Night Moves

Chapter 34

I phoned Milo’s cell from the Seville. He picked up after one chirp. “How’d it go with Felice? Get me anything for a warrant?”

I talked, he was silent but for occasional no shits and unbelievables and wordless growls.

When I finished, he said, “Fucking unbelievable. Bottom line is I’m that Greek guy, Tantalus, with the hanging fruit. No possible grounds for a child-molester warrant and Bitt’s an even stronger murder suspect.”

“I told Felice it was in his best interest to cooperate. She resisted but maybe she’ll cool off and convince him.”

“Hope springs infernal. The guy’s Chelsea’s baby-daddy, moves next door and lives there for two years with Felice keeping it secret from Chet? You believe her?”

“I do, but I’m not sure Chet didn’t figure it out.”

“The thing on the street wasn’t just chocolate, huh? You pick up any strong chemistry between Felice and Bitt?”

“Not during the minute I saw them together,” I said. “You’re thinking just another domestic murder?”

“Why not, Alex? Maybe she’s lying and they rekindled. Maybe they’ve been screwing since he moved in. She gives him a key, getting in would be no problem.”

That didn’t explain Braun. Or the Camaro. While I considered pointing that out, he said, “Or Chelsea gave him the key. She wanted her real dad — or her best friend, whatever Bitt was to her at that point — to protect her against Fake-Dad who never gave a damn about her. And stole her candy. We know Bitt wasn’t home the night Chet got shot. He coulda followed Chet to the motel, done the deed, taken the Rover and the girlfriend, done her in some other spot, and put himself up in a hotel. Next morning he comes back and continues to ignore me. You know something, Alex, with the paternity thing and the confrontation, I’m feeling I can put together a warrant, gonna go judge-hunting.”

“What about Braun and Mr. Camaro?”

“I’m not Moses on the Mount, one thing at a ti—”

A burp-like noise cut off the last word.

He said, “Call waiting. Hold on, that could be John Nguyen. I put in a call to talk about Bitt being a pedophile, let’s see what he has to say about this.”

He was off the line for several moments, came back talking fast.

“Not John, Petra. My stars and planets must be aligning weird, check this out.”

My turn to listen.

I said, “The citizenry going that extra mile.”

“Obviously, you wanna be there.”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

The woman’s given name was Sarabeth Sarser. Her street names were: Sadie, Sammantha, Samanthalee, Bettisam, and, inexplicably, Beanie Baby.

She’d worked the street for fifteen of her thirty-one years, shuffling identities in order to confuse law enforcement as she traveled up and down the state and into Nevada and back. The past seven years, she’d concentrated her efforts in Hollywood, energy for the road fading due to poly-drug usage.

No more fooling anyone; she solicited with little guile, got arrested, paid her tickets, kept working.

She’d been picked up for the fortieth or so time by a cop named Harry Bucksteen. Bucksteen had irritated a superior, gotten pulled off a cushy paperwork job and transferred to the prostitution prevention program Petra had described. Instead of following the early intervention directive, he’d gone the conventional route: waiting for girls to complete transactions with clients, then stepping in and harassing both ends of the sex-trade supply-demand curve.

“Believe that?” said Sarabeth Sarser. “Lazy fat fuck totally broke the rules.”

Petra said, “Lucky for you he’s lazy. Now you have something to trade with.”

“I was gonna call you anyway. It’s the right thing to do,” said Sarser. “Ma’am.”

She had a well-formed, perfectly oval face marred by under-the-eyes meth smudges and vicious skin eruptions layers of makeup couldn’t conceal. A black poly cocktail dress, skull earrings, plastic pearls, and white knee-high boots formed her ensemble of the evening. Long white-blond hair that probably looked okay in nighttime lighting was turned to straw by coffee shop glare.

The shop was a dingy place called Happy Losers, renamed last year by its latest owners because Joan and Bill’s didn’t have that ring. No change to the décor in decades; that and overpriced coffee explained the hipster-slackers nursing cracked mugs of Arabica while studying their phones. The coffee accounted for the rest of tonight’s customers, as well: pushers, procurers, other streetwalkers, and the cops who played legal Ping-Pong with them.

A couple of uniforms on Code Seven in a corner booth recognized Sarser when we walked in and gave her a finger-wave.

She said, “Hey, boys,” and wiggled her hips in a way that sent a shimmer up to her shoulders.

The cops laughed, saw Milo, returned to their sandwiches.

Petra picked a booth in the opposite corner. “Sit here, Bean.” Tapping blue vinyl. When Sarser complied, she slid in next to her. Milo and I sat opposite.

Sarser said, “I feel so popular.”

“You are,” said Milo. “Thanks for helping us out.”

“Of course, sir. I am kind of hungry.”

Twenty minutes later, she pushed aside the few bites of cheeseburger she’d managed. Her eyes were pinballs. The black dress bagged and twisted as her torso shifted constantly.

She looked at the burger with the longing of an abandoned lover. Plenty of reach, no grasp. All those amphetamine nights killing appetite and sleep.

“Shit deal,” she said, “but we’re glad, no?”

“Shit deal about what?” said Milo.

“The guy got killed, sir.”

“You know him?”

“No, sir, never even saw him.” Sarser belched. “Oops.”

“Never saw him before he got killed.”

“Never saw him ever, sir. Just heard.” Flicking a skull earring. “The gun-pops. Then I saw what I saw and knew I had to help you guys ’cause you guys have a job to do and I totally get that. Sir.”

“You made the first call anonymously to our desk,” said Petra. “Why not 911?”

“You know, ma’am.”

“Know what?”

“Privacy?” said Sarser.

“Aha,” said Petra.

“What’s the diff, I told you now, ma’am.”

“So you did, Beanie. As the lieutenant said, we all appreciate your stepping forward.”

Sarser smiled and played with a piece of limp lettuce. Her nails were inch-long vinyls the color of arterial blood.

No one talked and that seemed to unsettle her. “You know, guys, I saved up.”

“Saved what?” said Petra.

“What happened. In my head, it’s still there. You have to save thoughts like money, my gram always told me.”

“Did she,” said Petra. “Where does Gram live?”

“Now she’s in the cemetery, ma’am.”

“Sorry to hear about that.”

Sarser’s pale, pimpled shoulders rose and fell. “It’s okay, she was old.”

Milo said, “She raise you?”

“Uh-uh, no way, Mom did. Then Mom went to prison then she died and I got fostered but I used to visit Gram. She had all her money ’cause she saved it.”

Her face hardened. Remembering.

And during your visits, you decided to let her share involuntarily.

Milo said, “Okay, let’s go over it again, Bean.”

“I already told her — told you everything, ma’am, right?”

“Right,” said Petra. “The lieutenant’s the boss, go over it again.”

“The boss,” said Sarabeth Sarser. She shot Milo a ragged tweaker smile. “Can I have pie, sir?”

“Still hungry?” He pointed to the barely touched burger.

“Pie’s different, sir. It’s like a different thing.”

“Gotcha, Bean. Soon as we’re finished, pie it is. Go over it again.”

“I was there and heard it and later I saw it.” Another grin.

Milo said, “That’s not pie, kid, that’s crumbs.”

Sarser laughed. “Okay. All right. Okay. I was there—”

“In room thirteen of the Sahara.”

“Don’t know the number.”

“It was thirteen,” said Petra.

“Really? That’s a shit unlucky number,” said Sarser. “Maybe that’s why.”

“Why what?”

“Something bad happened.”

“In room fourteen.”

“Well... it’s like the whole thing was a bad deal.”

Milo said, “You know the Sahara pretty well?”

Sarser took a moment to reply. “A little.”

“We couldn’t care less about your job, Bean.”

“Job” made her sit up straighter. Validated. “Yeah, I’m there sometimes.”

“That night who was your client?”

“We were just talking, sir.”

“Whatever. Who?”

“Talking, I swear, sir.”

“That’s fine, Bean. Tell us about your client.”

“Talking,” she said for a third time. “He was a little guy, I didn’t understand him ’cause he was Spanish.” Jagged-tooth meth grin. “Little dude. Cute. We was talking and we heard it. Little Dude got scared and hid in the bathroom.”

She clapped her hands together. Feeble act, producing a faint, puffy sound; not much muscle left in her arms.

Milo said, “You heard the gunshots. Little Dude’s hiding in the bathroom, where are you?”

“In the front room, ready to pee my panties. Little Dude comes out, gets dressed real fast.” Giggling. “He’s like getting his feet caught in his pants and his thing is waving. He opens the door and books, I shut it and get down on the floor.”

She tucked in her head and covered it with both arms. A schoolkid during one of those pointless Cold War drop drills.

I said, “Must’ve been tough, waiting.”

Her arms dropped and she looked at me. A ribbon of fear curled across her face, rippling sections of ashy skin. “I was scared, sir. Waiting for more.”

“More gunshots.”

“A lot of times there’s more. Right?”

“Right,” said Milo. “Then what happened, Bean?”

“Nothing happened, sir,” said Sarser. “So I looked.” Spreading the air with her hands, she created a two-inch space centered on her face.

I said, “Through the blinds.”

“The what?”

“The window covering.”

“Oh,” she said. “I thought you were saying I’m being blind. For not seeing more.”

I aped the spreading motion.

“Yes, sir. I did that a little and peeked.”

“And saw...”

“A guy.”

First time that had come up.

Milo looked at me, then Petra. No one spoke.

Sarabeth Sarser said, “That’s it. Can I have pie?”

“A guy,” said Milo.

“And a girl.” Breezily, as if one went inevitably with the other.

“From room fourteen.”

“Yeah.”

“What’d they do, Sara?”

“Booked.”

“They ran off together?”

A beat. “He musta pushed her, she like... tripped a little? But she didn’t fall.”

“Then what?”

“He put her into the back of the Rover and booked.”

All new material.

Petra said, “Did she put up a fight?”

“Uh-uh, no. But like I said, she kind of... fell when she walked. But not down. Just like she was... I dunno.”

I said, “She stumbled.”

“Yeah!”

Petra said, “Okay, this is the important part, Sara. What did these two people look like?”

“Don’t know, ma’am. It was dark, I was scared shitless.”

“Tall? Short?”

Head shake. “I didn’t see nothing but shapes and they were moving fast.”

“Black, white, Spanish?”

Head shake. “If they were purple I couldn’t tell you, ma’am, I swear.” To me: “Guess I was kind of blind.”

Petra said, “Age?”

“Couldn’t see.”

Milo said, “No idea at all about age or race?”

“Sorry, sir.”

“What about clothing?”

“Sorry, sir, I wasn’t P.R.’ing.”

“P.R.’ing?”

“Project-Runway-ing,” she said. “Like when you study the creations?” Frown. “I streamed a bunch of episodes then my iPad got ripped off.”

Petra said, “Bean, in your first call to the station, you didn’t mention any of this. And you didn’t tell me when I talked to you a few hours ago.”

“I was scared.”

“But now you’re telling us.”

“I figured I should.”

“Saving up for a rainy day,” said Milo.

“It’s not raining,” said Sarser. “Not all year, I like that.”

“Like what?”

“When there’s no rain.” Another giggle. “Less clothing, sir.”

“See your point,” said Milo. “So you were saving up the information for when you could use it.”

“That’s what I do, sir. I listen to Gram.”

Petra said, “Let’s go over it again.”

Sarser pouted. “Really?”

“Really.”

Puffing her cheeks while tearing lettuce into shreds, Sarser retold her story. Nothing new.

“After they drove away and didn’t come back, I booked. Got rid of my panties, sir. Like I said, I was scared shitless.”

She laughed. “Can I have pecan pie?”

We left her facing a mammoth slice of pecan pie, glazed nuts crystallized past optimal freshness, the wedge topped by a runny heap of vanilla ice cream. The enhancement, Milo’s burst of generosity.

À la mode, Bean?

Told you, sir. I don’t speak Spanish.

Pie with some ice cream?

That would be cool, sir.

Literally.

Huh?