“That worth another five?” she said.
I shook my head no.
“Hard times,” the girl said, stuffing the ten in a pocket in her dress. “Her name’s Suzanne, at least on the Trail. Worked from the Linger Longer.”
She nodded over her shoulder. Across Tamiami Trail and two motels down was a tired neon sign with a flashing arrow pointing the way to the Linger Longer Motel.
“And?” I asked.
“Then she was gone,” the girl said with a shrug.
“Who was working her?”
The girl shrugged again and looked across the busy street at nothing.
“That wasn’t worth ten dollars,” I said.
“All you’re gettin’,” she said. “Hard times, remember.”
Sally came out of the Warm Breeze Motel. The girl saw her coming, turned around and tried to look as if she wasn’t in a hurry.
“Anything in there?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “You get anything from Jean Ann?”
“You know her?” I said, watching the girl move away between motel neon lights and in between shadows.
“Yes. Not one of mine. Belongs to Medino Guttierez. I’ll tell him she’s out here again.”
“Adele is calling herself Suzanne. She works out of the Linger Longer Motel. Hasn’t been seen for a few days.”
We drove across the street to the Linger Longer. There was a phone booth in front of it. The number was the one from which Adele had called her mother.
“Game plan,” I said, looking over at Sally. “I go in alone. You stay here. If she spots you through a window, she may run. When I have her located, I’ll come for you.”
“And what do you do when you find her?” she asked.
“I talk,” I said. “And you?”
“Not much more,” she said. “I can have her brought in for being on the street. She’s underage. I can keep it off her record. I’ve got friends in low places. She’s better off in juvenile detention than out here and maybe-”
“Then that’s the plan,” I said, opening the door.
“Be careful, Lew,” she said, touching my arm.
I nodded, gave what passed for a reassuring smile and got out.
The glass door on the Linger Longer Motel office said American Express, MasterCard, Visa, Discover were welcome and that German, Spanish, French and Canadian were spoken inside. It also said the clerk kept no cash. I pushed the door open. There was no lounge, no chair and not much room to linger. A coffeepot sat half full with white foam cups next to it. Behind the low counter, a kid sat reading a book. He put the book down and said, “Can I help you?”
“Why not Italian?” I asked.
“Pardon?”
“Sign on the door says German, French, Spanish. Why not Italian?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they don’t get Italian tourists.”
“You speak German, French, Spanish?”
“A little.”
He took off his big glasses and stood up with a polite smile.
I took out my wallet and the photograph of Adele and handed it to him. He put his glasses back on.
“Suzanne,” he said. “Stayed here…oh, a couple of months back. Why? What’d she do?”
“Her mother’s looking for her.”
He cocked his head to one side and looked at the photograph again before handing it back to me.
“You’re not a cop. If you’re Children’s Services or a private investigator, I’d like to see some ID.”
“I’m not with Children’s Services and I’m not a private investigator. I’m a process server.”
I flipped open my wallet so he could see my card and photograph in living color. I couldn’t believe the forlorn creature with half-closed eyes in the photograph was me. The kid behind the counter seemed to have no trouble believing it.
“You have papers on Suzanne?”
“No,” I said. “Her mother’s looking for her. I’m a friend.”
The kid thought for a while, thumped his right hand softly on the counter, sighed deeply and said,
“I think she’s in Port Charlotte, one of those clubs,” he said. “She’s a chanteuse.”
“You get a lot of one-named chanteuses staying here.”
“A surprisingly large number,” he said. “Last year when I started here we had a surprisingly large number of one-named massage therapists.”
“You like Suzanne,” I said.
He considered the statement and said,
“Yeah, I like her. I’m a student over at New College. This job pays well and I get to read, do my homework and once in a while practice a little of my Spanish, German or French with tourists who don’t know what kind of motel they’ve wandered into.”
This time the pause was very long. He looked out the window at the passing traffic.
“Would five bucks help you think of something else that would help me find her?”
“No,” he said, looking at me and pushing his glasses back up his nose. “She worked for Tilly. Room Five in the corner. He’s in there now. If he asks you how you found him, tell him you tracked down a girl named Elspeth, tall bleached blonde, short hair, big lips, average breasts. Elspeth ducked on Tilly three weeks ago and headed back to San Antonio.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“I don’t think I’ve done you a favor. My advice is get some help before you talk to Tilly. I hope you find Suzanne. She reminds me of a beautiful crippled bird my sister and I took in when I was a kid. The bird needed help but it kept biting us.”
I went back out into the neon night and motioned to Sally to stay in the car. Room 5 was across the cement parking area toward the corner of the L-shaped motel. There were two cars parked: one a little blue Fiat, in front of Room 5.
“Who?” came a voice from inside the room when I knocked.
“Seymour,” I said.
“Seymour? Seymour what?”
“Just Seymour,” I said. “One name. Like a chanteuse.”
An eye peered through the tiny, thick-glass peephole.
“You a cop?”
“Everyone asks me that,” I said. “I’m not a cop. I just have a couple of questions to ask you and I’ll drive away.”
“Questions about what?”
“Suzanne. Her mother’s looking for her.”
“So am I,” he said, opening the door.
“Tilly?” I asked.
“Come in, man,” he said.
I went in and he closed the door. He was a lean, handsome black man about six foot and wearing a pair of clean jeans and a neatly ironed button-down long-sleeved white shirt. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five.
I looked around. The room was motel tacky. It didn’t look like home.
“I don’t live here,” he said, reading my mind. “Why are you looking for Suzanne?”
“Her mother’s in town. Wants to take her daughter home.”
“Home? Mother. She’s got no mother. Mother’s dead.”
“And you were kind enough to take her in.”
“Hey, she’s old enough to-”
“She’s fourteen,” I said. “Just barely. You want to talk to me or the Children’s Services caseworker sitting in my car?”
“Just a second.”
He pulled the drapes back enough to peek through and see Sally in the Metro parked across from him in the lot.
“Her mother’s looking for her,” I said.
“So am I.”
I let that pass.
“You want a drink?” he asked. “Don’t drink myself, but I keep a fridge for guest and visitors.”
“No thanks,” I said.
“Suit yourself,” he said and went to the small brown refrigerator in the corner of the room. He pulled out a can of Mountain Dew and went to sit on a worn-out, rust-colored, two-seat sofa. I remained standing.
“Suzanne ran out on you,” I said.
He laughed and took a sip of Mountain Dew.
“They don’t run out on me,” he said. “Once in a while I might ask a young lady to leave, but they don’t want to go. I take a fair split and I never raise a hand.”
“Elspeth,” I said. “She ran away. You raised a hand to her, Tilly.”
“She say that? I threw her out. She had a bad attitude, as her heading you to me proves. You know what I’m saying? Elspeth. Godawful name, but she wouldn’t let me give her another.”
“Suzanne,” I said.