CHAPTER SEVEN
GRACE
I pull up the e-brake. “Not exactly the Hilton, is it?”
‘Seedy’ doesn’t even begin to do The Baxter justice. Even the façade of the place is grimy and slick, like the building itself can’t handle the filth that has set up shop inside it.
“I appreciate what you did back there,” I tell Hunter, “but next time I can handle myself, understood?”
Hunter looks out the window, doesn’t seem fazed by it. “Understood.”
“Let’s get this over with.”
The lobby, if you can call it that, is home to three things—a passed-out hooker in her sixties, a cat that looks like it picked a fight with a set of clippers, and a guy behind the desk lit only by the glow of the television less than a foot from his face.
He glances up at us. “Thought I smelt bacon. You two looking for a room?”
I place my hands on the desk, ring the bell once and let it chime out before speaking. “You know what, we are.”
“Yeah? Where’s your warrant?”
I look around. “Where’s your fire exit?”
The hotel manager nods. “Okay, Barbarella, what you looking for?”
“Rachel Jackson, ran tricks here in one of your rooms.”
“Don’t know the name.”
I flick to a picture of her on my phone and show it to him.
The realization sinks in. “You mean Ruby, but she don’t look so healthy there.”
“I’d say not given she’s dead.”
He backs up. “Ah, shit. I’m sorry. She was decent, you know? Never understood why she was working here. Just didn’t make sense.”
“But you knew she was a junkie.”
“They’re all junkies.”
“Her room?”
He reaches behind himself and takes a key off the board. “Room 202, second floor.”
“What did the other tenants think of her?” asks Hunter.
The hotel manager lifts a shoulder to his cheek “Eh, there were a few noise complaints, the usual bullshit, but mostly she was a dream tenant, you know. Paid on time, kept to herself.”
I take the key and have Beckett follow me up the stairs to the second floor. There’s no fucking way I’m using the death trap of an elevator.
I turn and key and enter the room. It’s dark as Satan’s shithole. I move to the far side and throw open the curtains, a waterfall of dust following. “Fucking. Disgusting.”
The room is small, two mattress piled on top of one another, a dresser, and a bathroom without a door, the shower head hanging down, the wall wet. It smells of deep damp, the kind of moldy permanence nothing short of commercial acid could clear.
“Look, here.”
Hunter’s pointing to a series of blood spots on the top mattress.
I come over. “What do you make of it?”
“Could be anyone’s. Hard to say how old it is.”
We check the dresser drawers, but they’re empty. We find a small baggie of heroin under the mattress, but that’s it.
Zippo.
“Dead end,” notes Hunter.
“You know what I do when I come to a dead end?” I offer.
He seems curious. “What?”
“Put myself into a caffeine coma.”
*
Hunter almost spits his coffee over me. “Jesus that’s—”
“Strong?” I drain my cup. “What were you expecting? The watered-down mush you hillbillies call coffee? You’re in the Big City now, my friend. Coffee is a god here and I am but a humble, very needy, servant.
We’re at a diner in the East Village, the kind that’s slowly being swallowed up by hipster hang-outs with ten types of avocado and co-ops full of people with questionable body odor. I do like what Hunter the Man’s giving off, though, a barky, piney scent that’s more masculine than most in this city. He’s built, there’s no denying that, but I can’t see him working out in a gym. His brother’s a big football star, it seems, so maybe it’s genetics… maybe something else. I make a mental note to look into it later.
I put my coffee down and cross my legs. “You’re learning a lot today.”
The coffee cup looks tiny in his hand. “Most action I’ve seen in years.”
I lean back and let the tip of my tongue snake out over my upper lip. “Strapping guy like you, I find that hard to believe.
He clears his throat, changing the subject. “You say you knew the victim?”
I start tapping the laminate on the tabletop with a nail. “We went to high school in Jersey together. I wouldn’t say we were best friends. We got together a lot for sleepovers, birthday parties—the usual girly bullshit you get up to in high school.”
“What was she like?”
“She was quiet, studied hard, and didn’t attract attention. Well, at least until she grew a set of tits. After that it all started to slide downhill.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, boys discovered her and vice versa. Thing is, she always seemed to attract the worst of the worst, the real sleazebags. She started getting a reputation, her parents found out, and that was it. They moved. I bumped into her a few years later. She looked the same, but she was hanging off the arm of this guy I knew was trouble. You can just tell. Something about the eyes.”
“It didn’t work out?”
“He sent her to the ER twice before the authorities got involved. It was a nurse who called it in. But Rachel never had the balls to leave. It’s shitty. Really shitty it went this way for her. She was a nice kid when I knew her.”
I decide to deflect the conversation. “And what about you, Mountain Man? You got a girl back home, three toddlers?”
Hunter’s eyes pop at that. He thumbs the light stubble on his chin. “Afraid not. There was a girl, but…”
“But what?” I push, my investigative powers taking hold. “She ended up with another guy, didn’t she?”
He speaks, but he’s distant. “That’s right.”
“You didn’t fight to the death or something over her?”
“In a way, but he won out in the end. I guess he was more exciting, had more tattoos or some shit.”
“And you don’t? No eagle of patriotism branded into your left ass cheek?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Do I look like the kind of guy who has an eagle on their ass?”
I tilt my head sideways as if I can X-ray right through his clothing. “Yeah, you kind of do. You probably hang a flag out the window every night.”
“My background’s not military if that’s what you’re thinking.”
I let myself explore the lines of his body, contemplate what they’d be like to touch, or taste. Given the bulge in his pants earlier, I’ve got no doubt he’s packing plenty in that department too. “No, so why the Force then?”
“To make a difference.”
I burst out laughing. “Don’t give me the recruitment banner, Beckett. Why, really? You wanted some action? The kind of excitement a warm hand and tub of coconut oil can’t provide?”
His features harden. “Yes, as a matter of fact.” I see him calculating whether he should provide anything further. He places his coffee down. “I was pretty hot shit in college, all of us were, heading for the NFL. Who knows? My brother Cayden made it, my little brother Colton on his way, but I had to give it up.”
“Injury?”
“Illness,” he responds, but there’s no elaboration this time.
I start to piece it together. “And so you thought, ‘Hell, I don’t need a shoulder pads and a fitted bra to tackle guys.’”
A wry smile follows. “I’m lucky to be alive. I didn’t want to waste this second chance. I didn’t want to be...”
“Meaningless,” I fill.
He nods solemnly.
“So what did you do in LA?”
“Narcotics.”
“You see much activity?”
He grows distant again. “We had our share.”
“I salute you. I really do, but I’ve worked with narcs before. They were like you—model cops on the outside,” I point to my chest, “but in here,” and head, “and here? A fucking mess. That shit will screw with even the most hardened of us. That you? Because I’ve got to know you’re dependable. I can’t have you seizing up like my last partner because they suddenly thought they were back in some Compton crack house.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was their mistake, and they paid the price. That’s how this gig goes. You’ve got to stay sharp. That’s how Pop made it so long. He kept his wits about him, used his fucking head. You’ve got to be smarter than them. It’s the only way to survive.”
“Doesn’t seem so hard given your friend Doyle.”
“Doyle? He’s a single sperm in a sea of millions, a bottom-dweller. It’s the guys swimming at the top of the pond you’ve got to worry about, and don’t think this city isn’t above corruption. Wherever there’s money, there’s corruption, and there’s a fuck-load of money in NYC.”
I bring my coffee to my lips, but it’s already finished. Force of habit. “Finish up. We’ll canvas the hotel, see what nasty surprises we can pull out of the woodwork.”