“’Cause you don’t need a pickup group if you’re—”
“—in love,” I said before he could embarrass us both.
We reached Bandoni’s carpool vehicle, a nondescript Cadillac that had been new around the time Elvis hit it big. Through the window I made out crumpled fast-food wrappers and a Mountain Dew can in the console.
Bandoni said, “Maybe I need to infiltrate the seduction community.”
“Don’t you think you’re a bit old for that scene?” I laughed. “Plus, they’re peacocks.”
“What do you mean?”
“Flashy. Look at their suits in the photo. You can’t even.”
“You got a problem with my suit, don’t hold back.”
“Face it. You and I aren’t winning any fashion awards.”
“Nothing wrong with cheap, long as we’re good.” He leaned against the car and folded his arms. “And speaking of cheap, you see the watch Asher junior was wearing? An Audemars Piguet. Take me a year to save up for something like that. And that’s if I don’t pay rent or buy groceries.”
I stared. “An oh-da—what? Seriously? How do you know all this shit, Bandoni?”
He tapped his overly large skull. “Lots of real estate.”
“Explains why I hear the wind whistling up there sometimes.” I hunched my shoulders. “Anyway, anything about the brother seem off to you?”
Bandoni grunted. “You think maybe Todd with the Audemars Piguet and the capped-tooth smile was involved in his brother’s death? All that shit about remorse and forgiveness.”
“Cain and Abel? Feels a bit biblical.”
Bandoni turned his head and spat into the gutter. “So were the words someone carved into his skin. Especially that bit about blood. Could be blood relations. The ME said blood used to be considered all-powerful.”
“But what’s his motive?”
“The father, maybe. Playing those boys against each other. And believe me, I’ve seen my share of fratricide. It don’t take much, sometimes.”
“But what about the dress and the rape? Would a brother do that?”
Bandoni opened the driver’s-side door. “You really need me to answer that?”
We were silent a moment. Then I said, “I got a bad feeling. What if Ami and Noah fell afoul of the same killer? Maybe the Superior Gentlemen didn’t like it when Noah got a girlfriend. Don’t forget the second tattoo—the symbol of man over woman.”
“But ain’t getting a little sex the whole point of being a pickup artist? Why carve up a guy for scoring? And”—he aimed a finger at me—“don’t go all woman solidarity on me. Maybe she helped the killer. Violence begins at home.”
“I’m not feeling it.”
“One step at a time, rookie. Punks. Then Riley Lynch. And the comics geeks.”
“We’re more than twenty-four hours in. And what have we got?”
Bandoni squeezed in behind the steering wheel. “We’re just getting started. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
“No.” I looked up at the darkening clouds. “But it burned to the ground in one.”
CHAPTER 15
The thing about there being hell to pay is that you can always hope the devil doesn’t come to collect.
—Sydney Parnell. Personal journal.
The vice cop, Boz, leaned back in his chair and gave me a nod.
“Happy to do it,” he said.
“More than happy,” said his partner, Cooper. “We know about both these assholes.”
We were back at headquarters, in a conference room on the fourth floor. Bandoni, Clyde and me, and the undercover cops Boz and Cooper. Newly empty pizza boxes, paper plates, and two six-packs of soda were strewn across the table. Sleet slammed the windows and formed a silver-white veil between us and the city. Every now and again, the lights flickered.
Leopard’s Den, the gutter-punk hangout we were going to hit that night, was in Boz and Cooper’s territory.
“We’re not getting a warrant for these punks,” Bandoni said. “It’s strictly a friendly little chat. For the moment, they’re just persons of interest.”
“It’s the Chicken Man case, right?” Cooper asked. He looked the part of a junkie in his ripped jeans, filthy shirt, and piercings.
“Noah Asher,” Bandoni said. “Right.”
“We’ll go with however you want to play it,” Boz said. He wore dirty camos, a watch cap, and a full beard. “But my money’s on Damn Fox for doing your guy. I’ve just been waiting for that asshat to do something since he nudged into our territory a couple of months ago.”
Bandoni popped a soda. “Tell us what you know.”
Cooper tapped his laptop keyboard, and a picture of a white male appeared on the screen. “Meet Damn Fox, a.k.a. David Kelly. Twenty-eight-year-old dipshit and Colorado native.”
I studied Kelly’s photo. Cruel eyes. Cruel lips. Hell, even his ears looked like they were up to no good.
Cooper went on. “Classic sob-story childhood, at least according to Kelly. Not that he’s a credible source, but whatever. Says he was five years old when Daddy left. Mommy turned tricks to pay the rent and buy meth. Davey boy claims that sometimes the johns came after him, and around the tender age of ten, he started dipping into Mom’s drugs. Ran away from home when he was fifteen and hit the rails. Juvenile records are sealed, but he’s the king of misdemeanors now—trespassing, breaking and entering. Word on the street is that he’s dealing. We haven’t caught him selling on our turf, but our sources say the kid has tried or sold every drug you’ve heard of and half the ones you haven’t. His specialty, allegedly, is Molly, which he hawks at concerts.”
Bandoni and I exchanged a glance. Todd Asher had mentioned that Riley Lynch dealt in Molly.
Molly, a.k.a. ecstasy, first hit the streets in the eighties and still did a solid job hospitalizing kids hoping to find chemical nirvana. The euphoria provided by Molly sometimes came with heart attacks and seizures. Especially if the dealer cut something in with the powder.
“Does he cut it?” Bandoni asked. Reading my mind.
“Does a bear shit in the woods?” Boz answered. “Christ, they all do. Baking powder. Sugar. Whatever they got in the kitchen. But a lot of times, guys like our Davey boy mix in other illegals for wealthier customers.”
Cooper clicked to another photo. This one showed Kelly with shoulder-length brown hair and gold
