truck. I lifted my jacket off the Plymouth’s door mirror
and shrugged back into it. Took my watch out of my pocket.
Strapped it back on my wrist. The soldiers drank their beer and
looked at me, nothing in their faces. They were neither pleased
nor disappointed. They had invested nothing in the outcome.
Whether it was me or the other guys on the floor was all the
same to them.
I saw Lieutenant Summer on the fringe of the crowd.
Threaded my way through cars and people towards her. She
looked tense. She was breathing hard. I guessed she had been
watching. I guessed she had been ready to jump in and help me
out.
‘What happened?’ she said.
‘The fat guy hit a woman who was asking questions for me.
His pal didn’t run away fast enough.’
She glanced at them and then back at me. ‘What did the
woman say?’
‘She said nobody had a problem last night.’
‘The kid in the motel still denies there was a hooker with
Kramer. He’s pretty definite about it.’
I heard Sin say: You got me slapped for nothing. Bastard.
‘So what made him go looking in the room?’
Summer made a face. ‘That was my big question, obviously.’
‘Did he have an answer?’
‘Not at first. Then he said it was because he heard a vehicle
leaving in a hurry.’
‘What vehicle?’
‘He said it was a big engine, revving hard, taking off fast, like
a panic situation.’
‘Did he see it?’
Summer just shook her head.
63
‘Makes no sense,’ I said. ‘A vehicle implies a call girl, and I
doubt if they have many call girls here. And why would Kramer
need a call girl anyway, with all those other hookers right there
in the bar?’
Summer was still shaking her head. “I%e kid says the vehicle
had a very distinctive sound. Very loud. And diesel, not gasoline.
He says he heard the exact same sound again a little later on.’
‘When?’
‘When you left in your Humvee.’
‘What?’
Summer looked right at me. ‘He says he checked Kramer’s
room because he heard a military vehicle peeling out of the lot
in a panic.’
64
FOUR
W
E WENT BACK ACROSS THE ROAD TO THE MOTEL AND MADE the kid tell the story all over again. He was surly and
he wasn’t talkative, but he made a good witness.
Unhelpful people often do. They’re not trying to please you.
They’re not trying to impress you. They’re not making all kinds
of stuff up, trying to tell you what you want to hear.
He said he was sitting in the office, alone, doing nothing, and
at about eleven twenty-five in the evening he heard a vehicle
door slam and then a big turbo-diesel start up. He described
sounds that must have been a gearbox slamming into reverse
and a four-wheel-drive transfer case locking up. Then there was
tyre noise and engine noise and gravel noise and something
very large and heavy sped away in a big hurry. He said he got
off his stool and went outside to look. Didn’t see the vehicle.
‘Why did you check the room?’ I asked him.
He shrugged. ‘I thought maybe it was on fire.’
‘On fire?’
‘People do stuff like that, in a place like this. They set the
room on fire. And then high-tail out. For kicks. Or something. I
don’t know. It was unusual.’
‘How did you know which room to check?’
65
He went very quiet at that point. Summer pressed him for an
answer. Then I did. We did the good cop, bad cop thing.
Eventually he admitted it was the only room rented for the
whole night. All the others were renting by the hour, and were
being serviced by foot traffic from across the street, not by
vehicles. He said that was how he had been so sure there was
never a hooker in Kramer’s room. It was his responsibility to
check them in and out. He took the money and issued the keys.
Kept track of the comings and the goings. So he always knew
for sure who was where. It was a part of his function. A part he