They'd taken off the police hats and jackets and stuffed them in a plastic bag that Lloyd threw out the window. What kind of bonehead move was that? Karen lit a cigarette. She took a right on
Coolidge. The safe shifted and rolled with a bang , crashing against the opposite side of the minivan. She glanced in the rearview mirror at Lloyd. "I thought you had that thing tied down." She looked through the windshield, eyes back on the road, trying to calm down. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. Nobody was supposed to get hurt.
Chapter Twelve
O'Clair smelled kitty litter and sneezed as he walked in the apartment.
Megan said, "God bless you."
O'Clair hated cats. He was also allergic to them. In a few minutes his eyes would start to itch and his nose would run. A strawberry blond cat appeared, rubbing against his leg. He could hear music coming from another room, nothing familiar, some kind of rock tune.
"That's Snickers. He's saying hello. Aren't you, boy?" Megan bent over when she talked to the cat, getting closer to it. "He's a short-haired Exotic, and about the nicest little guy in the whole world. Yes, him is." Megan straightened up, her gaze still on the cat. "This is Detective… what'd you say your name was?"
"Conlin," O'Clair said, picturing the square jaw and flattop haircut of his first sergeant. He flashed a silver badge at her, a real one he'd taken from a detective he didn't like before he was kicked out of the department, figuring it might come in handy and it had. The little blonde surprised him by asking what it was made out of.
O'Clair said, "What?"
She said, "You know, is it metal or plastic?"
"Metal." What kind of question was that?
He'd gotten a list of incoming calls to Bobby's apartment from a cop he'd had a fling with, who was now a detective on the Violent Crimes Task Force. Her name was Pam Bond. Six out of his last ten calls were from Megan Freels, the cashier who worked at the MGM and lived at the Lafayette Apartments downtown. The other calls were from a phone number in Montreal. O'Clair tried it and a voice answered speaking French and he hung up.
"The detective's here to ask us some questions," Megan said. And then to O'Clair, "Come on in and sit down."
She led him into a good-size living room with a hardwood floor and a great view of downtown Detroit, and the city of Windsor, Ontario, across the river. Megan went to the stereo turned the music down. She was a hot little number.
O'Clair said, "Who's that?"
"Guided by Voices," Megan said.
O'Clair said, "Where're they from?" He'd never heard of them.
"I think, Ohio," Megan said. "The lead singer was a schoolteacher. He drinks like twenty beers during a show. Best live band I've ever seen, but they broke up."
He rubbed his right eye. He could feel it swelling up and itching like crazy.
"Do you have something in your eye? I've got drops if you need them."
"It's all right," O'Clair said, but it wasn't. He didn't have much time.
"I hope you're not allergic to Snickers." Megan sat in a worn leather chair with her back to the wall.
O'Clair took the couch. "Nice view," he said. "Detroit doesn't look so bad from this angle. How long have you lived here?"
"I moved in when I got the casino job. So I guess about a year and a half."
Snickers walked across the floor in front of O'Clair and jumped into Megan's lap. Her eyes lit up. "Well, look who wants some attention." Megan stroked the cat and hugged it.
O'Clair noticed it had a strange pug face like somebody had squished it. He wasn't going to ask any questions about why the cat's face was that way, and hoped he didn't have to hear any cat stories. "I'm looking for a suspect named Robert Gal, goes by Bobby."
"What's it have to do with me?"
"He's a regular at the MGM. I'm hoping you can ID him." O'Clair got up and handed the photograph of Bobby to Megan. She stared at it without any kind of reaction. Why was she pretending she didn't know him?
"I'll say this, he does look familiar. I've probably seen him. Maybe even cashed him out."
O'Clair knew Bobby wasn't in the apartment at that particular time. His car wasn't in the parking lot. He wanted to scare her, give her something to think about. But if she was afraid, she didn't show it. She was cool as could be.
Megan took another look at the photograph. "Can I keep this? I'll ask the girls at work, see if anybody knows him." She stared at the photograph one more time. "He's kind of cute."
A white cat with black spots on its head wandered into the room. Megan said, "Look who just woke up from her nap."
The cat yawned.
"Is her still tired? Is my girl teepee house?" Megan said in a singsong voice.
The cat jumped up on the couch and curled up next to O'Clair, burrowing in close.
"You've got yourself a friend, Detective. Her name's Judy, and she's a cuddler and a teeper, aren't you girl?"
Megan, O'Clair noticed, had a goofy look on her face when she talked to the cats. Her tone of voice was also different, like somebody talking to a baby.
"Judy's a Van."
Jesus, there she goes.
"Vans are Exotics-usually with white fur, spots of color on their head and a colored tail."
O'Clair was in fucking agony.
"Not to be confused with Harlequins."
His eyes were on fire.
"They're a lot like Persians except for the coat."
O'Clair sneezed.
"God bless you." Megan held up Snickers. "I think the poor detective's allergic to you guys." She put the cat on the floor.
O'Clair had to get out of there. He stood up. The white cat stared at him and purred.
"What should I do if I see him?" Megan said.
O'Clair said, "What?"
"If I see him," Megan said, "you know, the guy?"
"Call me." He had a small notepad in his pocket. He wrote his number down and handed it to her.
O'Clair didn't know if she was fucking with him or not. All that cat talk, she might have been putting him on. Her reaction when he mentioned Bobby was strange too. He planned to come back for another visit if his eyes ever recovered.
Megan knew if they found Bobby it was all over. He'd give her up in a second to save his own ass. Blame the whole thing on her. She had to talk to him. He'd taken off and she hadn't seen him in a few hours. He was going to get her money.
What if they checked her phone records and saw all the calls she made to him. She was getting nervous, paranoid. Why was she even being questioned? There had to be a lot more to it than what she'd been told.
Aside from cashing him out, Megan was careful never to talk to Bobby at the casino. Never to be seen with him. Wait a minute, did this have something to do with Lou Starr? How could it? There was nothing to connect her. So what did they have? Nothing was her guess. Megan was coming out of her funk now. Fuck 'em. They didn't have shit. She turned up the music and heard the start of "Glad Girls."
"Hey, hey, glad girls, I only want to get you high."
O'Clair thought Megan would panic and make a move, run to Bobby and tell him the police were looking for him. He waited in the parking lot for thirty minutes and when she didn't come out he drove to Bobby's and knocked on the door. Nobody answered. He picked the lock, went in and said, "Anybody home?" Silence. There was a lamp on in the living room. Bobby had nice- looking furniture, leather couches, an overstuffed leather chair with an ottoman, plasma TV, tropical fish tank; Bobby Gal was living pretty good. The tank must've been five feet long and there was only one fish in it, an ugly little thing floating on its side near the surface of the water. It looked dead. He poked it with his index finger and the little son of a bitch spun around and tore off a piece of his flesh in a split second. There was a cloud of blood in the water and O'Clair was bleeding like crazy.
He went in the kitchen and wrapped his finger-the tip was bit off and gone-in a paper towel that turned red as soon as it touched his raw flesh. He folded a paper towel three times around the end of his finger that stung like a son of a bitch, and wrapped the whole thing in duct tape he found in a drawer.