Blondie’s back end came into sight, parked on the opposite side of the street, peeking out from behind a delivery truck. As soon as he saw it he remembered where he parked-right there.
The top was up, mostly to keep the riffraff from using it as a waste can for butts and candy wrappers and RC bottles. The sky above was a tasty crystal blue. He briefly played with the thought of taking it down before deciding that he was too cramped for time.
Instead he removed the window curtains and took off, almost clipping some drunk zigzagging on a bicycle with a beer in his left hand and a battered White Sox cap up top.
He drove into the financial district, found a parking spot on 17th Street near the Brown Palace, and killed the engine. Three minutes later he walked into the offices of Jackson amp; Reacher, Denver’s second- largest law firm.
A bun-haired receptionist with a wrinkled face looked up.
“I’m here to see Gina Sophia,” Wilde said.
“Is she expecting you?”
“I doubt it.”
Two minutes later he was in the office of the law firm’s only female attorney, about twenty-eight. Her face had minimal makeup and her attire was gray and conservative. That didn’t stop Wilde from seeing the beauty underneath. She looked at him without saying anything, then closed the door and sat on the desk, dangling nylon legs.
“I’ve seen you around,” she said. “You play drums down at the Bokaray.”
Wilde nodded.
“Guilty.”
“You tried to pick me up once,” she said.
Wilde didn’t remember.
“Did it work?”
“No.”
“My loss.”
“Maybe you’ll have better luck next time,” she said.
“One can only hope.” A beat then, “How come it didn’t work the last time? Did I use a corny line or something?”
“Actually you did,” she said. “If I remember right it was something like,
Wilde smiled.
That was one of his staples.
“That is pretty bad by the light of day.”
She nodded.
“Blame it on the alcohol,” he said. “So, what line would have worked better?”
She pondered it.
“I don’t know. I don’t pick up girls.”
Wilde shifted his feet and explained that he was a private investigator working on the murder of Charley-Anna Blackridge, who got dropped to her death from the roof of a building after leaving the El Ray Club last weekend.
“I talked to the bartender, Michelle Day,” he said. “She said you were in there last night and told her about leaving Friday night with a guy who looked like Robert Mitchum. Is that true?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because he’s my main suspect,” Wilde said. “If he was with you, then everything I’m thinking is wrong.”
“Then everything you’re thinking is wrong.”
“Are you saying it’s true?”
“I’m saying it isn’t for public disclosure,” she said. “You see where I work and what I do.”
“It’s not going beyond me, I assure you,” Wilde said.
She looked for lies.
“He picked me up, we left and spent the night at his hotel,” she said.
“The whole night?”
“Every single minute.”
“You’re sure?”
She smiled.
“Trust me, it’s not the kind of thing I’d forget.”
Wilde paced.
“He has a tattoo,” he said.
She nodded.
“That’s true.”
“Can you tell me what it is?”
“It’s on his arm,” she said. “It’s a pinup girl standing in front of a war plane.”
Wilde nodded.
That was him all right.
“What’s he in town for, did he tell you?”
She shrugged.
“We didn’t pick each other up to talk.”
“No, I guess not.”
“Any other questions?”
Wilde thought about it.
Yes.
There was another question.
One more question.
“What did he use for an opening line?”
She smiled.
“He said,
“So, it worked for him?”
“Right.”
“But it didn’t work for me?”
“Not the first time.”
“How about the second time?”
“We’d have to wait and see.”
Wilde was almost at the lobby when he came back and knocked lightly on the door of the woman’s office. She looked up from a pile of papers.
He said, “How do you like me so far?”
She smiled.
“Get out of here before I call your bluff.”
59
