Flood - Andrew H. Vachss [140]
No point in staying in the background any longer—too many people could catch wise by now anyway. Max and I hit the street with the Cobra’s picture at the ready, without much real hope, but we had to give it a try. Who knew?
The street didn’t look any better close up than it had from behind the car windows. Max and I stood near the corner watching the flow, me thinking of our next move, Max indifferent. I scanned the length of the block—the only living thing doing legitimate work was a seeing-eye dog that had no way of knowing his owner had 20/20 vision and a few dozen pills for sale in his tattered pockets.
I picked a dive at random. The side of beef at the door was wearing a skin-tight red muscle shirt under a pair of thick black suspenders and carrying a flashlight that did double duty as a night stick. He held out a beefy palm, and I gave him twenty to cover admission for Max and me. We found a table in the smoke-clogged darkness a few feet away from the long bar on which two tired-looking girls exposed themselves to music. It was about as sexy as a visit to the morgue, and nowhere near as clean.
The waitress took one look at us, saw we weren’t citizens, threw us the single obligatory shake of the silicone, and brought us the two lukewarm Cokes that came with the cover charge we’d paid at the door. The joint was useless—the Cobra could be sitting ten feet away and we wouldn’t spot him. I took out the picture, held it so the waitress would see it was something she was supposed to notice. She pretended to take a close look.
“Seen him recently?”
“Never saw him before, honey.” A waste of time.
Max and I got up to leave. We approached the side of beef and I took out the picture again and held it up. “You know this guy?”
“Maybe,” meaning, what’s in it for me?
“Maybe yes, or maybe no?”
“Just plain maybe, pal. We don’t like private cops asking questions in here.”
“Look, my friend has something to give this guy, okay? Maybe he could just give it to you instead.”
“You ain’t giving me nothin’,” he snarled. Max grabbed one of his hyperflexed biceps like he was feeling the muscle. The beef’s face shifted color under the greasy lights, his hand went toward his back pocket . . . until he looked at Max’s face and thought better of it.
“Hey, what is this? I don’t know the fuckin’ guy, all right? Lemme go.”
I could see it was no use and signaled to Max. We walked out the door leaving the beef rubbing his bicep and muttering to himself.
We checked a couple of porno shops, admired the MONGOOSE stenciling of the Blood Shadows, drew nothing but more blanks.
Over on Forty-fourth we ran into McGowan. He flashed his Irish grin, but his partner hung back, wary. A new guy.
“Burke, how’s it going? And Max?”
I said, “Okay,” and Max bowed. I showed McGowan the picture but he shook his head.
“Seen the Prof?” I asked the detective.
“He’s around. I heard he had some trouble with a pimp, got slapped around a bit . . .”
“Yeah,” I said, “I heard that too.”
McGowan just nodded. He just wanted to be sure I had the information—whatever happened to a pimp wouldn’t cost him any sleep.
Another two hours on the street and we could see we weren’t going to score. We found the Plymouth, rolled over to the Village, checked a few of the leather bars, even the one that specialized in police costumes. Nothing. We tried a few of the sleazo hotels off West Street, but the desk clerks were their usual fountains of information. Even with flashing some fairly serious money, we kept drawing