had invested a lot of cash to keep this house safe, dry, and very low key.
Stallings didn’t try to hide his approach; he didn’t have time. He needed information, but he also needed to let this asshole know it wasn’t cool to choke women. It would only take him a few minutes out of his way. He whispered to himself, “Is this the day that changes my life?” He checked his pistol in a sturdy polymer holster on his right hip, then headed for the front door.
As he started up the five wooden stairs to the porch, the inner door opened and a white guy wearing a bathrobe, with thinning blond hair, a goatee, and glasses stood in the doorway with the fake rickety screen door between them. He had the look of a college professor in his midthirties and was about six foot one with a little beef on him.
Stallings said, “You Davey?”
“Yep,” was all the man got out before Stallings threw a straight right punch through the screen and into Davey’s face, knocking the clunky man backward into the house.
Stallings didn’t hesitate to jerk the screen door open and follow the dizzy man into the house.
Davey was on his back trying to sit up when Stallings offered him a hand. Davey accepted without thinking and as he rose to his feet, Stallings head-butted him, knocking him into a sitting position on a small, expensive leather couch against the wall.
“What the hell, man,” cried out Davey, checking his nose for blood. “This is very uncool. You don’t know the fucking week I’ve had.” He took a moment, then said in a quieter voice, “Who the hell are you?”
Stallings calmly sat down across from him in a leather chair. “My name is John Stallings, and I’m a detective with JSO.” He crossed his legs like he was doing a TV talk show.
Davey said, “You’re Stall? I don’t work with underaged girls or runaways. I swear it, man.” The pattern of the screen was embedded into his face where Stallings had punched him. It already looked like it might bruise in that odd, woven pattern. “Why’d you punch me?”
“I don’t like pimps.”
“I don’t like cops, but I don’t go around smacking them.”
Stallings was sure he’d never met the man but was happy to know he had that kind of reputation on the street.
The pimp said, “Tabby told me all about you and what you did over on North Broad Street last year when they had a sixteen-year-old girl working there.” Davey shuddered. “I run a different, respectable operation, mainly over the Internet.”
“But you got girls walking the streets right now.”
“I have to so I can make the bills. Some asshole knocked me off-line for a few days.”
Stallings turned his head and looked in to the larger living room and saw six computers in various states of disassembly. He stood up to take a closer look. Davey followed him in.
“You’re not busting me for prostitution, are you? I thought you had better things to worry about.”
Stallings turned and made a fist. “This is an unofficial visit to make sure you don’t mistreat any of your employees again.”
Davey held up his hands in surrender. “I know I’ve been a dick this week. It’s a reaction to having my home dissed and shit trashed. I swear it won’t happen again.” He looked around the room at smashed computers and lines ripped from the wall. “This cat from over near Springfield accused me of violating the first law of pimping.”
“You stole one of his girls?”
“He thought I did. I never even heard of no one named Lee Ann, and I told him just that. He and his buddies still wrecked the place.” He pointed to a corner that was singed black where a fire had started.
Stallings placed a hand on his forearms to shut him up. “Whoa, whoa, did you say ‘Lee Ann’?”
“Yeah, he went off on me about her.”
“Lee Ann Moffitt?”
“Man, we don’t use no last names, you know that. This dude said she worked for him part time and since she worked part time at a Kinko’s near here and he saw me in there, he thought I stole her.”
Now Stallings knew that fate or karma or whatever you wanted to call it had brought him to this nerdy pimp’s house. “What’s the name of the guy who did all this?”
“Franklin Hall.”
“Describe him to me.”
“Black gentleman, he could be governor of California with arms as big as my legs and short hair. Always acts pissed off.” He looked at Stallings. “A little like you.”
“Where would I find Mr. Hall?”
“Shit, man, I don’t know. He doesn’t check in with me.” Davey snapped his fingers. “He’s a freak for breakfast. Eats it every meal. Eggs, bacon, pancakes. He’s probably at some Denny’s or IHOP. Guy like that usually runs his business from a booth where no one bothers him.”
“What’s he drive?”
“Full-sized Hummer. Jet black.”
Stallings looked at Davey. “Are Hummers the new Cadillacs for pimps?”
“They show some class and power. And I can drive around three or four girls at a time for parties and special events.”
Stallings headed for the door, then turned. “Remember what I said. No more rough stuff.”
“I understand, sir. I swear it won’t happen again.”
Stallings turned, satisfied he had made the world a little safer for at least a couple of girls. You had to pick your fights and measure your wins carefully in this business, and he had just been rewarded with a lucky lead on the only suspect they had right now.
He looked up at the dark Jacksonville sky and whispered, “Thank you.”
William Dremmel opened the door to his house as quietly as possible, hoping with all his heart that mother was asleep. Sound asleep. He should have realized when the woozy girl, Trina, flopped down onto the path next to the walkway in a fit of laughter that silence would not be accomplished without pharmaceutical help. He shushed her as best he could as he helped her to her feet. She was absolute dead weight as he yanked her arm.
Then, after he was inside, he heard the table next to the door rattle and Trina burst out in a laugh that sounded like a tractor-trailer horn.
“Sorry,” she said like they were at a bowling alley.
He raised his finger to his lips and gave her a quick “Shush,” then held still and listened to see if his mother would call out. He peeked to ensure the door between the sections of the house was secured. Silence.
“Why? You got roommates?” Her harsh whisper grated on him.
He handed her another Oxy, hoping that might mellow her out some. So far the drug had shown little effect on Trina, who had told him she was a runaway from Cleveland and her folks had no idea where she was. After hearing that vital information, Dremmel’s mind started churning and solving problems one after another.
First, he made sure no one from Wendy’s saw her sitting with him. Then he was careful to meet her on the street, giving her some bullshit story about how he had to go back to the pharmacy to score her some Oxy. She wanted to come, but he said there would still be someone there. He arranged to meet her a block from the pharmacy and told her not to say anything to anyone. She’d promised and explained she was finished at Wendy’s for the night anyway. He had watched her leave from down the street to make certain she didn’t stop and talk to anyone inside Wendy’s.
She had just waved good-bye and walked out alone, a big satchel over her shoulder. He knew she didn’t have a car and she’d been carrying around her essentials to spend the night wherever she could. Sometimes at a runaway “safe house,” sometimes with friends, and sometimes with men she met and slept with for a few bucks and a comfortable bed for the night. Dremmel knew the runaway culture like a cop would. He listened to them in the pharmacy, read everything about runaways he could find, and wasn’t afraid to ask questions of the youths that were sent to the pharmacy from the free clinics.
Now that he had her at his house, with no witnesses, knowing she had no one expecting her, and an obvious taste for pharmaceuticals, he had his next set of obstacles. Mainly he had to keep his mother quiet and unconscious, then lay down the bed in his “darkroom” as well as set the hooks in the wall and get out the restraints. He figured he’d be able to accomplish that after this girl passed out from all the Oxy he had fed her.
