Joey Stanic lead Grip and Westermann to the flop that Lenore shared with two other prostitutes: two filthy mattresses on the floor, a threadbare couch, broken door to the bathroom.
“Jesus,” Grip said, pushing Stanic down on one of the mattresses.
“Where are the other two?” Westermann asked.
“Better be out on the street,” Stanic mumbled, sulking. A rhythmic pounding sounded from upstairs, as if someone were ramming a pole against the floor again and again. A red neon light flashed across the street, the rhythm not in sync with the pounding above.
Just then, the bathroom door came open and a young woman walked out, wearing a ragged dress. She looked nervously at Stanic—registering the cuffs—then at Grip and Westermann. She didn’t say anything. The veins in Stanic’s neck shone blue through his skin.
“What’s your name?” Westermann asked, showing his badge out of courtesy.
The woman looked to Stanic for guidance.
“Don’t worry about him,” Grip said. “He knows what’ll happen if he touches you after this.”
She didn’t seem too sure, but said, “My name is Belle.”
“Belle,” Westermann said, keeping his voice soft, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Lenore is dead. She was murdered.”
Belle frowned a little, more, it seemed, because it was expected than because she was upset by this news.
Westermann and Grip exchanged looks. The pounding continued. The flashing lights. Art Deyna.
Westermann continued, “Do you have any idea who might have wanted to kill her?”
Belle looked to Stanic again. Westermann wondered if this was instinctive, getting his permission to talk, or whether he was the first person to come to mind. Westermann didn’t figure Stanic for the murder; didn’t think he was playing it the way a murderer would.
“No ideas?”
“Could be anyone,” she said, her voice barely audible.
“But no one in particular?”
She shook her head. “She didn’t know anybody. Not really.”
Westermann moved closer to her, bending a little to make sure they were in eye contact. “Do you know anybody?”
She frowned.
“What kind of fucking question is that?” Stanic asked from the bed.
“Shut the fuck up,” Grip barked at him.
“Belle, did Lenore have any possessions? Any things?”
Belle pulled out a drawer from a battered bureau, removed a pile of papers and a book, and handed them to Westermann. Grip came over, standing next to Westermann at an angle where he could also see Stanic. Westermann worked his way down the stack, handing items to Grip: Holy Bible; picture of the Virgin Mary torn from a magazine; handwritten letters in Cyrillic; and, at the bottom, three pamphlets from the Church of Last Days.
Grip whistled. “What are the odds?”
“Long.”
“I guess I know where I’m headed tomorrow.”
“Let me think on that. Maybe I’ll take that one myself.” Westermann turned to Belle. “Anyone else you know missing? Someone you haven’t seen around?”
Belle looked confused.
Stanic said, “Whores are always missing. They come back after a few days with a john or a hop jaunt. They come back.”
Grip said, “You didn’t hear me last time? Shut it.”
Stanic made an exasperated noise and Grip was on him, pulling him roughly to his feet by the back of his collar and pushing him hard against the wall. As he unlocked the cuffs, Grip said, “I am going to come by here every few days, asshole, and if I see that anything has happened to Belle here, I don’t care if it’s some john that done it or what, I am going to rip your fucking balls off and make you chew them up. Do you understand?”
Stanic gave a dismissive laugh. Grip cuffed him on the back of the head and his face hit the wall.
“Shit,” he said. “Yes. I get it.”
Westermann handed Belle his card, but was sure she would never contact him; too much to lose. Grip opened the door.
Stanic said, “Hey, I know how I know you. You’re the guy, your dad’s a lawyer. Big Rolf Westermann. What’re you doing rousting pimps like me?”
Westermann put his hand in Grip’s chest, keeping him from going after Stanic. “Let’s get out of here. We’re done.”
The sidewalk still teemed. Grip could feel the tension in the atmosphere rising as people grew increasingly drunk. The police presence was more visible now; cops everywhere. Another consequence of the System—lots of cops in place before the trouble starts. Grip knew plenty of beat cops who hated Westermann—most cops felt the way Wayne did—but Grip fucking loved what the guy had done; it made for better policing. If guys were uncomfortable, fuck them. Shut up and do your goddamn job.
“So, what do you think?” Westermann asked. Another thing Grip loved about Westermann, always asking and listening; smart enough that he wasn’t defensive about other people having their insights.
“About the church?”
“Yeah. Is there any way it could be a coincidence?”
“I don’t think so. You’re the numbers guy. But, Lieut, I think maybe you’re making this more complicated than it needs to be.”
“Tell me more.”
“Well, like I said before, I noticed those currents by the riverbank and me and Morph tested it out to see how stuff floated downstream. And like I said, we found that unless someone carried that girl over to the riverbank to drown her right there, then she must have got pushed in the water over by the Uhuru Community. So now there’s another girl turned up in basically that exact spot, so I feel like I was right on that. Two dead girls on the riverbank by the Uhuru Community. Okay, so that’s one connection. The next connection is that this girl, Lenore, and the second girl, they’ve both got some kind of crazy disease, maybe African. Now I don’t know if there’s many Africans in the Community, but you can’t tell me there aren’t any. So that’s connection number two.”
“I’m not saying anything, but it seems like the place to focus our efforts is the Uhuru Community. This thing about the church of what?”
“Church of Last Days.”
“Yeah. It’s interesting; maybe not a coincidence. But against what we’ve got over at the Community, now that we have a second body? We need to check them both out, but the Community’s where the action is. But it’s your call, of course.”
Westermann thought about this as they walked, balancing the protection of the Community against further arousing Grip’s suspicions. He didn’t see how he could dispute Grip’s argument. “Okay. I’ll think about it. Maybe you and Morphy head over to the Community tomorrow and work that angle. I’ll follow up on the church connection. Like you said, we can’t just leave that alone.”
Ahead, the next block up, something was happening; a different distribution of bodies; a different pitch to the din. Westermann and Grip sped up to a trot; saw other cops converging ahead of them.
They pushed their way through a crowd to where there was some room. A space had been cleared by a fight. Two Negroes were facedown on the ground, cops kneeling on them, getting out the cuffs. Two other Negroes, one bleeding above an eye, hovered, breathing hard. Two cops were holding back a group of six white men. They were young, crew-cut. Two had blood on their shirts, another held his hand to his mouth, blood sluicing through his fingers.
A fire hydrant by the curb was cracked, leaking water in a thin spray. The standing water was lit red by the storefront neon and mixed with blood where the Negroes lay. Westermann heard Grip mumble under his breath.
“What’s that?”
Grip nodded over to a group of men, two white men, one fat, one obese, and a powerfully built Negro between them. “See the Negro over there?”
“Sure.”
“I think I saw him down in the shanties the other day.”
“Okay.”
“It’s just interesting. He don’t look like he’s passing paper.”
Westermann was thinking about this when he saw a white guy from the crowd rabbit-punch one of the Negroes still standing from the fight, putting him on his knees, bringing roars of approval and protest. More skirmishes broke out. Westermann turned to see the two white men and the Negro walking into a club called the Checkerboard.
Pieces of paper littered the street—Uhuru Community flyers and others. Grip picked one up, looked at it, handed it to Westermann. It was simple enough, the white paper red in the fake light. The same block print of Womé’s face as on the Community flyers. Above the print, the word ANTICHRIST.