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“Super. That’s what I wanted to hear.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
They stared at each other. For some reason, he couldn’t avert his eyes. She licked her lips. He felt a wave of heat and knew he’d had enough.
“Whew,” he said, wiping his forehead with a napkin. “Is it hot in here or is it my imagination?”
“I feel fine,” she said with an impish grin.
“I’d better leave.” Decker picked up the empty sack with the Bert-and-Ernie thermos inside.
He headed for the door.
“Pete,” said He
He laughed.
“Yes, I do, thank you.”
“Anytime, Sergeant.”
After checking out Truscott again, Decker headed for the Teriyaki Dog. It was a ramshackle fast-food stand on Sunset across the street from Children’s Hospital. This part of Hollywood wasn’t hooker turf and Decker suspected that was why Kiki had picked out the spot; she didn’t want to be seen with a cop in front of her peers. But if that was her rationale, the girl wasn’t too bright. The stand was open and visible from the boulevard.
She was wolfing down a conconction of hot dog, chili and Chinese vegetables, and the mixture of smells was potent. He sat down beside her at a splintered picnic table. Placing his elbows on the table top, he noticed it was sticky with crusted food. He raised his coat sleeve and grimaced.
“Wa
“No thanks.” He frowned. “One arm is enough.”
She looked puzzled, then broke into a laugh and punched him on the shoulder-his good one.
“You’re a kidder, huh?”
“What do you have for me?” he asked.
“Slow down,” she said, talking with her mouth full. “What’s the hurry?”
“I’m busy, Kiki. Put up-”
“Or shut up, I know.” She stopped eating, wiped her hands on a napkin, and took out a small scrap of paper. “These two guys specialize in younger meat and they’re both bad dudes.”
Decker looked at the names: Wilmington Johnson. Clementine.
“Clementine have a last name?” he asked.
“Just Clementine,” she answered licking her fingers.
As in “Oh my darlin.”
“Black? White?” he asked.
“Both are niggers. Clementine is pretty light from what I hear. I’ve never seen him.”
She picked up her food and took another bite. “Can you get me a Coke?”
He handed her a twenty. “Buy your own.”
“You’re a real big-timer, Decker.” She pouted. Then she broke into a smile. “So I did all right, huh?”
“Not bad. Where’d you get the names from?”
“Here and there. You check out Pode yet?”
“No. Tell me about him.”
“Don’t know anything other than what I told you,” she said. “Just that he takes fuck pictures on the side-young kids-boys as well as girls. Lots of chicken hawks out here.”
Decker pulled out the snapshot of Doe Two-Joan.
“Ever seen this girl, Kiki?”
The adolescent’s eyes widened.
“Yeah.”
It was Decker’s turn to grin.
“Who is she?”
“Countess Dracula. They call her that because of her teeth. She’s kinky, Decker, real kinky.”
“Tell me about her.”
“I don’t know anything really. Just talk on the streets. They say stay away from her. I haven’t heard about her in a while.”
“That’s cause she’s dead, Kiki. You don’t have to be worried about her anymore. C’mon. What do you know?”
“Dead?”
“Yes.”
“This have to do with the girl you were asking about?”
“What do you know about the Countess?”
Kiki sighed.
“Man, I’m really thirsty. And hungry, too. I du
“What do you want?”
“Make it a number six this time, with lots of cheese and garlic. And a large Coke.”
He got up and returned with her order. It smelled toxic. She bit into the hot dog, chewed, then wiped her mouth and took a sip of soda.
“What can I tell you? She’s a weirdo. Or was a weirdo. She’s really dead, huh?”
Probably, he thought.
“Yes,” he answered.
“You know, I hear Clementine knew her before she got real weird. I bet he could tell you a bunch about her.”
“You’re stalling,” he said.
“Decker, I don’t know anything for sure. She was bad and did weird things, or so they say.”
“What weird things?”
“Just weird things.”
“Like what?”
The girl brought her face close to his. Her breath stank.
“They say she snared dupes, ya know? Maybe some illegals who she threatened to expose to Immigration. She’d do kinky things with them-make ’em fuck dogs or eat dead rats. They say she cut up animals and drank their blood.”
A real sweetheart, he thought. What could that have to do with Lindsey?
Kiki pulled away from him, sweating profusely.
“I talk too much.”
“What else?”
“I don’t know anything more.”
“And Clementine was her pimp?”
“I du
“Did she photograph her parties?”
“Shit, I du
“I’m a pervert,” he said. “Where do I get ahold of kinky films?”
“I du
“C’mon!”
“I du
“Then ask around for me, huh?”
“Uh huh,” she said, quickly. “I got my own ass to think about.”
Decker was silent. Kiki bit her lip.
“How much will you give me?” she asked.
“You get me any kind of still or celluloid that links the Countess and Lindsey Bates and I’ll do more than get you money, I’ll get you off the streets, Kiki. I’ll get you into the best halfway house in the city and make sure you’re taken care of until you reach legal age. If you’ve got a habit, I’ll get you into a top-notch rehab program. No cold turkey, something with compassion. I’m in Juvey, I have a lot of favors owed to me, and I know how to pull strings.”
“And if I don’t find anything, I stay out here peddling my ass. That the idea, Decker?”
The detective chewed on his mustache, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it.
“I need something to bargain with in order to strike deals,” he said. “I’m sorry but that’s the way it works. If I took you off the streets now, maybe they could find a home for you, maybe not. But if I take you off after you’ve produced and tell my buddies, ‘Hey, guys, this little gal has come through at risk to herself and we need to pay her back, otherwise our credibility with teenage informants is diddlysquat,’ then we’ve got something. They still won’t give a shit about you, but they’ll do it.”
She folded her arms and scrunched her body into a tight ball.
“You guys are a bunch of creeps, you know that?”
He said nothing.
“Give me a cigarette.”
He handed her a Marlboro and lit it for her.
“I start nosing around where I don’t belong, and bad people are go
He took a deep drag on his smoke and patted her shoulder.
“Listen, you’ve got rules, I’ve got rules,” he said. “First thing you have to do is stay alive.”
He stood up. She looked ski
“No matter what you come up with, I’ll see what I can do about getting your ass out of here. But no promises.”
She tried to look tough, but her face crumpled. She started to cry. He sat back down, and she threw her arms around him, hugging him hard while sobbing on his shoulder.
“You must get a lot of this crybaby shit,” she sniffed.
“It’s happened before.”
“I’ll do what I can, Decker.”
“Good. But don’t get yourself killed for it.” He broke away. “Take your time, Kiki. You poke around too quickly, someone’s ears will perk up. So don’t rush it.”
She nodded and wiped her tears with a dirty napkin.
“I’ve got to go,” he said. “You keep in touch.”
“Yeah.”
He tousled her hair and slipped her a five from his own pocket. Kids, he thought. Inside, they were all just kids.