high. Not stoned high, just silly high. Marijuana, Ollie guessed.
“It’s Polaroid,” she said, still grinning, extending the camera to them. “You like what you see, we can talk about further exploration.”
Further exploration, Ollie thought. Everybody sounds literary these days.
“Thanks, no,” he said.
But to tell the truth, he was tempted.
The girl was wearing a short black skirt, a red silk blouse, and red patent shoes to match, no stockings. She looked like Dorothy inThe Wizard of Oz.Well, the red shoes did. She had very lovely breasts, most of them showing in the low cut peasant blouse. In fact, Ollie thought he detected the rosiest of nipples peeking out of the right side of the blouse. The girl had a beauty mark near the corner of her mouth, and black hair done in twisty little ringlets, and dark brown eyes. Ollie suddenly thought of Patricia Gomez.
“You want to look for Herrera or what?” Walsh asked.
“Be more fun taking my picture,” the girl said, and waggled her eyebrows.
“Some other time,” Ollie said, and winked at her as he turned to follow Walsh.
THE NAMEThe Cozywas lettered onto the plate glass windows out front.
“They may know something about him here,” Walsh said, and reached for the doorknob.
A little bell tinkled over the door as the detectives entered, making the place sound as cozy as it looked. The feeling was one of gingham and pine. Ten or twelve tables with blue, checked table cloths. Stools at the bar cushioned in the same blue check. A pine-framed mirror behind the bar. A blonde wearing a white T-shirt, red Larry King suspenders that exaggerated the thrust of her breasts, high-heeled pumps, and a short blue skirt was behind the bar. A second blonde, identically dressed, was working the tables. There were maybe six or seven people sitting here and there around the room. The detectives took stools at the bar. The blonde behind the bar came over. Ollie wondered if the other blonde was her twin sister.
“Are you drinking or working?” she asked Walsh.
“We’re both off duty,” he said. “What’ll you have, Ollie?”
It’d been “Weeks” before he discovered they were both literary people. Now it was “Ollie.” Next thing you knew, he’d be asking how to utilize metaphor most effectively.
“A beer’d be fine,” Ollie said. “You got Pabst?”
“Coming up,” the blonde said. “How about you, Detective Walsh?”
“Just a shot of bourbon, Flo, little water on the side.”
The other blonde came to the bar, looked at her pad, read off, “BLT down, hold the mayo, iced tea no sugar,” and then turned to Walsh and said, “Hey, long time no see. How’s your book coming along?”
“Finished it,” Walsh said. “With my agent right this minute.”
“Oh, gee, good luck with it.”
“Thanks, Wanda. This is Detective Weeks here.”
“Hey,” Wanda said, and gave him the once-over.
Of the two blondes, Ollie guessed Wanda was the prettiest. Although to tell the truth, they were both quite attractive. Ollie had always liked the look of blondes, especially real blondes, which these two definitely did not seem to be, but then again you could never tell until the panties came off, could you? He thought it odd that he was now attracted to a woman like Patricia Gomez, all dark and exotic looking, not that he was attracted to her, per se, but certainly interested in her, to say the least. He wondered how she was, in fact. Wondered what she was doing right this very minute, eleven o’clock at night. He thought maybe he’d give her a call when he got home later on, ask her if she’d like to go for some pancakes or something. He sure liked the way she filled that uniform of hers.
As he was leaving the Eight-Seven tonight, he happened to mention to his good buddy Parker that he’d made a date to go dancing this Saturday night with a Puerto Rican girl.
“Is she a hooker?” Parker asked.
“Hell, no,” Ollie said. “She’s a cop.”
“I don’t think you should date a fellow police officer,” Parker said, offended.
“I like the way she fills her uniform,” Ollie said, and winked.
“Never mind how she fills her uniform. Don’t go dating a cop. Especially a Puerto Rican one.”
“Why’s that?” Ollie asked.
“Cause she’ll cut off your dick for a nickel and sell it to the nearest cuchi frito joint,” Parker said.
Ollie wondered about that now.
Wanda here, and her twin sister behind the bar, if that’s what she was, certainly knew how to fill their own uniforms, these T-shirts with the red suspenders framing tits like melons, how do you likethatfor a fresh simile, Detective Walsh?
Wanda took the stool on his left.
“So, Detective, what brings you to this part of the city?” she asked.
One elbow on the bar. Leaning over it. Left breast pressing against the rounded edge. Short blue skirt sliding back very high over very white, very smooth-looking legs and thighs. Looking up at him. Blue eyes. Her sister had blue eyes, too. If Flo was indeed her sister.
“Oh, a little business down this way,” Ollie said.
“Are you Vice, too?” she asked.
“No, no. I’m with the Eight-Eight Squad. We just wrapped a murder,” he said.
“Oh my, a murder,” Wanda said, and rolled her delicious blue eyes. “Who got killed? Or am I being presumptuous?”
Everybody so literary these days.
“No, not at all,” he said. “You probably read about it in the papers. It’s Councilman Lester Henderson.”
“Oh, wow, a big one,” Wanda said.
“But he’s down here looking for a dispatch case,” Walsh said, leaning over to talk past Ollie.
“Actually, I recovered the dispatch case,” Ollie said.
“Oh. Then it’s the book wasinsidethe case,” Walsh said to Wanda. “Ollie wrote a book, too.”
“Did you, Ollie?” Wanda said. “May I call you Ollie?”
“Yes. But I used a pen name on it,” he said.
“What name did you use?”
“John Grisham,” Walsh said, getting even for the Irish joke.
“Actually, I used a girl’s name,” Ollie said.
“Oh, really?” Wanda said, and leaned closer to him, her eyes widening.
“Ready when you are, hon,” Flo said.
“I’ll be back,” Wanda said, and swung out sideways to get off the stool, the skirt sliding back even higher on her thighs, almost to Katmandu, in fact. She went to the other end of the bar, picked up her order, looked back over her shoulder at Ollie—who felt himself growing faintly tumescent in his pants—winked at him, and then swiveled over to a man sitting alone alongside the wall under a framed poster of Boy George.
“I wish I could write a book,” Flo said wistfully.
“Maybe I could give you lessons sometime,” Ollie said.
“Maybe you could give usbothlessons,” she said.
“Maybe so. Let’s ask Wanda when she comes back.”
Ollie was thinking he’d stepped in shit here. A three-way without any effort at all. How lucky could a person get? Walsh looked at him. There was a faint, smug, Irish look on his kisser. Probably congratulating himself on his wise-ass John Grisham remark, whoever the hell that was.
“Meanwhile,” Walsh said, “we wanted to ask you girls about somebody who maybe you’ve seen in here.”
“What makes you think that?” Flo asked.
“Kind of place The Cozy is,” Walsh said.
“Hi, honey, you miss me?” Wanda said, and took the stool on Ollie’s left again. Ollie put his left hand on her knee.
“How come you decided to put a girl’s name on the book?” she asked.
“I thought it would sell more copies,” Ollie said, and slid his hand onto her thigh.
