“Some bacon,” she said in an accent that no longer sounded white or even American.
It had been Remus’s observation throughout his career that hookers took on the accents
and mannerisms of their owners. Black hookers sounded white and white hookers
sounded black, white gigolos walked with an NBA spring, black gigolos strutted like
John Wayne. By now Remus was used to it. He just did his cooking and ran his joint,
live and let be. He didn’t want trouble, and Poison troubled him like an ice pick too close
to his eye. She had a mocking smile, as if she knew the joke was on him. Remus sensed
that a cold-blooded killing, including his own, would amuse her.
^/^
and then to search traffic and stare. Mungo’s excitement mounted when Blondie
approached Shena, one of the oldest sluts in the area.
She was perched on the front wooden steps of a dilapidated wooden house, sipping Coke,
trying to get over the night before, and readying herself for the one coming up. Blondie
walked up like they knew each other. He started talking to her. She shrugged, gestured,
then got pissed and waved him off like he was a pigeon in her way. Uh huh, Mungo
thought. This boy-bait was becoming a territorial problem out here, moving in on the
other hookers’ lemonade stands.
Blondie was probably luring men, maybe some women, selling them dope, committing
crimes against nature, and getting rich from it.
Mungo was convinced that if he dug further he would find out that Blondie was way up
there on the drug- dealing chain, probably directly connected to New York. There could
be a connection to the Black Widow killings. Mungo got out the video camera and
captured what was possibly the best-looking, most clean-cut male prostitute he’d ever
seen, except in the movies. Mungo quickly drove back to headquarters.
tw West had been up all night. She had done her best to make Niles shut up his yowling
and kneading. She had thrown him off the bed until her shoulder got tired. She had
talked in an adult fashion with him, trying to make him understand her fatigue and need
of sleep. She had yelled, threatened, and locked him out of her room. He had been well
rested, and happily snoozing on his favorite windowsill when West hurried out the door
this morning, late for work. She had no patience left. When Mungo walked into the
conference room in the midst of her meeting with the Phantom Force, she was not
welcoming.
“We’re having a meeting,” she said to Mungo.
“And I got something you’re going to want to hear about.” He proudly held up the
videotape.
“Definitely a player, maybe even more, maybe even our killer or at least involved.”
Mungo was breathless and looked like a biker, Hammer had been on the phone ever since
West had seen her last, and West got on the radio and told her boss to give her a call.
“I don’t want you to get your hopes up,” West told her.