All White Girls. Michael Bracken
for. When she finally closed the cover, Colette griped the folder so tightly it began to crumple and her knuckles turned white.
When her drink arrived a moment later, Colette wrapped one handful of ring-encrusted fingers around the sweating glass. Before she lifted it to her lips, she said, “I saw this morning’s paper.”
“Yeah?”
“Poor Mr. Johnson did a nose dive into the sidewalk outside his office.” Colette lifted the shot glass to her heavily-painted red mouth, pressed the rim against the poorly-camouflaged cold sore on her bottom lip, and tilted her head backward as she lifted the glass upward. The auburn liquid disappeared down the back of her throat. When she finished, she said, “I figure I have you to thank for that.”
“He tripped.”
Colette turned to consider Rickenbacher. The brim of his baseball cap shadowed Rickenbacher’s eyes and she could read nothing in them. He slid a copy of Katherine Cove’s high school graduation photo from his shirt pocket and laid it face-up in front of Colette.
Carlos eased down the bar with a bottle in one hand and tried to refill Colette’s shot glass while she stared at the young woman’s face. She waved him away. “One’s enough, honey.”
“Ever seen her?” Rickenbacher asked.
“Seen dozens like her,” Colette said. “They come and they go. They just don’t come too often in my neighborhood.” She laughed at her own joke, but the sound disappeared when she realized she laughed alone. “Haven’t seen her.”
Rickenbacher slid the photo down the bar toward Carlos. “You?”
Carlos shook his head.
Rickenbacher told them both, “You do, you’ll let me know.”
“Honey, come up to my place some night and I’ll give you something you’ll never get from some young pussy.” She smiled.
Rickenbacher pushed himself off the stool and towered above Colette for the moment it took him to adjust his baseball cap securely over his bald spot. Then he headed toward the door.
“Hey, Big Dick,” Colette called to his back. “You know how I’m gonna die? Hearing aids!” she shouted. “From all you pricks who think oral sex means talking about it.”
Carlos stood behind the bar laughing quietly. He refilled Colette’s glass with imitation Jack and told her the drink was on the house. She watched Rickenbacher until he stepped through the door, then she upended her drink on the file folder. She reached into her purse for a disposable lighter, flicked it to life, and held the flame to the corner of the folder.
“Jesus, lady!” Carlos swore as he swatted at the burning folder with his bar towel. “You trying to burn the place down?”
The folder, the contact proofs, and the negatives had turned to ash and melted plastic before the bartender put the fire out. He managed to save only the photo of Katherine Cove, and he slid it under the cash register.
* * * *
Rickenbacher had never actually cruised the information highway himself. Instead, he traveled the back alleys and side streets, where information cost him a five spot, a drink, or a favor, and he wore out more shoe leather than RAM. Throughout the day, he reached out to people who might have seen Katherine if she had fallen from grace, and made connections with people who just hung around keeping their eyes open. Unlike the big agency Cove had initially hired, Rickenbacher preferred to do the work personally, ensuring that every base was covered, every angle considered, every resource used.
After he left Colette at the Muff Inn, Rickenbacher dropped five spots and sprang for drinks at a dozen different clubs, strip joints, and newsstands. Some days were better than others and when he finally stopped for dinner at a fast-food joint serving greasy burgers and greasier fries, he knew no more than he’d known that morning.
* * * *
The sun had already slid down the evening sky leaving a trail of tainted smog when Lieutenant Castellano reviewed the preliminary reports. Uniforms had canvassed the neighborhood where Jane Doe 43 had died, interviewing bartenders and bouncers, hookers and housewives, winos and waitresses, and had come up with nothing. No one knew who she was or how she came to die in a cheap hotel room.
He hadn’t seen Jane Doe 43’s face on any milk cartons, nor on any missing persons reports. He stood before a battered grey cabinet and thumbed through the files, looking for any indication that someone missed her and wanted her to return. Later, he phoned the country’s three largest private organizations devoted to the location of missing children, his hopes of successfully identifying her diminishing with each call until he finally gave up.
His shift ended before his patience gave out, but when it did, he sat at his desk fingering the silver locket he wore on a chain under his starched white shirt. He had a splitting headache and he wanted a beer.
Maybe more than one.
* * * *
Paul Canfield stood in the back, behind the runway stage near the door to the men’s room. Above him a neon Budweiser sign popped and fizzled as it tried repeatedly to burn itself out. He watched the anemic redhead on stage bump and grind without sincerity until the men’s room door finally opened and a corpulent salesman in an off-the-rack suit that hadn’t fit properly in years came waddling out, followed closely by the scent of flatulence, stale sperm, and cheap cologne. Canfield coughed into his fist, then pushed his way into the tiny room and locked the door.
He pressed down the handle on the faucet and a thin trickle of tepid water flowed over his hands. Canfield splashed the water on his face, then threaded his damp fingers through his hair and pushed the long locks of black and grey away from his forehead. After a moment, he tried to focus on his reflection in the mirror, but the dim light from the 40-watt bulb above him and the graffiti carved into the polished-steel sheet nailed to the wall over the sink prevented him from seeing anything more than the deep bags under his eyes. He hadn’t slept since the previous morning.
Canfield wiped the front of the sink dry with his forearm, then reached into his shirt pocket and retrieved a glass vial. He shook a small pile of cocaine from the vial onto the sink, then used the switchblade he kept in his left boot to push the drug into a thin white line along the edge of the porcelain. He leaned forward, pressed his left nostril shut with his index finger, and then inhaled the entire line.
It took a moment for his body to react to the drug and before it did someone pounded on the door. “You buy that real estate, bud?”
* * * *
After dinner, Rickenbacher cruised the stretch, stopping to talk to every young blonde hooker parading her wares, finally returning home alone that evening. Mrs. Stegmann’s annoying white poodle stood on the back of her overstuffed couch and barked at him through the window as he slowly made his way up the stairs to his apartment. As soon as he slipped his key into the lock and twisted, Rickenbacher realized he had company. He pushed the door open slowly, prepared for most anything. He’d had unexpected visitors before—too many times before—and they weren’t often friendly.
Lieutenant Castellano sat on Rickenbacher’s couch, thumbing through a two-week old TV Guide. A six-pack of Budweiser, four cans still captured in the plastic-ring carrier, sat on the floor beside the couch. The Lieutenant had already finished one beer and he held a second in his left hand. Without looking up at Rickenbacher, he said, “Didn’t figure I needed a warrant.”
Rickenbacher relaxed as he closed the door.
“Seems your friend really did trip.” Castellano closed the magazine he’d been glancing through and tossed it to the other end of the couch. “We found some loose carpeting near his desk.”
Rickenbacher nodded. There hadn’t been any loose carpeting in Mr. Johnson’s office when he’d left.
“The Medical Examiner confirmed cause of death as a broken neck, but it looks like Johnson ran into something before he fell. The M.E. said Johnson landed on his back, but his nose