According to the street girls Sutter shmoozed, Troop wouldn’t show up at the Harney until two on Sunday afternoon, so we hid from the heat and ate tacos at a stand on Fifth Street. We could see into the kitchen from the counter, and a black-haired woman there was smiling at Sutter.
“I can talk to this guy myself,” I said around my taco. “You don’t have to be here.”
Sutter laughed and drank his lemon ice. “Talking, you’ll do fine. It’s what comes after I’m worried about.”
“The guy’s an MI waiting to happen. I think I can manage.”
“The trick is not to have to. Plus, Mr. Coronary has friends.”
I shrugged. “You got more work coming up for me?”
“You know I can’t predict. I get a call when I get a call, and then I call you.” Sutter drank more of his lemon ice. “The wolf at the door?”
“Constantly. I’m not close to what I need for the building.”
Sutter looked contemplative, as he did when opining on anything involving logistics, tactics, small arms, or real estate. “Downtown’s too hot a market now.”
“As I keep pointing out: it’s not downtown, it’s fucking Skid Row.”
“It’s just a matter of time before they rename it Downtown East or something. Check out the Valley, brother. I picked up a couple of short sales there—nice ranches—had them renoed and rented in no time.”
“Your real estate empire grows ever larger.”
“You should try it—putting down some roots. I’m closing on a little apartment complex in Chatsworth next week. I could set you up. It’s got a pool and a nice laundry room.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You moving in with Nora?”
“What?”
“Don’t look so surprised. You spend a lot of time there, and she doesn’t seem to mind.”
“Houseguest is one thing, playing house is another.”
“Who said anything about playing?”
“Nora’s not interested in more than what we’ve got, and I’ve had my fill of marriage. One was more than enough.”
Sutter reached the bottom of his lemon ice with a loud slurp. “That’s it for you and love? One and done? Tapped out?”
I squinted at him. “You sound like an ad for a dating Web site.”
“I’m a believer, brother—I’m all about the romance. My only problem with love is that there’s just too much of it around. Some days, it’s everywhere I look. For instance, another five minutes staring at that line cook back there, I may to have to propose. Check out those eyes. And that dexterity. I’m a sucker for a girl who knows how to work a knife.”
Troop was a half-hour late for his shift at the Harney, and when his sour-looking colleague came out, Sutter and I went in.
Troop was locked in his wired glass bunker, studying a fresh bottle of Olde English. He looked up at Sutter and didn’t like what he saw. He liked me less. His mouth opened before he knew what to say, and all that came out was an asthmatic wheeze.
I pointed at his chest. “That doesn’t sound good. You a smoker, Mr. Troop?”
As if to answer my question, he dug in a shirt pocket for a cigarette. He plugged it in his mouth, lit it, and coughed. “What’re you doing here? I told you I’d call if I heard anything about that chick. Did I call you and forget about it?”
“You didn’t, but I wondered if that was because you didn’t have my number anymore. Because you gave it to your Russians.”
Troop’s florid face grew redder. He made a flicking motion with his hand. “My Russians? I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“Plus, you owe me money. Forty bucks.”
He laughed. “You’re a funny guy, doc. Now, if you two want a room, I’ll give you a break on the rate. Otherwise, fuck off.”
“Who are the Russians?”
“Who are the Russians?” Troop repeated in a whiny schoolyard sneer, and he pantomimed jerking off. He grinned and puffed his cigarette, and in one fluid motion Sutter leapt to the countertop, vaulted the glass barrier, and lit on Troop’s desk with barely a sound. Troop’s mouth opened and he wheezed again; his cigarette fell into his lap.
I was surprised too, but I hid it better. I chuckled and pointed at Troop’s smoldering crotch. “You’ll want to do something about that. I think those pants are made of petrochemicals, and they’ll fuse to your skin if they melt. It’ll be ugly.”
Troop looked down, horrified, and Sutter stepped easily from the desktop and poured Troop’s bottle of malt liquor—the better part of forty ounces—into his lap.
“What the fuck!” Troop squealed, and jumped to his feet. He stumbled backward, slapping at his wet crotch. His rolling chair collided with a card table, knocking over a soda bottle, some paper cups, and two grease-stained bags from Sonic.
Sutter laughed. “This guy’s a comedy show. Just like that English dude—Mr. Bean.”
“Wha…what the fuck!” Troop said again, scuttling sideways into a filing cabinet, and sweeping an old cassette player to the floor. It shattered, and sent a tape and plastic shards across the linoleum.
Sutter shook his head. “Really, I can’t add to this. He’s leaving me with nothing to do.”
“Who are the Russians, Mr. Troop,” I said, “and what do they want with the girl?”
Troop swallowed hard. “I…they…”
“Sit down,” I said, “before you fall down.”
He did, and his chest heaved. “I don’t know what Russians—”
Sutter leaned his hips on the desk and rested one sneakered foot on Troop’s chair, between his legs. Sutter sighed and pushed off slowly, rolling Troop to the far corner, where he stopped with a gentle bump.
“I get that you’re scared of them,” I said, “and I can see why—they seem like scary guys. But they’re not here now, and we are. Whatever they might do to you is theoretical. What we do is…more concrete.”
“Who are the Russians?” Sutter said quietly.
Troop looked down into his soaked lap. “They…they work for Rostov,” Troop said, half swallowing the words.
“Who’s Rostov?” I asked.
Sutter stood up straight and rubbed his chin. “Siggy Rostov,” he said. “He runs whores, among other things. Whores, gambling, loan-sharking, the list goes on—but mainly whores. Probably half the girls who work out of here work for Siggy somewhere up the line. That right, Troop?”
“More than half.”
“What’s this Rostov want with her?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It’s not like those guys tell me shit.”
“When did they come around?”
Troop wiped his brow. “They’re always around here, but they started asking about her on Friday, middle of the day.”
“She wasn’t here?”
“She and the kid went out in the morning. They didn’t come back.”
“How long had they been staying here?”
“Since last Tuesday. Paid a week up front.”
Sutter nodded. “Paid for a week, but didn’t stay a week. She leave anything behind?”
Troop looked into his crotch again. “I…I don’t think so.”
“You want to try that again?” Sutter said.
“I…I found some stuff under the bed.”
Sutter shook his head. “Going under a bed at this place—you’re braver than you look. Let’s see it.”
Troop shifted in his seat. He pointed to his desk. “Bottom drawer, on the right—but there was next to nothing.”
Sutter opened the drawer. He took out a white plastic grocery bag and looked inside. He picked through it and shrugged, then tossed it over the glass wall to me. “See what you make of it.”
There wasn’t much to see: two pairs of Alex-sized tee shirts, shorts, underpants, and socks, a pair of Alex-sized sandals that looked like leather but were actually plastic, two new toothbrushes, a tube of candy-flavored toothpaste with superheroes on the label, a bottle of chewable multivitamins shaped like funny cavemen, a granola bar, and, at the bottom, a wallet. It was leather, buttery and supple, a softly glowing black on the outside, and inside an arterial red. There was a logo embossed on an inside flap, a leaping horse, and a monogram—HM—in gold Helvetica letters above the credit card slots. Other than the lingering smell of money, it was empty.
I held it up for Troop to see. “You find it this way?”
He nodded, and looked at his crotch again. “I told you, next to nothing.”
Sutter slapped the back of Troop’s head. “Try not to be so full of shit,” he said, smiling.
“What was in there?” I asked.
Troop reached into his back pocket. His own wallet was a nylon-and-Velcro affair, like a lumpy gray brick. He peeled it open and took out a thin stack of cards. “Some guy’s business cards—that’s all there was. I figured the chick took the credit cards and cash.”
Sutter took the cards. “Hoover Mays. No address, just a 213 phone number. Who the fuck is named Hoover?”
“You planning to do something with the cards?” I asked.
“Thought maybe I could call the guy, sell his wallet back. Even empty it’s worth something, and I wasn’t gonna tell him it was empty.”
Sutter slapped his head again. “Douche bag. So this was it—the shopping bag, the wallet—nothing else?”
Troop rubbed his head. “I swear.”
Sutter looked at me. I shrugged, and he looked at Troop. “Here’s your deal,” Sutter said. “You talk about our visit with no one—including and especially Siggy Rostov and his monkeys—and we do the same, okay? You tell no one how you spilled your guts to us, and we tell no one, and everyone sleeps soundly at night. Am I transmitting clear?”
Troop nodded. “It’s clear.”
“Okay, then,” Sutter said, and he pocketed Hoover May’s calling cards, leapt to the top of Troop’s desk, and vaulted the glass again with no more effort than a leaf in the wind.