She blew smoke and nodded.
“You two don’t like each other,” she said.
Wilde wrinkled his forehead.
“What makes you say that?”
She smiled.
“What do you want him for?”
“It’s personal. Where does he live?”
“You look like you’re going to kill him.”
“That’s not my plan.”
“Are you sure?”
He shrugged.
“He might have something that doesn’t belong to him.”
“Something of yours?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“A woman.”
“A woman?”
“Right, a woman.”
“He has a woman who doesn’t belong to him?”
“He might. I don’t know yet, one way or the other.”
“Your girlfriend?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“What’s her name?”
“Alexa Blank,” Wilde said. “She’s a waitress.”
“I never heard of her,” Lace said.
“No reason you would have,” Wilde said. “So where does Tarzan live?”
The woman studied him.
Then she told him.
Wilde stood up.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Do you want some advice?”
“No.”
“Too bad because here it is,” Lace said. “If you screw with him, you better be prepared because he’ll rip your head off and piss in the hole.”
“My head doesn’t come off that easy.”
Lace blew smoke.
“You might be surprised.”
Twenty minutes later Wilde skidded Blondie to a stop in dusty gravel at the far end of the BNSF railroad yard. He pulled his gun out of the glove box, stepped out and shouted, “Tarzan, you got company.”
No one answered.
Nothing moved.
There were several boxcars converted to living quarters and some kind of tent canopy stretched between them. At the north end of it all was a car, a battered car that looked like it had been hit a hundred times by a freight train.
Wilde felt the hood.
It was cold.
“Tarzan, come out, come out, wherever you are.”
The noise of colliding couplers and straining steel came from up the tracks. Other than that, though, silence ruled the world.
Alexa Blank was here somewhere.
It was the perfect place.
Wilde cocked the trigger and headed for the closest boxcar with a pounding heart.
104
The bathroom window dumped Waverly and the spankee into a dark alley behind the Flamingo, which they took east towards traffic. Halfway there, Waverly grabbed the blond by the arm, yanked her to a stop and said, “Follow me.” She headed up a dark fire escape at the backside of a building. At the first landing she looked back.
The blond wasn’t following.
She was standing there, looking up.
“Come on,” Waverly said.
She continued up.
The next time she looked back, the blond was in tow, a floor behind.
They got to the roof and walked across to the front of the building. Larimer Street sprawled out four stories down.
“Why are we up here?”
“There was a guy who came into the bar,” she said. “I want to get a better look at him. I think he broke into my apartment. I’m pretty sure Bristol hired him.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m on to him about being the murderer and he knows it.” A beat then, “What’s your name?”
“Jaden.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Waverly.”
Hiding behind the parapet as much as possible while still keeping an eye on the street outside the Flamingo, Waverly gave Jaden the gruesome facts, the most important being the murder of Kava Every, the young associate Bristol had a secret relationship with, the second most important being the murder of Charley-Anna Blackridge in Denver this past weekend.
Jaden hadn’t known anything about either one.
She wasn’t impressed.
“Bristol wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“He did and he will again,” Waverly said. “You’re next or if not next at least on the list.”
“He’d never hurt me.”
“Take a good look down because this is the exact kind of place he’s going to bring you sooner or later. You’ll even be wearing the same dress you are now.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Let me ask you something. Why are you two in Denver?”
“He has business here.”
“What kind of business?”
