“You can’t just cuff me,” she howled belligerently. “I have rights!”
“I can’t?”
“No, you fucking weasel.”
Valentine grabbed her purse off the seat, and turned it upside down. The usual women’s stuff fell into a heap on his lap. He sifted through it, found a tiny vial of white powder which he assumed was cocaine, and held it inches beneath her nose.
“Do you want me to arrest you?”
Mona drew back in her seat, her ringed eyes filled with tears. “I came here to
“Just do as I say,” Valentine said. Then added, “Right now.”
Chapter 34
Mona calmed down during the drive to her friend’s place. She’d been turning tricks for twenty years, and understood the strange dance hookers and cops did in Atlantic City. The hookers hated the cops, but understood that they needed them when johns got rough.
Mona’s friend lived on the ground floor of a depressed apartment building on the south end of the island. Garbage everywhere, the windows barred. Since Resorts had opened its doors, there had been a revitalization in Atlantic City, but it had taken place strictly around the casino: Fresh pavement, new sidewalks, plenty of streetlights, everything spit-shine clean. On the south end of the island where people actually lived, everything was still the same.
Valentine recognized Mona’s friend the moment the front door opened. It was Sissy, the Queen of Visine. Sissy’s speciality was to mickey a john’s drink with Visine, then steal his money when he ran to the bathroom with his ass on fire. He’d busted her several times.
Seeing him at the door, Sissy said, “Oh, Jesus.”
She backed into the apartment, and they followed her in. She wore tight blue jeans, and a tee shirt that said, I’M FROM PITTSBURGH, A DRINKING TOWN WITH A FOOTBALL PROBLEM, and had a strung-out look in her eyes.
“I guess you wanna talk,” she said.
“That’s right,” Valentine replied.
Sissy led them down a hall to the kitchen. A hooker’s life could be summed up by the apartment’s empty rooms, and the grease-stained pizza box on the kitchen table. A radio was playing the Bee Gee’s How Deep is Your Love? Valentine lowered the volume, then pointed at the kitchen table’s two chairs.
“Take a load off your feet,” he said. “Both of you.”
The two women sat down at the table. Sissy emitted a little gasp and started to shake. She picked up a pack of Kools, and fumbled trying to light one. Mona reached out and steadied her hand.
“Tell me about the fake finger,” Valentine said.
“You going to throw me back in jail?” Sissy asked.
“Depends if you cooperate. You realize this guy is a killer.”
“Yeah. I’m one of the lucky ones, huh?”
“You sure are,” he said.
“Think I should go play a slot machine?”
“Slots are for suckers. Now tell me about him.”
The cigarette calmed Sissy down, and she passed it across the table to Mona. “The finger was in the glove compartment. It was hollow and flesh-colored. I think there was something stuck inside of it, but I can’t swear to it.”
“Like what?”
“Something white.”
“Was one of his hands deformed?”
“No. I sat next to him in the casino, and we played a slot machine together. I would have noticed if there was something wrong with his fingers.”
“So he had all his fingers?”
“Yeah.” She took a deep breath. “You gonna bust me?”
Valentine stared into her face. Sissy’s eyes looked like busted panes of glass, and he felt reasonably certain that there were narcotics in the apartment. He didn’t know too many hookers who didn’t use them. The only person Sissy was a threat to was herself.
“Not today,” he said.
The answer made her smile. “You gonna bust Mona?”
“No. The only person I want to bust is the Dresser.” He put his hand on the back of her chair, then knelt down so their faces were level. “I came here to see if I could get you to remember any more details from last night. I’d like to hypnotize you.”
Sissy looked at him with fear in her eyes. “You won’t… you know, take advantage of me while I was under, make me do something I wouldn’t want to, would you?”
