Courting Trouble

“It’s a cheater motel, dufus,” Judy said knowingly. “Out-of-staters come here to cheat, probably traveling salesmen and people like that. The locals don’t come here to cheat because if they do, they’ll be seen.”

Anne hung over the front seat. “That must be how Kevin got the room here on the holiday weekend. The business trade is down because of the Fourth. Even the cheaters stay home.” The more she thought about it, the more sense it made. “And he’s close to the PATCO speed line, between Philly and Jersey, if he stays here. That must be how he gets back and forth to the city, since he probably doesn’t have a car.”

“Look!” Mary exclaimed, pointing up, and they did. A short, older man dressed business-casual was leaving a room on the second floor. Next to him sashayed a much younger woman in red hot-pants and matching platform shoes. “Is that a—”

“Hooker,” Judy supplied.

Anne was disappointed it wasn’t Kevin, but Mary gasped.

“Is she a hooker? An actual hooker?” Mary couldn’t stop watching the couple as they strode past on the top balcony, the woman’s hips rolling expertly as she walked. “I never saw a real hooker before.”

Anne was intent on getting Kevin. “So now what do we do? We have to find out if he’s registered here, and if he’s in.”

Mary watched the entrance. “I wonder if we should call Bennie, or the cops. Let them take it from here.”

“No!” Anne and Judy answered, again as one.

Anne leaned toward. “Don’t worry. We don’t know anything yet, not for sure, so we shouldn’t call Bennie. And which cops would we call? The Philly police have no jurisdiction in Jersey, like Judy said, and we don’t know anybody in the Jersey police. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“It’s an FBI matter,” Mary said, biting her thumbnail. “We’d start there.”

Judy looked over. “Mare, what’re we gonna do? Call ’em up? Hello, FBI?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Mary answered, but there was little conviction in her voice.

“I don’t think he’s in there,” Anne said, eyeing the motel. Nobody was going in and out of the front entrance. The place looked sort of empty. “We know Kevin was in Philly at noon, at the memorial service. My guess is he’s still there, in town. Watching my house or the office, or hanging out in a gay bar until the excitement from the memorial service dies down. Planning his next move. A fugitive would want to stay mobile, so he can react as the situation changes.”

“This sounds dangerous.” Mary turned around, and Anne could read the fear straining her brown eyes.

“If he’s not in there, there’s no danger. We’re not going to try to take him down ourselves, anyway. We go inside, see if he’s registered, then call the cops. That’s the plan.” Anne’s resolve strengthened. “This is me, planning. Right before your very eyes.”

Judy grinned. “It doesn’t count as planning if you do it when you need it, Anne. It has to be in advance, like premeditation.”

Anne was dying to get inside that motel. “Okay, so we have to find out if he’s registered. Otherwise we’re waiting out here for no reason.”

“How do we do that?” Judy asked, turning to Anne. “He wouldn’t be registered under his real name.”

“We can describe him to the clerk, like we did to Rachel. Maybe the clerk will remember something.”

Judy shook her head, so her lone silver earring dangled. “The clerk won’t tell you, or let you see the register. He’s not supposed to, and I bet he won’t, at a cheater place. Especially to a woman. You could be the guy’s wife.”

“What if I paid him? I could slip him a twenty, or even a fifty.”

“That only works in the movies. This is New Jersey.”

Anne began to smile. “I have a better idea.”

“Is the FBI involved?” Mary asked.

“Quite the contrary. But first, somebody has to go shopping. Mary, you’re elected. Take the car. Cherry Hill Mall is less than ten minutes away. Judy and I will stay here, so we don’t miss Kevin if he comes back. We’ll hide in some car, if one is open.” Anne twisted around, scoping out the surroundings. “Or maybe in that gas station. If Kevin comes back, we call the cops right away.”

“What’s your idea?” Mary asked. “And why do I have to go shopping? I just went shopping!”

“This is what happens when girls fight crime,” Anne answered. And, as politically incorrect as it was, nobody even tried to deny it.

An hour later, three women emerged from a chartreuse VW Beetle and wobbled in red platform shoes across the gritty asphalt parking lot of the Daytimer Motel. Heavily made-up, they wore red satin hot-pants and midriff tops covered with blue-and-white stars. They were supposed to be hookers, but Anne thought they looked like an X- rated women’s gymnastic team. Either way, they were sashaying a step closer to finding Kevin.

“I don’t see why we had to dress all the same, Mare,” Judy grumbled. She was a large-boned, strong girl, but looked surprisingly slender in her midriff and hot-pants. Makeup added years to her face, so she looked almost postpubescent. “I don’t think real hookers dress alike when they go out on . . . jobs. Or whatever they’re called.”

“It saved time to get three outfits the same, and it’s a Fourth of July theme.” Mary’s ankle collapsed, but she righted herself. She cut a curvy, compact figure in her outfit, and the hot-pants made her short legs look longer. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her lips were a crimson red, expertly applied by Anne, who’d had to make them all up. Mary hadn’t resisted the hooker makeover. “Besides, it’s better for the plan.”

“It’s a dumb plan,” Judy said.

“It’s a good plan,” Mary said.

“It’s an awesome plan,” Anne said. “At least the hot-pants are cooler than the black dresses.” She wasn’t a midriff fan, especially since she was still retaining water, but she was in love with the platforms. “Stiletto heels and ankle straps. I love ankle straps. They look like a pair of Bruno Maglis I saw once, for ten times as much.”

“Watch out, a curb!” Mary shouted, like the lookout on the Titanic. The paved curb to the entrance of the Daytimer Motel loomed straight in their path. “Curb! Dead ahead!”

“Heads up!” Judy warned.

“Don’t look down!” Anne advised them. “Hold hands and go for it! On the count of one, two, three!”

“Wheee!” They held hands like paper dolls and jumped onto the pavement. “We did it!”

“I love these shoes!” Anne said, exhilarated, and Mary giggled.

“I like being tall, even if I can’t walk.”

Judy grimaced as they reached the motel’s front door, and she grabbed the smudgy glass handle. “Shopping for clothes, talking about clothes, wearing new clothes. Catching a psycho killer can only pale in comparison.”

And the hookers hobbled inside.

22

There was no lobby in the Daytimer Motel, only a small paneled room with a fake-wood counter that blocked access to the elevators beyond. Folded brochures, improbably for Amish country, flopped over on a metal rack next to an old tan computer, a dirty telephone, and a stack of free newspapers called Pennysavers, their ink so black it came presmudged. The man behind the counter was pushing eighty years old, with greasy glasses, dark eyes, and a stained, white, polo shirt. His grizzled beard enveloped a fleshly leer that appeared the moment Anne walked in the door, leading her cadre of Fourth-of-July prostitutes.

She swiveled her hips as she approached, making the most of the distance to the counter, then leaned over and flashed the clerk an ample view of her stars and stripes. “I’m looking for a man,” she purred. “Me and my friends, that is, we’re looking for a man. We were told that he’d be staying here.”

“He’s a lucky man,” the clerk said, sneaking a peek.

“Oh, he’s very lucky.” Anne batted her eyelashes prettily. It wouldn’t have done much for Matt, but he wasn’t old enough to remember Betty Boop. “We’re sort of a present, for July Fourth. Sent by some friends of his, from his college frat. They wrote the man’s name on a card, but I lost it. Silly me.”