LARSON, CHRIS, and Eddie led the way in Eddie’s Toyota, Tom and Stanley following in Tom’s truck. The street Larson brought them to was on the fringe of the desert in one of the plainer sections of town—not a slum, exactly, but more than merely a few blocks distant from the palatial homes of the rich.
Eddie slowed and turned into the driveway of a small bungalow, then stopped in the visitor’s parking area. Tom turned off his lights and parked at the sidewalk just before the drive, then looked around with care. Palm trees provided deep shadows here on the street and in front of the bungalow, and the nearest house was thirty feet away and dark. The sidewalks were deserted, nobody out walking, no dogs on leashes.
They were off the main street, so there were no passing cars either, and only a faint rumble of traffic from the nearby interstate. The only other vehicle to be seen was a pickup with faded green paint, smaller than Tom’s, sitting at the curb across the street, facing in the opposite direction—but it was empty, its lights off.
Tom got out and walked over to Eddie’s Toyota, signaling for him to lower his window.
“Are we going in?” Chris asked, eyes excited.
“We are. You guys are going back to the club.”
“But we—” Chris started to object.
“No buts. That’s crime scene tape, the yellow stuff. If you go under it, you’re breaking the law. You could get into all sorts of hot water.”
“So could you and Stanley,” Eddie said.
Tom smiled. “We’re ace detectives. No one’s going to spot us. We’re going to sneak in unnoticed, but it’s hard to sneak inside with a whole crowd of people in tow. Go.”
The three in the Toyota looked decidedly disappointed, but Eddie put up his window and backed out of the driveway. Tom waited until his taillights had disappeared around a corner. Stanley, watching them go, was thinking he’d rather be with them. He hated doing stuff like this.
“Do you really think…?” he started to object.
“Piece of cake,” Tom said. “No outside lighting to speak of, except what that streetlight back there casts, and that only reaches part of the parking lot. Nobody’s going to see us. I just didn’t want all the guys trooping around. If there’s anything to be seen inside, they were more likely to mess it up than pin it down. Crowds are never a good idea for a crime scene, especially crowds of amateurs.”
He approached the bungalow’s front door and lifted the tape for a reluctant Stanley to scoot under it. Tom followed him through.
Tom was an old hand at picking locks, and he had his picks with him—but in this case, it wasn’t necessary. As a matter of routine, he tried the door first, and to his surprise, it opened. He stood motionless in the doorway for a minute, listening to the darkness within.
“What?” Stanley asked in a whisper.
Tom stepped inside. “Someone just went out the back way, trying to be very quiet.” He moved quickly to the front window, pulled aside the wispy curtain, and looked out in time to see a shadowy figure dash around the corner of the building and across the shadows of the driveway. He disappeared into the night, and a few seconds later a car door slammed. An engine roared to life, and the green pickup that had been parked at the curb took off down the street, headlights still off.
Tom had brought the big Maglite from the truck, but the ambient light was enough to let them walk through the house without using the flashlight. In the kitchen at the rear, the back door stood open, swinging faintly in the evening breeze. Tom went to it, glanced out just to be safe, and closed the door, latching it.
“You think it was a burglar?” Stanley asked.
“Of sorts. Somebody looking for something, that’s for sure,” Tom said.
“We must have scared him off. I wonder who it was?”
Tom grunted. “I know who it was. What I’m wondering is what Randy Patterson thought he would find here at the dead kid’s house.”
“Randy who?” Stanley asked.
“Patterson. The cowboy from the bar. The one who tried to buy me a glass of piss.”
He turned on his flashlight and played the beam around the kitchen. Not much to be seen. The cupboard doors were open, revealing a few chipped dishes, a box of cereal, a tin of coffee. The refrigerator held some milk, gone sour, and a half-empty carton of orange juice.
“Didn’t do a lot of eating in,” Tom said.
“It sounded like most of his meals were bought for him.”
“Probably.”
The living room was sparsely furnished—a futon, a television with a DVD player, a big bowl used as an ashtray with a couple of roaches in it. The bedroom beyond wasn’t any more luxurious, box spring and mattress on the floor, rumpled sheets, a battered dresser—again, with the drawers open. A box of neon-colored condoms had been spilled on the floor. The air smelled stale, like windows too long unopened.
“Patterson was looking for something, that’s for sure,” Tom said, flashing the light at the gaping drawers. He looked in them, shifting their contents around carefully. Socks, bikini briefs, a selection of tees and pullovers—one or two sweaters, a yellow-stained jockstrap, stretched large. Stanley lifted that out of the drawer and gave it a tentative sniff.
“Boy, I know some guys would pay big-time for this,” he said.
“Stanley,” Tom said in a disapproving voice.
“Hey, I’m just looking for clues.” He put the jockstrap back, fingered a robin’s egg sweater. “Cashmere,” he said. “Good cashmere too.”
“There’s bad?”
“No, there isn’t any bad, but there’s cheap and expensive. That yellow number I have that you like me to wear when we, you know….”
“Yeah, it feels sexy. Makes me horny.” Stanley gave him a look. “Especially horny,” Tom amended.
“Well, that sweater’s the cheap stuff. Ninety-nine dollars at Macy’s. This is the expensive stuff. Six hundred or so, at Neiman’s. Big difference.”
Tom fingered the sweater as well. “Huh,” he said. “Might be worth the investment. You know, for, well, for whatever. Maybe your birthday.”
“My birthday’s not until summer.”
“Oh, sure, your real birthday. I meant… you know. For a celebration.” Tom pushed the drawer closed. “I’ll bet these were presents from the johns.”
“Most likely.”
“Still….” Tom paused, shined the light around the room, stepped to the door of the bathroom, and glanced in there. Not much to be seen but a hamper overflowing with dirty clothes, a balled-up towel on the floor. The door to the medicine chest stood open, revealing glass shelves, mostly empty. And dirty. “For a hustler as popular as he was supposed to be—and as expensive—it doesn’t look like much, does it?”
“Maybe he was saving the money up for… well, for something. Maybe even to get out of here. I know if I lived here, I’d be looking for an escape hatch.”
“Maybe. But where is it? The money, I mean? We can ask Hammond, but he didn’t say anything about finding a stash of cash. I think he’d have mentioned it if he had.”
“Maybe the cowboy found it.”
“Instead of the cops? They’re pros when it comes to doing a search. Cops can screw up same as anybody, but I’d guess they gave the place a good once-over.”
“Maybe the cowboy knew where to look.”
“Maybe. But it sounded like he was still searching when we came in. I heard a drawer scrape just before he ran. And I’m curious how he got in. Did he pick the lock? Or did he have a key? And if he had a key, what does that tell us?”
“That he and Palmer were involved?”
“He said not.”
“If you believe him.”
“Oddly enough, I do. About that, at least. He sounded downright resentful of the fact.” Tom flashed the light around the room again and sighed. “I’d say there’s not much to see here. Let’s go.”
“To the club? The cowboy might head back there.”
“I doubt it. He must have seen us arrive. If he did, he saw who we were. Most likely he won’t want to bump into us again tonight.”
Tom looked around the room one last time. It was not much shy of squalid. But if the information they had gotten was to be believed, Palmer must have been making a thousand, two thousand dollars a day. Two or three—or more—johns a day, five hundred bucks a pop—had to add up.
What had happened to the money?