The muscular pimp scooted back to lean on the tire of the big Hummer. He shook his head. “Poor Lee Ann. She was almost completely clean.”
Stallings looked at him. “What do you men ‘almost’ clean? What was she using, and where’d she get it?”
“She was using what all the young girls like today-prescription drugs like Vicodin or Oxy. They think it’s safer and cheaper than anything else.”
“They think Vicodin is safe?”
“Yeah, I know, when we was kids we all smoked pot. Everyone said it would kill us and turn us into lazy bums. That’s what my mama would say, ‘You smoking weed, you nothin’ but a lazy bum.’” He let a slight smile spread on his wide face. “You believe that shit. Turns out pot is safe compared to everything else.”
“Where’d Lee Ann get the prescription stuff?”
“She had a couple of sources. All the girls tend to use one or two different guys because they’re safe. A couple street dealers downtown. They all go to them.”
“Got a name?”
“They all white dudes. No brother would be caught dead selling shit like that. There’s guys named Chuck and Ernie, then there’s a little dude named ‘Peep’ or some shit like that.”
“Peep Morans?”
“That’s the dude. You know him?”
Stallings frowned and couldn’t hide his real feelings for the man known as Peep Morans. All he said was, “Yeah, I know him.”
Dremmel froze for a moment. Sweat started to drip from his forehead.
“William.” Her tone was back to her preferred, calmer southern hostess voice but it still filled the whole house, belching out of three separate intercoms, bouncing off the terrazzo floors and echoing in the halls.
His eyes cut from the courtyard door to Trina, until she said, “Who the hell is that and where is she calling from?”
He cleared his throat and said, “It’s my mother on the other side of the house. She’s not well.”
“Are you going to see what she wants?” Finally she popped the whole pie-shaped pat of cheese into her mouth and started smacking her lips.
He motioned her to stay put, turned, and hurried into the kitchen, through the courtyard, down to his mother’s bedroom, bursting in the door without his customary knock, then shutting it tight behind him. His pulse was galloping over 120, and he was starting to see spots in his vision. Was this a stroke? He’d have a hard time explaining a few things to the paramedics and cops when they showed. His legs went weak, and he slipped onto the folding chair next to the bed, shoving the magazines off onto the floor.
His mother turned her pretty face toward him and grasped his hand in her own delicate hand. “Are you well, William? You look odd.” Her eyes had a bright, lucid look to them as she sat up in her bed. “I was about to get into my chariot and venture into your side of the house.”
Dremmel tried to control his breathing, flinching slightly at the touch of her hand. “I’m fine, Mother. I was in the middle of something when you started screaming. What do you need?”
“I just hadn’t seen you, son. I was afraid you might not come home. What are you in the middle of?”
“I have a lot of work to do. Papers from school.”
“I wish those people at the college recognized how hard you work.” Her voice sounded clear and light for a change. He almost wished he didn’t have to force her back to sleep. Lucidity was a rare quality for his mother anymore. Mostly because of him.
“You need some rest, Mother. You look tired.”
She drifted off for a moment, then asked, “Can I watch TV with you for a while?”
He shook his head. “Tomorrow night. I have to get busy on my work again.” He wanted to say ‘experiment,’ but historians didn’t do experiments and he didn’t want to explain his personal pharmaceutical work, especially since she was the most successful test subject to date. He dimmed the light next to her bed and pulled up the flowery comforter. “I’ll get you some milk so you can fall back to sleep, okay?”
She smoothed the floral patterned gown over her chest and stomach, then smiled at him like a mother looking at her newborn baby. He patted the comforter, feeling her surprisingly firm stomach.
“I’ll be back soon. You stay quiet.”
She nodded and shut her eyes.
He looked down and had to admire how attractive his mother looked with her mouth and eyes closed. It reminded him of the month immediately after the accident when his grandmother would take him to see her in the hospital. It was the first time in his life he had realized his own mother was pretty. When she wasn’t barking at him to sit up straight, clean his room, or fetch her a drink she was a lot more fun to be around.
He slipped out of the room, quietly closing the bedroom door behind him, then turned into the courtyard to the rest of the house. As he entered the kitchen he froze at the sight of Trina standing, still topless, her magnificent cockeyed breasts drawing his attention, her tiny hand open with the two bright red capsule halves of the Seconal in her palm.
She snarled, “I thought that cheese tasted funny. What the fuck is this all about?”
William Dremmel’s heart started to race again as a new film of sweat built up on his forehead.
Thirteen
Patty Levine felt a little woozy after answering the phone call from John Stallings saying he had Lee Ann Moffit’s pimp at the D-Bureau. She’d been called out to a scene a couple of times in the past after taking a sleeping pill and knew the drill. First she went straight into her bathroom and stuck a finger down her throat until she vomited. It wasn’t dainty or subtle, but it usually worked. Then she showered real quick, got dressed, and drank a Red Bull on her way into the office. The sugar and caffeine seemed to counteract any of the Ambien that had dissolved in her system and kept her awake, if a little jittery, for as long as she needed to be. Every time it happened she renewed her vow to lay off the sleeping pills, but she never lasted for long. A night or two of tossing and turning and she was back to her kitchen counter looking for whatever she had that would make her nod off.
Now she sat with Stallings as the interview with Franklin Hall concluded. She was surprised Stallings had done the proper thing and brought in the suspect for Mazzetti to interview. That was the way things were supposed to happen, the lead detective calling the shots on something like that, but she hadn’t expected her partner to play by those rules. She had noticed the bulky pimp walking with a slight limp when they had taken a break for him to use the bathroom. She expected that from Stallings.
She and Stallings had watched the interview over a closed-circuit TV that also videotaped everything that went on in the small room with only three chairs. The newest homicide detective, Christina “Hoagie” Hogrebe, sat in on the interview. Mazzetti had said it was because he wanted a female perspective on the guy’s demeanor, but Patty knew it was a jab at Stallings. If Patty had to admit it, she felt a stab of jealousy too. The beautiful detective was already in homicide, a year younger than her, and she had earned it by good, smart police work. But Stall had found the guy, and he was a senior detective.
Stallings had already gotten most of Franklin’s story on the ride to the S.O. and the wait for Mazzetti to return to the office. Patty listened as Mazzetti laid out the same questions they all would’ve asked and assessed the pimp carefully on each answer. Like any team used to interviewing, Mazzetti kept good eye contact and developed rapport while Hoagie took notes and developed more questions for later. They were pros, and it showed.
The story was logical, and Franklin Hall didn’t seem to be hiding anything. He admitted to making a living as a pimp, to smashing Davey Lambert’s computers because he thought the brainy computer-pimp had stolen one of his girls, and that Lee Ann Moffit worked for him. She had recently tried a real job and was only working one or two nights a week for special clients that called Franklin and asked for her. The dark-skinned pimp had not hesitated to provide every name and number of those clients. There was no honor in the profession when someone turned up dead-the loser-pimp privilege didn’t apply.
Franklin also revealed that he used to be called “Jamais” and had each of his girls tattoo his name in the same place on their backs.
