I thought of what a stone wall and a cement sidewalk had done to most of that face and put it aside and looked at the others. There were four enlargements, all five by seven, glossy, in sharp focus. They were the four shots he had taken when she had begun posing.
“Those seemed best for your purposes, Trav.”
“They are. And the ones that will fit in my wallet?”
“In the glassine envelope there. Exactly the same four as the five-by-sevens.”
“Got them. Good.”
“Trav, don’t you think I could be some kind of help in this
“Maybe later. If I find more to go on. I’m going to find a place up there to hole up. When I’m ready for you, I’ll call you.”
“I Don’t… get careless.”
“Nobody could get a good look at her and get careless.”
I saw that it was a few minutes past ten. I reached and switched the little Jap television to the unaffiliated channel that gives local news at that hour. A youth with many tricks with the eyebrows barked world affairs at us. He’s the one that pronounces it Veet Nee-yarn.
Soon he got around to our girl. “Earlier this evening the Broward Beach police made a positive identification of the mystery woman in last night’s hit-and-run fatality. Word came back that her fingerprints are definitely those of Miss Evangeline Bellemer, age twenty-six or twenty-seven. The last address on file for her was a Jacksonville address. They do not know yet if she was living in this area. She had a record of several arrests for soliciting, public prostitution, indecent exposure, extortion and attempted extortion. Police are conducting an intensive hunt for the driver of the stolen car, and expect to make an arrest very soon, according to informed sources.”
I clicked the fellow off. “From what she said,” Meyer said, “I thought she was given better protection than that.”
“Check it out and you’ll find some convictions, but I doubt you’ll find any time served. It’s the standard deal, Meyer. The cops who are on the take have to bring a few of them in now and then, when they’re sure of who’ll be on the bench. The gals take turns, plead guilty, pay the fine and draw a suspended sentence. The law looks good, and from the viewpoint of the people operating the vice business, a girl who has a record is easier to keep in line.”
“Sometimes, McGee, you make me feel naive.”
“Stay as sweet as you are. Time for one game?”
“If you promise if you get white not to open with that infuriating queen’s gambit.” South of the city of Broward Beach, along A1A, is where the action is. The junk motels, bristling with neon, squat on the littered sand, spaced along the beach areas, interspersed with package stores, cocktail lounges, juice stands, auction parlors, laundromats, hair stylists, pizza drive-ins, discount houses, shell factories, real-estate offices, tackle stores, sundries stores, little twenty-four-hour supermarkets, bowling alleys and faith healers. The sprawl continues down through the continuous satellite communities of Silvermoor, Quendon Beach, Faraway and Calypso Bay.
I had left my venerable Rolls Royce tethered in her stall.
It was no occasion for anything as conspicuous as the electric blue of old Miss Agnes, who, during her darkest hour, had been converted by some maniac into a pickup truck. I cruised in my inconspicuous rental Ford and decided upon a motel called the Bimini Plaza. I did not know if it was in Silvermoor or Quendon Beach, nor could I think of any reason why I should care. It merely looked a little richer than the others, and had, according to its sign, three pools, three bars and inimitable food. It also had a bad ease of vacancy, a June problem that usually mends itself in July. I took their best, a large room at the ocean end of one of the three parallel wings. I had a salt-crusted picture window facing seaward, and a cleaner one facing the pool area in the inner court. I had two double beds, two weights of traverse draperies, a glassed shower stall, a large tub, a bidet, an icecube maker, polar air-conditioning, remote controls for the color television set, and an ankle-deep lavender rug. For nine bucks, single.