steam heat knocking tentatively in the pipes.
The woman looked as if she exercised often. Her body was firm, and her stomach was flat. With the towel always concealing her features, there was nothing to tell me who she was. Well, not quite nothing. Though it was hard to be sure in a Polaroid, she appeared to have no body hair. Theoretically this oddity would be an excellent identity clue. But it was of limited practical value.
The pictures didn't have to mean much. Lots of people liked to take nude pictures of themselves and their partners. Some of them even concealed their face. Still it told me that Sampson had a relationship which he concealed. No one knew of it. Everyone said he had no girlfriends. And the fact that this girlfriend concealed her identity was at least mildly interesting. What was more interesting was that the cops had missed it. It wasn't that hard to find, and any cop would know to look under a drawer when searching a place.
These cops had searched it so thoroughly that they'd made a mess, and they hadn't found these pictures?
It gave one pause. But here was not the place for pausing. I put the pictures back in the envelope and put the envelope in my inside jacket pocket, and went through the rest of the room. I unmade the bed and remade it. I felt under every drawer, behind the poster, all the usual moves, and didn't find anything else that mattered. I put everything back carefully. I was neat and polite and generally swell, for a gumshoe. But it is also easier to search a place if you don't make a mess. You're not pawing through the jumble you just created.
I left Sampson's room, pulled the door shut and heard it latch behind me. Then I went down the two dark flights of narrow stairs and knocked on Ms. Rebello's door. She must have been making late breakfast or early lunch. I could smell bacon cooking in there.
I did not think it cooked for me.
The door opened on the safety chain.
'Yuh?'
'I wish to take action on this,' I said.
'Just how messy were the police who searched that room earlier?'
'Messy,' she said.
'A couple goddamn pigs, excuse my French.'
'Emptied out drawers, that sort of thing?'
'Clothes all over the floor. Papers, bedclothes. Pigs.'
'Well, they're going to regret it,' I said.
'That all?' she said.
'Can I pack the place up and rent it?'
'Absolutely,' I said.
'And please accept my apologies for the mess and the delay as well.'
'Yeah,' she said, 'sure,' and closed the door.
I smiled to myself in the ugly little hall. Got to take fun where you find it. I went out the front door and pulled it carefully shut behind me and heard the latch click. I glanced up and down the street.
There was no one in sight. In front of the house my car started with a small puff of smoke from the exhaust and the window washers began to move. I turned the collar up on my leather jacket, and went down the four front steps into the rain, and across the sidewalk and into my car.
'Any luck?' Hawk said.
'I don't know,' I said.
I took out the nude pictures and passed them around.
'The guy Sampson?' Vinnie said.
'Yeah.'
'Know the woman?'
'No.'
'She's got no pussy,' Vinnie said.
'Observant,' I said.
'And eloquent,' Hawk said.
Neither Vinnie nor Hawk had anything meaningful to contribute to the absent body hair question. There was a lively discussion of nude women we had known. The consensus was that, while body hair varied considerably, none of us had ever known anyone with none. Vinnie handed me back the pictures, and I put them back in my pocket.
'Better count them,' Hawk said, and put the car in drive and eased away from the curb.
CHAPTER 28
Ocean Street in Port City starts at the foot of Hill Street and runs parallel to the harbor for maybe a mile and a half, before it curves around an inlet and turns into Seaside Drive. One on each side of the street, Hawk and I started at the south end, near the theater, and began to ask people if they knew Craig Sampson. We each had a publicity still from the theater to show. We kept an eye on each other as we worked, and Vinnie dawdled along behind us in the car with a shotgun leaning against the front passenger seat.
The Port City Tap was my fifth stop. On a wet afternoon it was a haven of good cheer. Three guys were sitting
