“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Sure?”
“Sure.”
“I’m sorry I hit you like I did,” he said. “I was just trying to get you off of me.”
“I’m sorry I bit you like I did,” she said. “I was trying to get you off of me. You scared the hell out of me.”
“Where’s a twenty-four-hour pharmacy?” he asked.
“Don’t know.” She pulled out a cigarette. “You gonna arrest me?”
“No.”
“Are you really a cop?”
“Yes.”
“Whacha doing here?”
Reaching in his pocket, he pulled out Lindsey’s picture. The redhead cautiously approached him to take a look.
“Don’t know her,” she said. “How long has she been missing?”
“She’s not missing. She’s dead.”
The girl shuddered. He looked at her and saw a deep red palm print spread across her face.
“I slapped you pretty hard,” he said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Are you kidding?” She shrugged. “Man, that’s just a warm-up for half the kinkies I get.”
He shook his head in disgust, at the perverts, at himself.
“Why’d you stare at me like that?”
“You remind me of my daughter.”
She let go with a machine-gun laughter.
“I’ve heard that before.”
He pulled out his wallet and flipped to Cindy’s picture. The girl’s eyes increased several diameters.
“God, I really do.” She grinned. “No wonder you went cuckoo. Who’s the black-haired girl? Your other daughter?”
He frowned.
“My girlfriend.”
She giggled.
“Sorry.”
“I’ve got to go.” He straightened up and began retreating.
“Hey, Cop or whatever your name is?”
“What?”
“Give me the picture of the dead girl. I’m more likely to dig up dirt than you are.”
He handed her the snapshot of Lindsey and his card.
“Decker,” she said out loud. “It says here you work Juvey.”
“I’m on loan to Homicide.”
“Okay, Decker,” she announced. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Kiki. But you don’t contact me. I contact you.”
“Fine,” Decker said. “Bye, Kiki.”
“Hey, don’t informants get paid?”
“Only if they produce.”
“Where are you going?”
“To take care of my arm.” He walked away, but she followed him. A fucking gosling, he thought. She’d imprinted.
“Maybe I do know where a pharmacy is.”
He said nothing.
“Hey, ya know, you gotta get an antibiotic for the bite.”
He spun around. “Are you infected with something?”
“Don’t worry. I don’t have AIDS or anything. Least not that I know of.”
Swell.
“It’s just that bites are dangerous,” she went on, “even if the person isn’t sick. I know that because a whole bunch of my johns bite me all the time, and if it wasn’t for antibiotics, I’d be dead probably.”
He resumed his pace.
“Hey, Decker, c’mon.”
He kept walking.
“I’ll look for this girl … girl’s her name?”
“Lindsey Bates.”
“Yeah, Lindsey Bates. I got sources, you know.”
He was outside of the building. Jesus, even Hollywood air felt good.
“Hey, Decker, you got a spare dime or something?”
He turned the corner and started sprinting up the quiet street, embarrassed by the hooker on his tail. Then he stopped abruptly and pulled out his wallet.
“Come here,” he said, crushing a five in his fist. She held out her hand and he dropped the ball of money in her open palm. “Now don’t ask me for another thing or your tail’s in Juvey Hall.”
“On what?”
“Soliciting.”
“Bullshit. I just said—”
“Kiki, I’m a cop. You’re a hooker. No one’s going to listen to you. If I say you were soliciting, you’re going to be busted for soliciting. Then it’s Juvey Hall or foster homes or back to your old man, who’s probably been raping you since you were ten.”
The girl’s face grew glum.
“You must have worked a lot of Juvey.”
He was silent. He knew it all too well.
“I’m real sorry about your arm, Decker.”
“I’m sorry about your face. Keep yourself out of trouble, huh?”
“I’m gonna find her, Decker. You’ll see. I got contacts.”
He slipped into the Plymouth, found a nearby pay phone, and reported the dead girl he’d found in the building to Hollywood Division.
8
He awoke the next morning with an elephantine arm and cursed his stupidity at not going to an ER last night. He’d been too damn tired and now he was paying the price. Fever burned in his brain and his radial nerve shot spasmodic pain into his arm. Rousing slowly from a fitful sleep, he got up and went to the bathroom to change the dressing.
The arm was swollen a dark purple and gouged by deep red, crusty lacerations. He found some alcohol in the medicine cabinet and began to swab the wound, his flesh sizzling at each application of the astringent. The skin turned bright red and cracked open, oozing blood and pus. He washed his arm several times and took out a packet of sterile gauze, a couple of extra-strength aspirins and four leftover penicillin pills. He downed the tablets and wrapped the wound.
Once the bite had been dressed, he phoned the station and told them he’d be in later. A call to Mrs. Bates was next. Erin would be home at four, but the father wouldn’t arrive until seven—after the start of Shabbos. Decker told Mrs. Bates he’d see Erin and reschedule her husband for sometime next week. The third call he made was to Chris Truscott. No one answered, so he figured he’d take a drive out to Venice and check out the boyfriend’s place personally.
He slipped on a shirt gingerly, wincing at each movement of his arm. It even hurt to breathe. Goddam it, he told himself. What the hell is wrong with you? So she looked like Cindy and it startled you. You’ve been a cop for almost twenty years. How could you let her get to you like that?
It was time for shacharis. He put on