Capital Crimes

“Then how do you know she was hooking?”

Beame puffed manically, working his jaws while constructing his answer. “Only way I found out was we had a family staying in the room next door, tourists from Missouri or someplace. Mother calls me up complaining about three different guys in one night. The noise was coming through the wall. Bad enough they had to hear it, but they had kids.”

“What’d you do about it?” said Lamar.

“What could I do?” said Beame. “My responsibility’s up here. What I done is phone Mr. Bikram. They tell me he’s back home visiting. That’s Calcutta, India. Mrs. Bikram says when he comes back in three days he’ll deal with it. Next time I see Barline coming in, I try talkin’ to her. The little whore has the nerve to ignore me. When Mr. Bikram comes home, I tell him what happens and he marches straight over there. But she’s gone with all her stuff. Then we found out she passed a bogus money order. The little whore still owes a week. You find her, you tell me. Or you can call Mr. Bikram direct. Here’s his card.”

“Your housekeeping staff never informed you about the prostitution?”

“What staff?” said Beame. “We got a couple Mexicans come during the day. They don’t even speak no English.”

They asked to see Greta Barline’s room.

Beame said, “Sorry, can’t do. I gotta a couple of people in there.”

“More respectable tourists?” said Baker.

No answer.

“Maybe one-hour tourists?” said Lamar.

“Hey,” said Beame. “They pay, I don’t ask. They might even be married. You find that little whore, you call Mr. Bikram.”

“Any idea where we can find her?”

Beame finally gave some serious thought to a question. “Well, mebbe one thing. I saw her go off with a guy once. This wasn’t no trucker. Suit and tie, drove a Lexus. Silver. It had a white coat hanging in the back. Like a doctor.”

Out in the motel parking lot, they thumbed through their notes for the name of the dentist who owned The T House.

“Here we go,” said Lamar. “ ‘Dr. McAfee. Lives in Brentwood.’ ”

Baker said, “If she was telling the truth about that.”

“About anything. Hooks, passes bad paper, real sweet kid.” Lamar looked up. “Maybe there’s something to the churchgoing lifestyle.”

“At the very least, you know where the kids are on Wednesday and Sunday.” Baker rubbed his head. “Let’s talk to the good doctor and find out what other games Gret likes to play.”

Motor Vehicle records placed Dr. Donald J. McAfee’s house six blocks away from the Drs. Carlsons’ white contempo.

“Must be a medico thing,” said Baker, as they headed there.

The house was a shingle-topped ranch with an oddly sloping roofline that suggested pagoda. A little stone fountain in front and a patch of mondo grass said someone loved the whole Asian thing.

Two vehicles were registered to McAfee, a silver Lexus sedan and a black Lexus Rx. Neither was in sight but a ten-year-old red Mustang sat in the driveway. It was dented and sagging, rust on the bumpers, a cracked rear side window.

Texas plates.

Lamar said, “So much for Gret not having any car. Why lie to make yourself poorer than you are?”

“Tugging at our heartstrings,” said Baker.

“For what reason?”

“The little gal thinks she can sing. Maybe she’s into acting, too.”

Not much light over the red door. They knocked.

A gonglike chime sounded and Greta Barline’s voiced trilled, “One second.”

When the door swung open, she was standing there with her blond hair all long and combed out, wearing a tiny little lace apron, spike heels and nothing else. Flour whisk in one hand, round-tipped frosting knife in the other.

Few people look better naked than clothed. This girl was the exception. Every visible inch of her was smooth and golden and nubile and voluptuous and all sorts of other good adjectives. She’d come to the door licking her lips and gri

Baker said, “Sorry to interrupt the production, Gret.”

The girl’s eyes widened and then, darn if her little pink nipples didn’t get hard and all puckery around the rosellas or whatever you called them.

Lamar said, “Dressed for business?”

He’d never admit it but he’d been distracted by those nipples when she went after him with the frosting knife.

They subdued her, but it took surprising effort. Even cuffed and facedown on a red silk Asian print sofa, she kept up the kicking and screaming- lot of nonsense about rape.

The interior of the house looked like someone had raided every tourist trap in Bangkok. Lamar found Greta Barline’s clothing in the master bedroom- a wide, shag-carpeted space dominated by a huge plaster Buddha spray-painted gold. In a teak dresser, one drawer was reserved for bikinis, thongs, and crotch-less panties. A section of the walk-in closet held negligees, wife-beaters and T-shirts and three pairs of size-4 Diesel jeans. Tons of makeup and other female products in the bathroom. She’d made a real mess of the place, leaving wet towels on the floor, along with crumpled-up National Enquirers.

Living here, on and off, when she wasn’t bedding johns and belting out karaoke.

Lamar selected the most modest clothes he could find- a yellow tee, along with a pair of jeans- and brought them back to the living room. Maybe calling for a female officer would’ve been the smart thing but they didn’t want to wait around with this foulmouthed naked girl screaming rape.

The detectives managed to wrestle her into the duds, but it made them sweat.

Then Lamar remembered: no underwear. Like she’d care.

They sat her up, and had just gotten her something to drink, when a big, florid middle-aged guy wearing a Domino Pizza delivery uniform showed up. The duds were a size too small and downright stupid-looking on a paunchy, gray-haired idiot with steel-rimmed eyeglasses.

Trembling hands clutched a pizza box.

“Dr. McAfee?”

The dentist’s eyes got wild, as if he were contemplating escape.

Baker said, “Bad idea, sit over there.” He took the box and inspected it, finding a packet of ribbed condoms, an aerosol can of whipped cream and some creepy-looking big old plastic beads on a string.

“Talk about nutrition,” said Lamar.

The dentist clutched his chest and when that didn’t work, flashed a nice set of white teeth and looked over at Greta. “Don’t know her, just met her, Officers. She insisted on coming over. It was just going to be some old-fashioned fun in the privacy of my own domicile.”

“Fuck you!” screamed the girl. “You said I was the best!”

McAfee’s look was ripe with pity.

Greta Barline squinted. “I’ll kill you, you bastard. I’ll cut you like I cut him.”

McAfee blanched. “Guess I’d better be more careful who I allow to pick me up.”

Baker and Lamar hauled the girl out of there. When they reached the door, McAfee was still standing there in his ludicrous delivery duds.

“May I change?”

Baker said, “You better.”