French Kiss

Chapter 15

I walk into the lobby of the Auberge. Standing there is K. Burke. She’s easily identifiable by the smoke coming out of her ears.

“Where have you been?” she demands. “I checked the bar, then the restaurants, then…anyway. What did you find out?”

“Nothing,” I say. “And you?”

“Wait a minute. Nothing? How many people did you talk to?”

“Beaucoup.”

“And nothing?”

“Oui. Rien.”

She shakes her head, but I’m not sure she believes me.

“Well,” she says as she gestures me out the front door, “while I was standing around, waiting for a certain someone I won’t name, I texted a contact in Vice, who gave me access to some of their files. And I have a theory.” Detective Burke begins to speak more quickly now, but she still sounds like a first-grade teacher explaining simple arithmetic to the class.

“There have been three call-girl murders in the past three months, including Maria Martinez. All Vice cops posing as call girls. The first was…”

I cannot keep quiet. We’ve already looked into this.

“I know,” I say. “Valerie Delvecchio. Murdered at a construction site. A rénovation of a hotel. The Hotel Chelsea, on 23rd Street and Seventh Avenue. The second cop was Dana Morgan-Schwarz. She was offed in a hotel on 155th and Riverside. A drug-den SRO so bad I wouldn’t go there to take a piss.”

This does nothing to dampen Burke’s enthusiasm for her theory.

“Don’t you see, Moncrief? You’re not putting the pieces together. This is a pattern. Three Vice cops posing as call girls. All of them murdered. This is-”

“This is ridiculous,” I say. “This is not a pattern. It is at best a coincidence. The Chelsea murder is unsolved, yes. But the detective’s body was dumped there after she was murdered. And Morgan-Schwarz was probably involved in an inside drug deal. No high-class hooker would go to that hotel.”

But Burke is simply not listening.

“I set up a meeting for us with Vice this afternoon at four. We’re going to get the names, numbers, and websites of every expensive call-girl service in New York.”

“Good luck with that,” I say. “That should only take a few weeks.”

“Then we’re going to meet all the people who run them. I don’t care if it’s the Mafia, Brazilian drug lords, Colombian cartels, or other cops. We’re going to see every last one.”

“Great. That should only take a few months.”

“You’ve got a bad goddamn attitude, Moncrief.”

I’m not going to explode. I’m not going to explode. I’m not going to explode.

“I will see you at four o’clock for our meeting with Vice,” I say calmly.

“Where are you going till then? We’ve got work to do.”

“I’m going to work right now. Want to come along?”

Burke folds her arms and frowns. “You lied to me, didn’t you? You did find out something.”

“Come with me and see for yourself.”