Only one table inside was occupied. Three men, unshaven, sat staring into chipped porcelain mugs of black coffee, not speaking. There were no plates on their table. Homeless men, they were roosting cheap, in from the cold.
The woman behind the cash register looked up. She was in her sixties, squeezed into a faded pink waitress uniform that looked like it had been tight for years.
‘How can I help you for?’ she asked after Rigg didn’t head for a table.
‘Lucille?’
The woman nodded.
‘I heard you saw those two girls who went missing.’
The frown lines around her mouth deepened. ‘You from the cops, too?’
Rigg took out his press card. ‘Reporter. Cops were here?’
‘We called. They came by. We told them what we knew.’
‘Which was what?’
‘Them two girls, the missing ones, was here some weeks back.’
‘Do you remember exactly when?’
‘Of course. Last week.’
He’d been asking about the girls, but she’d misunderstood his question, thinking he was asking about the detectives.
‘I recognized one of them from TV,’ she said. ‘Sheriff, I think.’
Rigg pulled out his phone, dialed up an Internet picture of Joe Lehman. ‘Him?’
‘Bingo.’
‘And the other guy?’
‘Same age.’
‘Not a fat guy, bald, smoking a cigar?’ Rigg asked, to rule him out. Glet lied plenty, but steering Rigg to a lead he’d already chased made no sense.
‘Fat, not so much. Didn’t say anything. No cigar.’
Rigg found an Internet picture of Glet.
‘Nah,’ the woman said.
He put his phone away. ‘Can you remember exactly when the girls were here?’
‘Gus!’ she shouted to the bald-headed man behind the grill window. ‘When did you tell those cops the girls was here?’
‘January 6,’ he yelled back.
‘January 6,’ she repeated, as if Rigg was deaf.
Gus came out from behind the grill window. ‘I remember, because the exhaust fan blew out later that day and I had to pay a repairman two hundred damn dollars. The girls was here January 6, five-thirty or six in the morning.’ He pointed to one of the four booths along the wall. ‘Sat right there, girls on one side, men on the other.’
‘Had you ever seen the men before?’
‘One was that dipshit, Richie Fernandez. The dark-skinned guy, I never seen.’
‘African-American?’
‘No, just a dark-skinned white guy. Tasmanian, maybe.’
‘I’ve never seen a Tasmanian,’ Rigg said.
‘Me neither, but they’re different, I heard,’ Gus said.
‘You’re sure it was the Graves girls?’
‘Their pictures been in the papers and on TV a hundred times,’ Gus said.
‘Recognized them right away,’ his wife added.
‘You know this Richie Fernandez?’ Rigg asked.
‘Washes dishes here sometimes when he needs extra for wine,’ Gus said.
‘He’s got another job?’
‘Runs a machine, swing shift, somewhere. Fill-in, cash work. He don’t do regular; says he’s got a weak heart. Weak tongue is what he’s got, for the grape. Sometimes he’s there mornings, sometimes afternoons, sometimes nights. Mostly, he’s not there at all.’
‘Tell me about the morning they came in.’
Lucille spoke. ‘They came in, eyes all messed up, wanting coffee. Like I said, I recognized the girls right off, and thought, oh, Jesus, Richie, you’re stepping in it for sure this time. The older girl, that Beatrice, looked sick or doped up. The younger one, Priscilla, was just plain drunk. They finished their coffee, none of them saying nothing, and then the four of them went out the door. Then that Beatrice came back, saying, “They’re trying to put me in a cab, and I won’t go.” She sat in the same booth and put her head in her arms. The other one, the younger drunk girl, came in and tried to roust Beatrice. I asked her, that Priscilla, “Why don’t you just leave her alone?” And she says, “This is my sister.” The two men come back, Richie and the dark one, and walked that Beatrice out of the restaurant, holding her up by her arms.’
‘That was it?’
‘No,’ Gus said. ‘The four of them came back again, about ten-thirty that same morning, only this time they was paired up. That Beatrice sat next to Richie, Priscilla with the other one, only having coffee. I wanted nothing to do with any girls the cops was looking for. I told them to leave. Richie the big shot left a fin for the coffees, like five bucks covered tax and tip, and that was the last I seen of him until he came back the next day, or maybe the day after, this time by himself. “What did you do with the girls?” I asked him, since I didn’t see nothing in the papers about them being found. “Nothing,” Richie says. I told him, “You better turn those girls loose and tell them to go home. The police is looking for them. Their pictures are in the newspapers and on television. They’re underage, and it will be your neck if they catch you with them.” Richie said nothing to that, just hung his head and walked out into the street.’
‘At the time you say the girls were here, there’d been nothing in the papers about a reward?’ Rigg asked.
Gus shook his head too quickly. No reward meant there’d been no point in calling the cops when they’d first encountered the girls.
‘So, why’d you finally call?’ Rigg asked.
Gus looked at the cab outside the greasy window. ‘It was right.’
It was baloney. The cook and his wife had gotten the jitters, perhaps from Enrice telling them there’d be trouble if it became known they knew about Fernandez and the girls and hadn’t reported it.
‘Do you know where Richie lives?’ Rigg asked.
‘No place special. Flops. He moves around,’ Gus said.
Rigg started for the door, and then stopped. ‘This is an all-night place?’ he asked Lucille.
‘Sometimes,’ she said. ‘Depending.’
Depending on what crawled in with cash, Rigg supposed. He went outside. ‘You picked up the girls here?’ he asked Enrice, sliding into the back seat.
‘Them and the two clowns they was with, about six-thirty in the morning.’ Enrice started the engine.
‘The girls had to be muscled into your cab?’
‘I only remember the four of them jamming in the back seat, then the one girl jumping out to go back in the diner, then the other going in after her.’
‘Like one of them was trying to get away?’
‘Nothing like that. They was just under the weather. The one jumped out, came back without a peep.’
‘Cops never talked to you?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Where’d you drop them?’
Enrice grinned into the mirror as best he could, being so shy of teeth. ‘Cost you another twenty.’
‘Cost you your cab medallion if I tell the cops you’ve been chauffeuring underage girls for immoral purposes – girls that later got found dead.’
Enrice’s grin disappeared, and he pulled away from the curb.
The Kellington Arms was less than a mile away, six stories of bricks missing so much mortar it looked as though one good wind would drop it to rubble. The buzzing red neon sign above the door had gaps, too, flashing only, The Kell, into its gin-drunk world.
‘I’m giving you only ten minutes here, too,’ Enrice said, cutting the engine. ‘This ain’t the fanciest neighborhood.’
‘Remember that medallion,’ Rigg said, getting out.
Something glistened in a small melted patch on the unshoveled walk. It was fresh, and it was urine. Rigg stepped around it and went into a scuffed linoleum lobby, big enough for only two pushed-together armless wood chairs. ‘Richie Fernandez,’ he said to the bristle-headed, bearded man behind the marble counter. A speck of pink was stuck to the side of the man’s beard. Gum or a speck of cupcake.
‘Nope,’ the man said.
‘I’ll pay.’
‘What for?’
‘His room number.’
‘Mr Fernandez ain’t in,’ the desk clerk said, but he’d arched his eyebrows, anticipating.
‘I’m an old friend. I want to drop off some flowers.’
The desk clerk didn’t bat an eye at Rigg’s empty hands. ‘How much?’
‘Ten.’ That late in the evening, it might have been enough for a night’s stay in the flop.
The desk clerk presented his palm for the grease.
‘Two-oh-two,’ the clerk said, once his fingers had closed around the bill.
‘I’ll need the key.’
‘It’s unlocked.’
‘How come?’
‘Up the stairs, to the right.’
Rigg hustled up the stairs, avoiding a patch on the frayed carpet that had been dampened like the sidewalk. Room 202 was to the right and unlocked, as the desk clerk had said.
And it had been trashed.
The room stunk of whiskey and cheap perfume. The stained mattress had been pulled off its frame and leaned against a wall. A tattered tan canvas shaving kit was tipped on top of the bureau, scattering a can of Barbasol shaving cream, a disposable razor, a toothbrush and a tube of Colgate that was down to its last squeeze. The three drawers below had been emptied hurriedly, spilling a half-dozen pairs of patterned boxers, three yellowed sleeveless undershirts and some loose black socks, most dangling threads at the heels, on to the stained brown rug. A pair of blue work pants and two long-sleeved blue work shirts had been jerked off their hangers and lay on the closet floor, a few feet away.
A picture of the American flag hung in an unpainted frame on the wall, next to a thumb-tacked photo of a blonde wearing only work boots and a smile.
He went downstairs. ‘The room’s been tossed,’ he said to the desk clerk.
The man nodded. ‘Two coppers hauled Richie’s ass away last week.’
Likely it was Lehman and a deputy, come directly from the diner, who’d tossed Richie’s room. No doubt the night desk man and some of the other denizens of the Kell had taken their own turns around the room after the cops left, looking for anything of value. It was forage, the way of the world in a flop when someone got hauled away by the police.
‘Did the cops give you names?’
‘I don’t brace badges for names. They flashed tin, I pointed them up the stairs.’ He paused, draping his open palm like a wet rag on the counter, except his fingers were twitching. ‘Maybe I recognized one of them from the papers.’
Rigg took out his phone, summoned up the photo of Lehman to be sure.
The night clerk shrugged.
Rigg fanned open his billfold, exposing the last of it. Two singles.
The clerk’s fingertips danced on the marble counter, impatient. Rigg passed over the two bucks.
‘It was himself,’ the clerk said, tapping Rigg’s phone with a filthy forefinger.
‘The other one, same age as the sheriff?’ Rigg asked.
The clerk nodded. ‘They both went up. There was a ruckus. They came down with only Richie, fifteen minutes later. They had him cuffed.’
‘What do you mean, “only” Richie?’
‘Richie was alone by then. He has broads up there sometimes, sometimes him alone, sometimes with another guy. Damned near break the floor with their …’ He paused. ‘Well, you know, some of our residents are still able. Cops wanted to know about any young girls Richie might have brought around. Told them I didn’t know about any broads being young.’
‘You didn’t recognize the girls from the news?’
‘The cops was yelling at Richie about some two girls. They braced me, too, on their way down. I told them we don’t allow no underage – no, sir. This is a moral place,’ he finished, with a straight face.
A horn tapped twice outside. Rocco Enrice was getting nervous.
‘Where’d they take Fernandez?’
The desk clerk cocked his head as though he was inspecting a dullard. ‘What’s it matter?’