What I had seen was the look of a man who didn’t like to be crossed. It was something I’d seen before, back in my service days in the Corps. Marines who were more like machines than real men. In their minds, they felt like all they had to do was look at the enemy and their adversary would crumple to the ground.
They were hard. They were single-minded. They were dangerous as all hell.
And I’d been one of them.
After Kat found Ellie and we’d gotten her to the hospital, I’d gone alone in search of Perdue. I found him easily enough. He was in his room at the Paradise Hotel. I knocked on his door, told him I was looking for Ellie, and wondered if he knew where she was. Of course he let me in.
I eased the door closed behind me, then I took the pointed metal rod I’d been holding against my leg and buried it under his rib cage and into one of his lungs. I watched his face for a moment as he realized too late the danger I represented. I was just a lazy old Papasan, after all. Drunk half the time and mellowed by the women who surrounded me.
He tried to grab me but he was already too weak.
I should have probably said something damning, something to sum up his failures as a human being. Instead, I pulled the rod out and shoved it up again. This time into this heart.
See, I was Homeland Security, too. It was just that my homeland extended only a couple miles beyond the door of my bar.
By morning, the old stage in the bar had been ripped out and a hole dug deep into the ground beneath. Perdue went into the hole, along with some dirt and rocks and concrete. Then we got to work on the new stage. I made this one a little wider, something I’d been meaning to do anyway.
The girls loved it.
“Thanks, Papa,” Ellie said after Knowles had left.
“Nothing to thank me for. How about a dance?”
“Not today,” she said. But this time, unlike all the previous times I’d asked her to try out the new stage, she actually smiled.
I was breaking her down. One day, she’d get up there and she’d dance again.
On that day, drinks would be on the house.