Loose And Easy

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Standing in the doorway between the hostess desk and the rest of the restaurant, Dax checked out the people sitting in the bar at Mama Guadalupe’s. Then he checked his watch. Charo had made good time once he’d gotten her off the interstate. He was early.

He let his gaze go back over the people filling up the tables. The place was packed on a Friday night, with music blaring, folks dancing, drinking, eating, and talk, talk, talking. Jazz was the music, Santa Fe gourmet was the food, and Mama Guadalupe’s was obviously the place to be. Mama herself was working the tables at the front of the house, charming the diners and snapping her fingers at the waitstaff to keep them moving. Dax knew it was all for show. The young men didn’t need the added incentive. They had to work long and hard to get out of the busboy crew and into the ranks of Mama’s howlingwolf waiters. Not only did the job supply them with plenty of ready cash, there wasn’t a girl on the west side who didn’t want to date one of Guadalupe’s waiters. The job was cool, always had been.

“Sir? Mr. Killian?”

He looked down at the young, dark-haired hostess standing at his elbow. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen and was dressed very neatly in a black skirt to her knees, a white button-up shirt, and a black vest with a name tag pinned to it-Dulcinea.

He agreed. She looked real sweet with her hair swept back in a pair of tidy braids, her warm smile, and her Holy Cross earrings.

“Yes?” he answered, only slightly surprised to hear his name. The city of Denver would have to undergo a pretty dramatic population change for him not to run into people he knew, especially in this part of town.

“Señor Rick requests your company for a drink.” She pointed to the far dark corner of the long bar, and Dax grinned. He’d be damned. Rick Graydon, the only gringo in the place, was still in the place.

“Gracias.” He smiled at the girl before heading across the room.

“Dax.” The bartender greeted him with a smile, a bright flash of false teeth. Dax knew Rick kept the choppers by his bed at night in a cup of peroxide with a touch of water and a whisper of bleach- shaken, not stirred. The guy was seventy, if he was a day, still lively, but definitely old enough to be a piece of Denver history, and he very freely shared the secret of his blindingly white smile with anyone willing to listen.

“Rick.” Dax reached across the bar and shook the guy’s hand. The older man’s grip was still strong, like an ox. Rick was rightly infamous for his mescal margaritas. “Good to see you still working.”

“ ’Til I drop, Dax. ’Til I drop, probably right here behind the bar.”

Dax slipped a five across the bar, and Rick reached under his side and slid a pack of cigarettes back over to him.

To Dax’s knowledge, Rick was the only importer of Faro cigarettes in the state. He was also the only importer of Oaxacan mescal. Both sidelines were illegal, Rick’s idea of a pension fund for his old age. Considering how long he’d been in the “import” business, Dax figured he must have quite a fund sitting somewhere-knowing Rick, probably buried in his backyard.

“Can I get you a beer? On the house.”

“Not tonight, thanks, but will you keep an eye out for my cousin? I’m supposed to meet her here, but I have another stop I need to make.”

“You mean that little Esme gal?”

“Yeah, that’s the one, but you be careful with her, Rick. She’s all grown-up now and meaner than a junkyard dog.”

Rick burst out laughing, and Dax grinned.

He wasn’t kidding, not really.

“Sure, Dax. I’ll watch for her, let her know you’ve been in and want her to stay put.”

“Thanks, Rick.”

A couple of minutes later, he was back in Charo and heading toward Speer Boulevard and LoDo. He hadn’t wanted Esme going by the office, in case Bleak still had some jerk staking out the place, but Dax wanted to go by the office, in case Bleak still had some jerk staking out the place. He’d given it quite a bit of thought on his way up from the Springs, and getting his hands on one of Bleak’s guys seemed like the most expedient method available for gathering intelligence on tomorrow morning’s deal, some real hands-on, in-your-face, up-close-and-personal intelligence gathering.

Dax’s grin returned. Without a doubt, that was the best way to find out what kind of setup Bleak had in mind for the meeting.

“Lieutenant?”

Loretta looked up from hanging up the phone on her desk. Connor Ford was in her doorway. “What is it?”

“We found Dixie and Benny-boy Jackman.”

She tilted her head and looked around him, through the window into the squad room.

“Where?” she asked. “I’m not seeing them.”

“Denver General. In the emergency room. Seems like Benny-boy had a run-in with another rock-and-roll star over by Five Points, over a new girl they were both trying to recruit.”

“Recruit?” she asked. “Is that what they call it now?”

“When they’re talking to the cops it is,” Connor said. “What we know for sure is that during the negotiations with the girl and her current pimp, Benny-boy got cut. Dixie was with him, and after all the prerequisite theatrics and threats, she drove him over to Denver General. They’ve been there since about five o’clock this evening.”

And there went the easy theory, right down the drain.

“Is Benny-boy going to pull through?”

“ ’Fraid so.”

“Well, maybe our luck will be better tomorrow.” She glanced at the phone before going back to her paperwork. A grin flitted across her mouth. She had a strange job sometimes, damned intriguing. Hell.

A sigh replaced her grin. Her shift had been over two hours ago, and she’d like to get going. She didn’t have much of a personal life, but what little she had, she liked to enjoy.

“Actually, Lieutenant, our luck is looking pretty damn good right now.”

That got her attention.

She glanced back up. “What have you got?”

“The phone number the blonde gave to the valet at the Oxford?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve located the phone through its GPS emergency signal. It’s not too far from the hotel. I thought you might like to go over with us and see who’s there.”

“In case it’s a knife-wielding hooker?” She wasn’t smiling, not yet. Nothing was ever this easy.

“If we’re lucky, yes.”

“And if we’re not lucky, we end up standing next to a Dumpster in some LoDo alley, digging through trash, trying to find a phone our S and M expert tossed.”

“Yes, ma’am. We call that detective work.”

He was right, of course, and she needed to get her mind back on her business and off her social life.

“We’ve got a good lock on it, though, Lieutenant,” he continued, “and it looks like the phone is in the old Faber Building.”

Dammit. There was nothing like some really great news to screw up a person’s schedule.

She looked at her watch. She could have skipped Dumpster diving and just let the boys and girls in blue have at it-but if they’d tracked the phone to the Faber Building, well, hell, then she ought to be there, in case there was a person still attached to the damn thing.

“Lieutenant?” Officer Weisman leaned into her office, holding a sheaf of papers. “Gail came up with a portrait the maid positively identifies as our police impersonator.”

“Let’s see it.” Loretta held out her hand.

Weisman crossed her office and gave her the drawings the artist had done on the computer. “The top one, Lieutenant. That’s the one the maid says is closest.”

Loretta took one look and swore under her breath. Goddammit. Somebody better have an explanation for this.

Fortunately, somebody did, and she knew exactly who that somebody would be.

“Connor?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Get Skeeter on the phone, and ask her what in the hell Johnny Ramos was doing at the Oxford Hotel tonight, impersonating one of my fine Denver police officers.”