her eyes?”
“Black,” the girl would say.
As I hustled back to the rented car, I wondered briefly if people thought that Malloy was the one who did this to me.
The Silver Spur Motel in Vegas was just what you’d expect. Squeezed in between a gas station and a modest storefront that housed a different fly-by-night business every week, it was a blocky stucco U curled around a narrow parking lot. Cheap and tawdry but still clean and relatively safe, not too scary for a beautiful young woman traveling alone with a large roll of small bills. It was far from the flashy neon circus of the Strip but conveniently located within spitting distance of several of the biggest titty bars in Vegas. All the girls stayed there when they were dancing at Eye Candy or Cheetah’s or Sin. I must have stayed there myself a hundred times. It was almost like a dorm for road girls and feature dancers, except there was no watchful dorm mother to keep out gentleman callers. Just a silent, thousand-year-old Indian desk clerk who made an art out of looking the other way. As a result, there was tons of action at the Spur, both professional and recreational. The girls called it the Silver Sperm.
When I spotted the familiar cowboy boot-shaped sign, I told Malloy to make a left into the lot. It was early still, just before 1PM . We saw a pair of hung-over afternoon-shift girls, bottle blondes in velour track suits lugging knock-off Louis Vuitton gig bags, but the place was otherwise pretty dead. Most of the night-shift girls would not even be awake for another hour or two. Malloy clocked the busty blondes as dispassionately as he took note of the other cars in the lot. I spotted Zandora’s Lexus parked right by the office and directed Malloy to park beside it. He shook his head and parked further back instead, as far away from the street and the girls as he could get.
“Put your sweatshirt on,” he said as we waited for the two girls to load their things into their rental car and pull out of the lot. “And put the hood up. Here.”
He handed me a pair of latex gloves. I watched him as he stretched a second pair over his own broad hands.
“Are you serious?” I asked, frowning down at the gloves.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Clearly he was. I put the gloves on.
Zandora was in room 202, upstairs on the second level. As I stood before the plain white door with its shiny silver number, I had a sick, visceral flashback of screaming that number at the top of my lungs. I shuddered and Malloy put a heavy, gloved paw on my shoulder.
There was a sudden frantic scuffle and thump behind the door, followed by a high-pitched man’s voice cursing loudly in what had to be Romanian. Then, a louder thump and Zandora’s voice shouting something that sounded sort of like “pizza man.” Apparently the guy didn’t like being called a pizza man, because what I heard next could only be fists on soft flesh.
“Jesus,” I said, belly twisted tight as my heart fluttered high in my throat.
“You up for this?” Malloy asked, reaching beneath his jacket to unsnap a shoulder holster I hadn’t even noticed until just then.
Was I?
Before I could answer, he kicked open the cheap lock and moved into the shadowy room, gun out and covering the space inside with smooth, professional ease. Cattle-prodded by adrenaline, I followed Malloy, feeling like an understudy with no time to rehearse.
My old pal was inside, that sawed-off, weasely Eastern Bloc guy that had been looking for Lia. He was crouching over a crumpled, fetal Zandora and shaking out his right hand like it hurt. His surprised face was turned up toward Malloy, eyes wide.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
“Get up,” Malloy replied, making a terse upward gesture with the barrel of his gun.
My eyes were scanning the shadows for the weasel’s buddy, that big blond redneck that had backed him up that day in my office. Before I could remember how to make my voice work and warn Malloy,
“Black,” the girl would say.
As I hustled back to the rented car, I wondered briefly if people thought that Malloy was the one who did this to me.
The Silver Spur Motel in Vegas was just what you’d expect. Squeezed in between a gas station and a modest storefront that housed a different fly-by-night business every week, it was a blocky stucco U curled around a narrow parking lot. Cheap and tawdry but still clean and relatively safe, not too scary for a beautiful young woman traveling alone with a large roll of small bills. It was far from the flashy neon circus of the Strip but conveniently located within spitting distance of several of the biggest titty bars in Vegas. All the girls stayed there when they were dancing at Eye Candy or Cheetah’s or Sin. I must have stayed there myself a hundred times. It was almost like a dorm for road girls and feature dancers, except there was no watchful dorm mother to keep out gentleman callers. Just a silent, thousand-year-old Indian desk clerk who made an art out of looking the other way. As a result, there was tons of action at the Spur, both professional and recreational. The girls called it the Silver Sperm.
When I spotted the familiar cowboy boot-shaped sign, I told Malloy to make a left into the lot. It was early still, just before 1PM . We saw a pair of hung-over afternoon-shift girls, bottle blondes in velour track suits lugging knock-off Louis Vuitton gig bags, but the place was otherwise pretty dead. Most of the night-shift girls would not even be awake for another hour or two. Malloy clocked the busty blondes as dispassionately as he took note of the other cars in the lot. I spotted Zandora’s Lexus parked right by the office and directed Malloy to park beside it. He shook his head and parked further back instead, as far away from the street and the girls as he could get.
“Put your sweatshirt on,” he said as we waited for the two girls to load their things into their rental car and pull out of the lot. “And put the hood up. Here.”
He handed me a pair of latex gloves. I watched him as he stretched a second pair over his own broad hands.
“Are you serious?” I asked, frowning down at the gloves.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Clearly he was. I put the gloves on.
Zandora was in room 202, upstairs on the second level. As I stood before the plain white door with its shiny silver number, I had a sick, visceral flashback of screaming that number at the top of my lungs. I shuddered and Malloy put a heavy, gloved paw on my shoulder.
There was a sudden frantic scuffle and thump behind the door, followed by a high-pitched man’s voice cursing loudly in what had to be Romanian. Then, a louder thump and Zandora’s voice shouting something that sounded sort of like “pizza man.” Apparently the guy didn’t like being called a pizza man, because what I heard next could only be fists on soft flesh.
“Jesus,” I said, belly twisted tight as my heart fluttered high in my throat.
“You up for this?” Malloy asked, reaching beneath his jacket to unsnap a shoulder holster I hadn’t even noticed until just then.
Was I?
Before I could answer, he kicked open the cheap lock and moved into the shadowy room, gun out and covering the space inside with smooth, professional ease. Cattle-prodded by adrenaline, I followed Malloy, feeling like an understudy with no time to rehearse.
My old pal was inside, that sawed-off, weasely Eastern Bloc guy that had been looking for Lia. He was crouching over a crumpled, fetal Zandora and shaking out his right hand like it hurt. His surprised face was turned up toward Malloy, eyes wide.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked.
“Get up,” Malloy replied, making a terse upward gesture with the barrel of his gun.
My eyes were scanning the shadows for the weasel’s buddy, that big blond redneck that had backed him up that day in my office. Before I could remember how to make my voice work and warn Malloy,
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