Scalpers

his work, to do what he had gone to Orlando to do.

'There's more to do than you know,” he protested.

'Any less, and I'd say you were sluffing off.'

'It could go another month, things are in such disarray here.'

'Sid's work is that bad?'

'It's not just Sid ... it's the whole homicide division. One of the cops we were working closely with has ... well, he's dead.'

'Dead?' Her one-word reply had a definite tremor to it. 'How?'

'The killers got to him. He was working alone, a real maverick, and they got to him first.'

She was silent for a moment. Dean pictured her in his mind's eye, tall and lovely, energetic, filled with opinion and dedication, and committed to her work as head nurse in pediatrics at Rush-Presbyterian Hospital. “You will be careful, won't you?'

'Absolutely. I'm no hero.'

'I couldn't stand to lose you.'

'I love you, darling.'

'I love you too, very much.'

'And as soon as I can—'

'Hurry home, yes....'

Now Dean was alone with his thoughts, the fatigue held at bay by the shower and a short nap. He paced about his room, mentally going over the evidence gathered to date. It created a pattern in miniature of the killers. It implicated someone, if they could only link it all to the individuals responsible for this horror.

The phone rang, shattering his concentration. It was Frank Dyer.

'Dyer, where are you?'

'Mercy Hospital, glad I caught you. I got a doctor here who says he saw Mrs. Jimenez, the dead woman, talking to a guy who was driving a Mercedes just before she died.'

'Mercedes? You get plate numbers?'

'Dream on. But this guy says he's seen the car at the hospital before.'

'Does he know whose car it is?'

'He's not sure. Lot of doctors here drive expensive cars. Our boy's an intern, drives a Honda cycle.'

'Still, there are only a limited number of Mercedes that can be in that staff lot at any given time.'

'Exactly, and I'm on it. What about you, doctor? You still on the case?'

'Yeah, for now I am.'

'Great ... great. I'll let you know what I find out. Once I get a list of names to work with and possibles, I'll get back to you.'

It might pan out to nothing, or Dyer's rundown of the Mercedes could lead to a break in the case. They were due for some luck. A number of clues already pointed to at least one of the killers being a medical man, or at least in close proximity to medical supplies, capable of moving in and out of medical settings without unduly disturbing anyone.

Dean went downstairs to the lobby of the Hilton to the Hertz rental booth. He was soon pocketing a key, and with his medical bag in hand he started for the car, which was somewhere in the depths of an underground lot, a section numbered C-17. The lot was empty and silent. Dean was unable to find the car or anything like a marker for a moment, until he saw, far off, the yellow Hertz banner. Suddenly he heard the sound of a motor behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that it was a Mercedes. He stared hard to see the driver, but like many Florida cars, the glass was so darkly tinted it was impossible to see within. Dean's heart skipped a beat as he mentally took down the plate number, a New York license. The car had eerily crept up on his heels, as if following Dean, like some obedient dog. Dean thought of the many ways he could die, thought of how Park had had the killers suddenly turn on him as he was about to close in on them, and the thoughts caused beads of perspiration to turn into watery rivlets dripping down his face. Finally, having had enough, he felt for the .38 he had strapped on at the last moment before leaving his room, the gun which Ken Kelso had advised he carry with him at all times.

The wheels of the Mercedes suddenly squealed. Dean whipped around, gun in hand, to face down the driver of the car.

The car had come to an abrupt halt Dean heard the snap of locks on all four doors, a commotion inside the car. Then a back window slid down halfway. “Is this a stickup?” asked a man who must be near ninety, delighted with the prospect.

'Grandpa! Close that window!” someone shouted at the man.

Grandpa said in his best cursing voice, “Shit, if he wants to, he can shoot the damn window out! I say we negotiate for our release!'

'Police!” said Dean, identifying himself, showing his badge. “I would like—'

'Oh, the police, Fred! Tammy! The police!” said Grandpa, his white head showing as he exited the car and came out with his hands up. “Just like TV, ain't it?'

The younger man, perhaps fifty-five, and his wife got out of the car, and Dean saw that they were all wearing bright, loud clothes, the old man in Hawaiian shorts. Dean realized immediately that he'd overreacted to the slow- moving Mercedes that had come up on him the way it had ... they'd simply been searching for a parking space.

Dean apologized, saying he was on the lookout for a stolen Mercedes, and he thought for a moment that—

'Police harassment, that's what this is,” complained Tammy, a white-haired forty-eight-year-old, long on makeup, short on weight control.

'Please accept my apologies,” Dean said as he rushed for his rental car. Behind him he could hear the cackle of the old man.

'He weren't no Don Johnson, was he?'

Pitching his bag into the medium-sized Chrysler, Dean drove for downtown. His return to the lab would, he hoped, be welcomed by Sid, and maybe the friction between him and Hodges would by now have dissipated. As Dean drove out of the garage into the street, he saw the Mercedes leave as well. Funny, he'd thought they were searching for a parking place. He imagined for a moment the bizarre scene of a scalping murder in which a woman was not only brutally scalped, but her unborn child was ripped from her as well, and standing tall over the body were Tammy, Fred, and Grandpa in Hawaiian shorts. There were so many bizarre twists to this case that the thought wasn't funny.

A second look in his rearview mirror told Dean that the sleek, gray Mercedes he now saw had an altogether different license plate than Fred and Tammy's. This car had no plate on the front. As the driver suddenly veered off, Dean saw that it had a Florida plate, but it was too far away for him to make out the numbers.

Dean gunned the gas pedal and the car sped back to the cream-colored Municipal complex downtown. Inside was the booze hound who had slept and cowered within sight of the murder of the Jimenez woman and her unborn child.

* * * *

'I told you all I know,” grumbled the broken-down old drunk with the tattered gray coat, baggy pants, and grease-spotted tie. He fumbled with a hat that looked older than he did. His white hair was a wild mass of explosive strands waving above him with the wind stirred up by a ceiling fan. His jowls and gums had long since caved in, his teeth gone. Dean imagined his liver was also in sad shape. From the way Dyer kept his handkerchief close by his nose, Dean imagined the old guy smelled pretty bad, too.

'Just give us some idea what this man looked like,” pleaded Frank Dyer, exasperated with the old-timer. Dean imagined Dyer had been at it for some time.

'And I ain't lying, son, got to have a drink bad—real bad, you understand, son?” said Frank Dyer's stellar witness, brought in for questioning.

Dean watched through a one-way glass, and suddenly Chief Jake Hodges, taking a personal interest in the case, blotted out Dean's view of the old man, coming at him like a bull, asking, “What year is this, Mr. Silbey?'

'Year? What year?'

'Do you know what year it is? What day?'

'Course I do. Nineteen and—and eighty...'