'Hanging up now, bubba. I just went on break.' I heard the phone leave his ear.
'You ever a cop, lard ass I yelled.
I swear I heard Friedman's phone rise back up; his air must have been scratchy with cigar smoke. 'BATF. Twenty years with real law enforcement.'
'Always hated working with the locals?' I asked.
A satisfied snort. 'Especially bubba locals.'
'I'd never have guessed. Fun to dish it out?'
I heard his smile through the wires. 'Turnabout's fair play,' he crooned around the stogie. 'Ain't too bad.'
'What'd I do to you?' I asked.
'The runaround. The tickets. The general small-town-cop horse shit.'
I said, 'I guess I don't remember you.'
'Musta been one of your brothers.'
'Why don't you slap that boulder off your shoulder, Friedman?'
'Why don't you ride the bone, bubba. I gave you what you asked for.'
'That Nelson I'm interested in? He's on the cold coast over here. No head. Got another just like him one drawer over. I'm expecting triplets any day. When it gets out some fat ass at the Oaks could have made a difference, it'll hit the papers big time. Especially when it turns out he's an ex-fed. You might want to consult your PR director on this. Thanks for the help, Friedman.'
There was a five-beat pause before Friedman spoke. 'You bought yourself two more minutes, bubba,' he said thickly; I wondered if he'd bitten off the ass end of the cigar. 'What the hell is it you want?'
I heard Hembree's voice in my head: 'Jerrold Elton Nelson, aka L'il Jerry, aka Jerry Elton, aka Nelson Gerald aka Elton Jerson.' I remember this stuff perfectly until a case is closed, then ka-whosh, my mind flushes it.
'Try Gerald. Can you do first-and last-name searches?'
Friedman sighed. I heard the cigar snuff out in a metal ashtray, followed by keystrokes. 'I've got no last names 'Gerald' but two firsts: Gerald Staunton from Montreal and Gerald Boyette from Memphis.'
'Nope.'
For five minutes we tried every combination of names I recalled. Then Friedman cleared his throat and spoke up. 'You know, I just noticed that the name 'Elton' anagrams into 'Nolte,' like the actor.'
'Run with it.'
Another series of keystrokes followed by a pause. 'Well, well…
I've got an E. J. Nolte of Mobile.'
Nelson's initials and anagrammed middle name. My heart took a five-beat time-out. Friedman said, 'He was here for four nights in May.' He gave me the dates.
'How'd he pay, cash or card?'
'Cash upon checkout.'
'That unusual?' I knew what Friedman would say.
'Huh-uhn. Yokel comes in, hits, decides to stay here instead of the Piddle Inn. We take a credit card imprint. If the bill's paid in cash the imprint's torn up. We won't have an imprint anymore, just the basic sign-in. Got a space for home address and company name on the form. Elton lists Bayside Consulting, Three twenty-one Water Street, Mobile. That's all.'
I wrote them down. 'Anything else, Mr. Friedman?'
'Judging by the charges, Nelson had a fine time. Heavy room service, looks like every meal. A lot of bar tabs, also in-room. They racked up over three grand in four days.'
'They?'
'First night I got a single entree and salad going to the room; next three nights we're eating for two. Unless your boy's got a split personality down to his appetite…'
'Gotcha.'
'Anyway, looks like we got two folks ordering from room five nineteen suite, by the way, four seventy a night.'
'Your professional take on the situation, then, is…'
'To me, Detective Bubba, this looks like two people taking a room, hanging out the do not disturb sign, and having a rock 'n' rolling good time without coming up for air.'
A check of the phone directory showed no listing for Bayside Consulting. The operator came up empty too. The address was a dummy.
I drew blanks with the Chamber of Commerce and Better Business Bureau.
If the company was incorporated there'd be records somewhere. I didn't expect to find anything.
Chances were Nelson's trip to Biloxi had zero ties to the murders. The switch-hitting hustler probably had boy-toy usage at hotels and motels across the region. But right before his death he'd bragged about finding the mother lode, a sugar daddy or mama who might spend a few grand on a long weekend's private partying.
I called my house, no answer. It was after 8:00 p.m. I'd gotten Ava at 6:30, worn voice straight from sleep, said I'd soon be home. She went back to sleep, I told myself; didn't hear the phone, or felt too rotten to talk. I left Harry a note detailing my day, and headed for Dauphin Island. My next chore was telling Ava I'd ratted her out to her boss.
'I trust you…'
Where the hell was that zuithre?
CHAPTER 17
I entered just after eight with my hands full of groceries to feed my starving shelves, plus sports drink to help flush Ava's system and keep her hydrated. I'd also bought thiamine and other vitamins. The drink and vites were on the recommendation of my former partner, Bear. I called him on my drive home and asked what to expect from Ava. He predicted a spaghetti western: Good, Bad, and Ugly. Problem was, Bear said, you went through a shitload of the last two before the first one kicked in.
The bedroom door was closed and I pictured Ava sleeping it off. Kitchen cabinets were ajar and I suspected she'd been searching for hooch. I was glad the Listerine was in the trunk. Figuring she'd returned to bed, I tapped at the door and, hearing nothing, entered. Not there. I checked other rooms, closets.
She wasn't anywhere in the house. Something else was missing sixty bucks from my bureau drawer. She'd left a barely legible IOU scrawled on a napkin.
The phone rang. My mind flashed to a scenario of the Dauphin Island cops calling they'd found Ava wandering the streets and were checking her story. Even if she'd gotten hooted I could likely get her released into my care. I grabbed the phone.
'Carson Ryder.'
'Hello, brother. Can you believe those stupid fucking attendants lost another cell phone? I've been hiding this one. They're so small all it takes is some plastic wrap and a little bit of '
'I'll call you back, Jeremy. I got an emergency here '
'No, you do not! Every time I call you try to hang up on me!'
'I'm not kidding, Jeremy. A friend's in trouble.'
'Oh?' His voice dropped to a hiss. 'Is it a womb-man?'
'What's it matter?'
'She'll keep. They're survivors, Carson. She'll be here long after the cockroaches have gone belly-up. Just don't ask them for help and you'll be fine.'
'I'm hanging up now, Jeremy.' I started to put the phone down.
'Nelson and Des Champs Carson!' He shrieked. 'Where's the passion, brother?'
I lifted the phone back to my ear.
'Hi, Carson, welcome back. I read the papers. They were covering the headless twins until the preacher's daughter's soap opera took center stage. All I gleaned was the heads had been severed. No mention of gunshots to the body meat, no axes, no thumpity-thump of the ball bat.
