Less than an hour later they had their answer. “You were being followed by two Chinese guys,” Su-Moon said.
Waverly wrinkled her forehead in shock.
“I didn’t see anyone.”
“You weren’t supposed to.”
“Two?”
Su-Moon nodded.
“I didn’t recognize either of them. They had tattoos. One of them had a long braided ponytail and was wearing a blue bandana. The other one-the muscular one-had short hair and was wearing a white muscle shirt.” A pause then, “The fact that they knew you were here goes back to my prior comments about your little lover-boy. He knew you were here, Bristol didn’t.”
Right.
Damn.
“What we need to do is get back into Bristol’s houseboat,” Su-Moon said.
Waverly looked for a trick but didn’t see it.
“You’re serious.”
Su-Moon nodded.
“Dead,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because we’re going to find out who the women are in those photos, right? To see if any of them mysteriously disappeared?”
“Right.”
“To do that we need to get names. That means we need to get a hold of Bristol’s little black book. That’s either in his pocket or at his office or at his houseboat. He’ll be out hunting for you tonight. While he’s doing that we’ll pay a visit to the boat.”
“We already checked it.”
Su-Moon considered it.
“Okay fine,” she said. “We’ll do his office.”
57
With his gun in the hands of Alexa Blank, River was naked. From the graveyard he headed to Mile High Guns amp; Ammo on Colfax to fix that little problem. Luckily they had a duplicate of the one he already had-a Colt 45-meaning he wouldn’t have to get familiar with a different action and kick. A copy of the Beat was sitting on the counter. River flipped through it as the clerk wrapped everything up.
“Woman Falls to Death” caught his eye.
According to the article, a woman named Charley-Anna Blackridge fell to her death from the roof of a building on Curtis Street late Friday night. Police were investigating.
He closed the paper.
His head spun.
This wasn’t good.
It wasn’t good at all.
From the store he headed to the first phone book he could find and looked up Charley-Anna Blackridge. She was listed at 1331 Clayton.
He headed over and knocked on the door.
No one answered.
The structure was a small brick bungalow with no driveway or garage, slightly elevated from the street. A twist of the knob showed the door was locked. He looked around for nosy neighbors and found none. What he was about to do was stupid. He tried to talk himself out of it but it didn’t work.
His feet took him around the side of the structure to the back. An alley ran behind the houses. That’s where the owners parked.
Two houses down a German Shepherd tugged at a chain and barked.
The noise was for River.
He’d been warned.
“Screw you.”
He tried the back door, expecting it to be locked.
It wasn’t.
The knob turned.
He opened the door a foot, shouted, “Anyone home,” and got no answer.
He looked at the neighboring houses, saw no prying eyes and stepped inside
He was in a kitchen.
A yellow refrigerator vibrated with a soft hum that rose slightly above the absolute quietness surrounding it.
On the Formica counter was a bowl of fruit-apples, oranges and bananas. Everything was fresh, purchased within the last day or so.
Dishes were piled in the sink.
A frying pan sat on a cold burner. Next to it was pizza box. River opened the top to find two slices inside. He picked one up to see if it was stiff. It wasn’t, it was flexible. He closed the top and took a deep breath.
“Anyone home?”
No one answered.
He headed upstairs.
The steps bent slightly under his weight.
The third one creaked.
58
Late afternoon Wilde got an unexpected call from Michelle Day, the bartender from the El Ray Club, and pulled up an image of her wiggling on the bed with her hand between her legs. Halfway through the conversation he wrote
At street level he dipped the hat over his left eye and tried to figure out where he parked Blondie.
He couldn’t remember.
It wasn’t in sight, either direction.
He tapped a Camel out of a pack, lit up and walked west towards 14th. Thirty steps later
