'I tell him to go blow himself,' Deal said.
'Derrick'
Deal put up his hands. 'Listen, man. She was not fucking anybody for money. Not here, anyway. I knew about the car, I even asked her about it. She said something like, 'I got my own money.' I figured it came from Daddy and she was working until she got married.'
'She was not a rich kid,' Lucas said.
Deal shook his head. 'So maybe you should do some real investigation, so you can stop hassling innocent people.'
'Derrick, goddamnit, I'm trying tolike you, but you make it so hard,' Lucas said. He put his hands on the arms of the visitor's chair, ready to stand up. 'We know she's getting some extra cash, and sex is the only thing we can think of. I'd hate to think that Brown's is some kind of high-class bordello, but we're gonna have to send some people around to look at the records. Can we use your name as a recommendation?'
'Wait a minute, wait a minute,' Deal said. He picked up a telephone, punched in four numbers, listened to it ring once, then again, and then said, 'Jean, could you come down here for a second?'
He hung up and said, 'You oughta look into dope.'
'Why?'
'Because half the time, when Sandy came in, which was usually late in the afternoon, she was hungover. From partying. She was a party girl, and she had a real bad coke habit.'
'You think she was selling?' Lucas asked.
Deal opened his mouth, as if with a reflexive response, but his eyes flickered and he changed direction. 'I don't know about selling. But she was using. And she wasn't getting any extra cash here, above the boardor below it.'
He was lying about something, Lucas thought. He'd seen it in Deal's eyes, the momentary flicker. The office door opened, and they both turned toward it. A moment later, a young woman looked down the aisle to Deal's cubicle and saw Lucas. 'Mr. Deal?'
Deal stood up and stepped past Lucas. 'Yeah, Jean, down here.'
The woman walked toward them, and Lucas suddenly realized that she was extraordinarily good-looking. She was a little heavy, round, and had soft brown hair spiked with blond strands, a lush face with placid, pale blue eyes, and a slightly rolled underlip. She wore just a dab of lipstick. Her business suit was as conservative as the receptionist's, but with a differencehers was cut deeply enough in front to show a soft slice of cleavage. She was, Lucas thought, maternal and sexy at the same time.
'Yes?' she asked.
'Would you take this pencil outto India at the front desk?' He handed her a yellow pencil.
Shewas puzzled, but compliant. 'Yes, sir.'
When she was gone, Deal sat down again and said, with just a touch of sarcasm, 'That'swhy Sandy Lansing wasn't dating our customers.'
Looking after the woman, Lucas thought about it for a moment and then nodded. 'She wasn't enough.'
'Not nearly enough, for this place,' Deal said, comfortably. 'And there are a couple more like Jean. Even better than Jean. Not that I'd know anything about private arrangements between staff members and our guests.' He folded his hands across his stomach and leaned hack in his office chair. 'Anything else, Officer Davenport?'
Lucas leaned into him, smiled, reached out, and tapped him on the kneecap. 'Yeah. Lansing and drugs. Where was she getting them?'
'I don't know.' He squealed it; he sounded like a startled pig. 'I don't know anything about any drugs, I don't do drugs. You know that.'
'Yeah, right.' Deal was lying about something. 'You do assessments.'
'Well. I would be, if you hadn't fucked me,' he said. 'Now I do hotels.'
'Like it better?'
'No,' Deal said. 'I don't. I used tobe somebody. Now' He looked up between the rows of cubicles. 'I'm in a goddamn rat cage.'
Chapter 10
Not much more to do: There were cops out everywhere, working on everybody. Writing biographies on the party people; matching their stories, one against the next. Outside, TV trucks were beginning to pile up at the curb. He called Rose Marie, checked out, and went home.
Had a sandwich, got a beer out of the refrigeratorthe last one; he'd have to run down to the store. He clicked on the TV: The movie people were going crazy, as expected. The local TV news shows crushed sports and weather into a five-minute segment, everything else into two minutes, and spent the rest of the half hour on Alie'e. Then the networks jumped in, with their talking heads. They'd had all day to explore the topic of fashion and dope, and long lines of solemn middle-aged men deplored the relationship.
Fox and NBC had a stunning Amnon Plain photograph of Alie'e Maison in what looked like men's underwear. The photo was as sexual as could be broadcast on TV without a fuzzy spot over the good parts, Lucas thoughtand while Plain was credited as the photographer, all of the commentators gave credit toThe Star for the use of the photo.
ABC's news reader said the issue ofThe Star would hit the news-stands by two o'clock the next day, only thirty-six hours after Alie'e was murdered. He seemed to think it was a technological miracle. Lucas got a few seconds of airtime, the interview cut in over movies of a stunned George Shaw, now in jeans and a sweatshirt, being dragged out to a cop car. They'd bitten on George, but not too hard.
'While drugs are acknowledged to be a central point of investigation, rumors have surfaced about a number of sexual escapades involving a former model name Jael Corbeau' And the broadcast cut to a shot of Corbeau in a Chinese-collared black dress that emphasized the planes of her face, the jagged jigsaw quality of the scarring.
After a while, Lucas got tired of it, punched off the TV, and wandered back to the drawing board.
One idea a night, that was all. His idea tonight was that he might need a full-time game masteror better, he thought, a game mistress, somebody cute and blond with gold-rimmed glasses. But game sales wouldn't support a game mistress for long. So there'd have to be a time limit on the game. Say, one year. He pulled out a fresh sheet of paper, sat on his high stool, doodled a bit. Couldn't get going
Catrin. He didn't know what he thought about her, but she was on his mind
Restless, he walked down the hall, picked up the phone, hesitated, then dialed. Calling the nunnery. A nun answered. 'This is Chief Davenport with the Minneapolis Police Department,' Lucas said. 'I need to speak to Sister Mary Joseph.'
'I'll find her,' the nun said; a young voice with a depressive note.
Sister Mary Joseph was his oldest friend, going back to elementary school. Born Elle Kruger, she was a professor of psychology at St.
Anne's College, a few blocks from Lucas's home. Lucas waited two minutes, then heard a phone being fumbled on the other end.
'Lucas.'
He smiled when he heard her voice; he almost always did. 'Hey, Elle. How's everything?'
'So much for the small talk, Lucas. What's going on with this Alie'e Maison murder?'
'Funny you should ask.'
'Is a there a lesbian involvement?'
'Ah, man'
'And what's amuff?'
Lucas was absolutely befuddled for a moment, though he knew from the first instant that he'd never be able to find an answer to the question. But then Elle laughed merrily and said, 'You can restart your heart now.'
'Listen, don't do that,' he said. 'The Alie'e thing it's a mess. There was a lesbian scene, an act, involving three women, some time before she was killed. I don't know what it has to do with the killing. Maybe nothing. That's
