Sacrifice

A midnight-blue Firebird pulled in behind Wolfe's car. Rocco and Floyd got out, scanned the lot. They seemed to be arguing about something.

I finished my smoke, went inside.

The place was jammed with a lunchtime crowd. The hostess stopped me at the door.

'Smoking or Non-Smoking?'

'I'm meeting some people…they're already here.'

'Smoking or Non-Smoking?'

'Wherever they're already sitting, okay?' I walked away from her before the tape could recycle. Spotted Wolfe in a far corner, her back against the wall, Lola across from her.

'Mind if I join you ladies?'

'Sure,' she said. 'Have a seat. We haven't ordered yet.'

The waitress came by. They ordered chef's salad. I did too. Listened to them talk until the food came…the waitress would be too busy to stop back after that.

'Sorry about the call earlier.'

'The private line is tapped,' Wolfe said, no expression in her voice. Like she was giving me a weather report.

'The only one who could do that is…'

'Yes. It's not your affair. What do you want to show me?'

'You're looking for a baby. Derrick is his name, right? Disappeared from the Welfare hotel over by La Guardia?'

Wolfe looked at Lola, nodded.

'Somebody asked me to look for him too.'

'And?'

'I think I know where he is.'

'Alive?'

'No.'

'You've seen the body?'

'No.'

'Is there anything to connect this to…?'

'Emerson?'

She nodded again.

'Emerson beat the baby to death. In that room. Right in front of the mother. Then he went out to get rid of the body.'

'How do you know this?'

'Just a guess. But if you found the body, it would be enough?'

'Depending on what shape it was in…'

'You got wants out for Emerson?'

'No.'

'How come? Don't you even want to talk to him about this?'

Wolfe lit a smoke. I felt Lola's body shift next to me. 'He's locked up,' Wolfe said. 'On another charge. In the Bronx.'

'So you can't question him?'

'His lawyer says no.'

'Or her?'

'She hasn't been arrested.' Meaning she could talk to her, but she didn't have enough ammo to do it yet.

'Let's say, just to be talking about it, that you knew he left the hotel room with the baby's body…came back in an hour or two, what would that tell you?'

'Nothing much. You can cover a lot of ground in a couple of hours.'

'And if he didn't have a car…or access to one?'

'Okay. You going to give us a nice sworn-to-under-oath affidavit about this? Be a confidential informant?'

'I can't do that…I don't know anything, see? I'm just talking about a theory.'

'We can't get a search warrant on a theory,' Lola tossed in, trace of a Brooklyn accent coming through for the first time.