Kiss Of Evil

48

The Caprice Lounge is all but deserted and Carla Davis is about as looped as he had ever seen her. The fact that Carla had had their actor right in front of her both infuriated and, if the fact that she is on her third Cutty Sark is any indication, frightened her more than a little.

Right around last call, after a long silence, Carla asks: “I’ve been wanting to ask you something.”

“Okay.”

“Nothin’ to do with the case.”

“Good.”

“You ever think about getting married again?”

“Never,” Paris lies.

“Really? How come?”

“A million reasons, none of them good enough on their own. But collectively…”

“I understand.”

“Let me put it this way,” Paris says. “At this stage of my life, I like my women like I like my first pot of coffee of the day.”

Carla plays along. “You mean, hot, black, and sweet?”

“Nope,” Paris replies. “I mean gone by seven-thirty.”

Carla laughs. “Okay, okay. I hear ya.”

“Now I’ve got a question for you. It’s got everything to do with the case.” Paris reaches inside his suit coat pocket and retrieves an old newspaper photograph of Jeremiah Cross. “You know this guy?”

Carla squints at the photo in the dim lights of the bar. “Not sure. Who is he?”

“Defense attorney. He defended the woman who killed Mike Ryan.”

Carla takes her glasses from her coat pocket, puts them on, holds the photo up for better light. “No,” she says. “But, on the other hand, pretty-boy lawyers all kind of blend together for me, you know what I mean?” She reads the caption. “Jer-e-mi-ah Cross. Nope. Doesn’t ring a bell. Why?”

“This is gonna sound insane.”

“It’s almost two-thirty, Jack,” she says, draining her drink, calling for the tab. “Believe me, it won’t.”

“Is there any chance that he might have been our unsub?”

Carla looks at Paris. Deep, cop-trance look. He has her attention now. “This guy? Our unknown subject?” She grabs the photo back. “Shit, I don’t know. Maybe yes, maybe no. My guy had a big beard, tinted shades, ball cap. Probably a wig. I think I saw his lips and his nose. How tall is this Jeremiah Cross?”

“Six feet or so.”

“That’s about right,” Carla says.

“What about an accent? Did he sound southern at all?”

“No. Sounded like a guy from Rocky River, actually.” Carla scrutinizes the photo again. “Why on earth would you like this guy as our actor?”

Paris gives her a brief rundown.

“That ain’t much,” Carla says.

“I know.”

“Just because you’d like to go upside on this guy doesn’t exactly make him our voodoo mass murderer.”

“You’re right,” Paris says. “Forget I said anything.”

They drop the money on the bar, sign off for what they know will only be a few hours. Paris walks Carla to her car. They assess each other’s ability to drive and give themselves a pass.

Thirty minutes later, as Paris flops into his bed, chilled to the marrow, fully clothed, deprived of any direction in this brutal abattoir he calls a career, he falls instantly into a deep, troubled sleep.

Evil is a breed, Fingers.

An hour later, Paris does not hear the car pull into the parking lot across the street, nor does he see the glow of the cigar ember inside, phosphorescent in the blackness, strobing through the night like a rosary made of fire.