Eight Million Ways to Die (Matthew Scudder #5)

"Figure he had sex with her?"

"Hard to tell unless there's traces on the sheets. He doesn't figure as her first trick of the evening."

"He took a shower?"

Garfein shrugged, showed his hands palms up. "Go know," he said. "The manager says there's towels missing. When they make up the room they put out two bath towels and two hand towels, and both of the bath towels are missing."

"He took towels from the Galaxy."

"Then he probably took 'em here, but who knows in a dump like this? I mean who knows if they always remember to make up the room right. Same with the shower. I don't figure they gave it a scrub after the last party left."

"Maybe you'll find something."

"Maybe."

"Fingerprints, something. You see any skin under her nails?"

"No. But that's not to say the lab boys won't." A muscle worked in his jaw. "I'll say one thing. Thank God I'm not a medical examiner or a technician. It's bad enough being a cop."

"Amen to that," Durkin said.

I said, "If he picked her up on the street, somebody might have seen her get into the car."

"A couple of guys are out there now trying to take statements. We might get something. If anybody saw anything, and if they remember, and if they feel like talking."

"Lots of ifs," Durkin said.

"The manager here must have seen him," I said. "What does he remember?"

"Not a whole lot. Let's go talk to him some more."

The manager had a night worker's sallow complexion and a pair of red-rimmed eyes. There was alcohol on his breath but he didn't have a drinker's way about him, and I guessed he'd tried to fortify himself with liquor after discovering the body. It only made him vague and ineffectual. "This is a decent place," he insisted, and the statement was so palpably absurd no one responded to it. I suppose he meant murder wasn't a daily occurrence.

He never saw Cookie. The man who had presumably killed her had come in alone, filled out the card, paid cash. This was not unusual. It was common practice for the woman to wait in the car while the man checked in. The car had not stopped directly in front of the office, so he hadn't seen it while the man was checking in. In fact he hadn't really seen the car at all.

"You saw it was missing," Garfein reminded him. "That's how you knew the room was empty."

"Except it wasn't. I opened the door and-"

"You thought it was empty because the car was gone. How'd you know it was gone if you never saw it?"

"The parking space was empty. There's a space in front of each unit, the spaces are numbered same as the units. I looked out, that space was empty, that meant his car was gone."

"They always park in the proper spaces?"

"They're supposed to."

"Lots of things people are supposed to do. Pay their taxes, don't spit on the sidewalk, cross only at corners. A guy's in a hurry to dip his wick, what does he care about a number on a parking space? You got a look at the car."

"I-"

"You looked once, maybe twice, and the car was parked in the space. Then you looked later and it wasn't and that's when you decided they were gone. Isn't that what happened?"

"I guess so."

"Describe the car."

"I didn't really look at it. I looked to see that it was there, that's all."

"What color was it?"

"Dark."

"Terrific. Two door? Four door?"

"I didn't notice."

"New? Old? What make?"

"It was a late-model car," he said. "American. Not a foreign car. As far as the make, when I was a kid they all looked different. Now every car's the same."

"He's right," Durkin said.

"Except American Motors," he said. "A Gremlin, a Pacer, those you can tell. The rest all look the same."

"And this wasn't a Gremlin or a Pacer."

"No."

"Was it a sedan? A hatchback?"

"I'll tell you the truth," the man said. "All I noticed is it was a car. It says on the card, the make and model, the plate number."

"You're talking about the registration card?"

"Yeah. They have to fill all that in."

The card was on the desk, a sheet of clear acetate over it to preserve prints until the lab boys had their shot at it. Name: Martin Albert Ricone. Address: 211 Gilford Way. City: Fort Smith, Arkansas. Make of Auto: Chevrolet. Year: 1980. Model: Sedan. Color: Black. License No.: LJK-914. Signature: M. A. RICONE.

"Looks like the same hand," I told Durkin. "But who can tell with printing?"

"The experts can say. Same as they can tell you if he had the same light touch with the machete. Guy likes forts, you notice? Fort Wayne, Indiana and Fort Smith, Arkansas."

"A subtle pattern begins to emerge," Garfein said.

"Ricone," Durkin said. "Must be Italian."

"M. A. Ricone sounds like the guy who invented the radio."

"That's Marconi," Durkin said.

"Well, that's close. This guy's Macaroni. Stuck a feather in his hat and called it Macaroni."

"Stuck a feather up his ass," Durkin said.

"Maybe he stuck it up Cookie's ass and maybe it wasn't a feather. Martin Albert Ricone, that's a fancy alias. What did he use last time?"

"Charles Owen Jones," I said.

"Oh, he likes middle names. He's a cute fucker, isn't he?"

"Very cute," Durkin said.

"The cute ones, the really cute ones, usually everything means something. Like Jones is slang, it means a habit. You know, like a heroin jones. Like a junkie says he's got a hundred-dollar jones, that's what his habit costs him per day."

"I'm really glad you explained that for me," Durkin said.

"Just trying to be helpful."

" 'Cause I only got fourteen years in, I never had any contact yet with smack addicts."

"So be a smart fuck," Garfein said.

"The license plate go anywhere?"

"It's gonna go the same place as the name and address. I got a call in to Arkansas Motor Vehicles but it's a waste of time. A place like this, even the legitimate guests make up the plate number. They don't park in front of the window when they sign in so our guy here can't check. Not that he would anyway, would you?"

"There's no law says I have to check," the man said.

"They use false names, too. Funny our boy used Jones at the Galaxy and Ricone here. They must get a lot of Joneses here, along with the usual run of Smiths and Browns. You get a lot of Smiths?"

"There's no law says I'm supposed to check ID," the man said.

"Or wedding rings, huh?"

"Or wedding rings or marriage licenses or anything. Consenting adults, the hell, it's none of my business."

"Maybe Ricone means something in Italian," Garfein suggested.

"Now you're thinking," Durkin said. He asked the manager if he had an Italian dictionary. The man stared at him, baffled. "And they call this place a motel," he said, shaking his head. "There's probably no Gideon Bibles, either."

"Most of the rooms have them."

"Jesus, really? Right next to the television with the X-rated movies, right? Conveniently located near the waterbed."

"Only two of the units have waterbeds," the poor bastard said. "There's an extra charge for a waterbed."

"Good thing our Mr. Ricone's a cheap prick," Garfein said. "Cookie'da wound up underwater."

"Tell me about this guy," Durkin said. "Describe him again."

"I told you-"

"You're gonna get to tell this again and again. How tall was he?"

"Tall."

"My height? Shorter? Taller?"

"I-"

"What was he wearing? He have a hat on? He wearing a tie?"

"It's hard to remember."

"He walks in the door, asks you for a room. Now he's filling out the card. Pays you in cash. What do you get for a room like that, incidentally?"

"Twenty-eight dollars."

"That's not such a bad deal. I suppose the porn movies are extra."

"It's coin-operated."

"Handy. Twenty-eight's fair, and it's a good deal for you if you can flip the room a few times a night. How'd he pay you?"

"I told you. Cash."

"I mean what kind of bills? What'd he give you, a pair of fifteens?"

"A pair of-"

"He give you a twenty and a ten?"

"I think it was two twenties."

"And you gave him twelve bucks back? Wait, there must have been tax, right?"

"It's twenty-nine forty with the tax."

"And he gave you forty bucks and you gave him the change."

Something registered. "He gave me two twenties and forty cents in change," the man said. "And I gave him a ten and a one."

"See? You remember the transaction."

"Yeah, I do. Sort of."

"Now tell me what he looked like. He white?"

"Yeah, sure. White."

"Heavy? Thin?"

"Thin but not too thin. On the thin side."

"Beard?"

"No."

"Moustache?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

"There was something about him, though, something that stuck in your memory."

"What?"

"That's what we're trying to get, John. That what they call you? John?"

"Mostly it's Jack."

"Okay, Jack. You're doin' fine now. What about his hair?"

"I didn't pay attention to his hair."

"Sure you did. He bent over to sign in and you saw the top of his head, remember?"

"I don't-"

"Full head of hair?"

"I don't-"

"They'll sit him down with one of our artists," Durkin said, "and he'll come up with something. And when this fucking psycho ripper steps on his cock one of these days, when we catch him in the act or on his way out the door, he'll look as much like the police artist's sketch as I look like Sara fucking Blaustein. She looked like a woman, didn't she?"

"Mostly she looked dead."

"I know. Meat in a butcher's window." We were in his car, driving over the bumpy surface of the Queensboro Bridge. The sky was starting to lighten up already. I was beyond tiredness by now, with the ragged edges of my emotions perilously close to the surface. I could feel my own vulnerability; the smallest thing could nudge me to tears or laughter.

"You gotta wonder what it would be like," he said.

"What?"

"Picking up somebody who looked like that. On the street or in a bar, whatever. Then you get her someplace and she takes her clothes off and surprise. I mean, how do you react?"

"I don't know."

" 'Course if she already had the operation, you could go with her and never know. Her hands didn't look so big to me. There's women with big hands and men with little hands, far as that goes."

"Uh-huh."

"She had a couple rings on, speaking of her hands. You happen to notice?"