All White Girls. Michael Bracken

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 had been broken before the fall.”

      “Maybe he ran into a door.”

      “Stranger things have happened,” the Lieutenant said. “Somebody clumsy enough to fall out a window could have run into a door first.”

      Rickenbacher just shrugged his shoulders.

      Castellano said, “We found a few other things as well.”

      “Yeah?”

      “Three file cabinets filled with photos of young girls. One of the drawers had been opened and rifled.” Castellano sat silent for a moment, then asked, “How’s your hand?”

      “Healing nicely.”

      The Lieutenant lifted the Budweiser can to his lips and drained it. The last time he’d been in Rickenbacher’s apartment he’d put away a six of Bud and a fifth of Jack and had spent half the night driving the porcelain bus, heaving his guts out. He asked, “You working on anything these days?”

      “Missing girl.” Rickenbacher tossed the folder on his coffee table. Missing girls had become his specialty.

      Castellano reached down for another beer, popped it open, then reached for the folder. He opened it and spent a moment staring at Katherine Cove. “Looks like another small town dreamer. She come to the big city to find her fortune?”

      “Don’t know why she came,” Rickenbacher answered. He peeled off his windbreaker and his baseball cap and stuffed them in his coat closet. Then he glanced at his answering machine and found no messages waiting. He said, “Not even sure she made it here.”

      “Mommy want her little girl to come home?”

      “Daddy does.”

      “I got a girl just like her on ice. She’s tore up so bad you can’t tell what she looked like. Got a few good prints off her left hand, but there’s no match.”

      Rickenbacher didn’t say anything.

      “Dragnet’s on in fifteen minutes,” Castellano said. “Let’s watch something with a happy ending.”

      “You need a wife to go home to,” Rickenbacher said. His former partner had never married. “Then you wouldn’t need to hang around here.”

      “When did you become an authority on marriage?”

      Rickenbacher shrugged. He found an unopened bag of pretzels in the kitchen, poured himself a large glass of unsweetened orange juice, and then sat on the couch beside his former partner. They watched old programs on Rickenbacher’s portable black-and-white television until Castellano finished the last beer, pissed, СКАЧАТЬ