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By Root 948 0

give you useful stuff. After three bourbons, straight up, Roddy started bitching, told me he should be paid more to handle this situation. Roddy always talked like that—you know, making words sound important. He said it was pissant dough for his talents, like that. I almost shouted at him, ‘Dude, you’re old and nasty, who’d want to pay you anything?’ But I had a nice place to stay and Roddy was easy and fast in bed, so I kept my trap shut. Roddy said it was a real rush deal. He was going in and out of this hick town like right now, and so he didn’t have time to check anything out, said he hated going in blind, but from what I could tell, that’s what he always did, just waltzed right in somewhere and hoped for the best. What a dumbass. Is that useful?”

“Not very,” Savich said, and fingered a second hundred, his eyes on her face.

Angel’s hands fluttered toward the second bill. She said, “Okay, I’ll admit I was listening when the phone rang—that’s how I knew he got the job. He knew whoever it was, and he was real respectful, assured whoever it was that he could handle anything, to trust him, lame stuff like that.”

“He didn’t say a name?”

“No, he listened, then kept telling whoever it was that he’d take care of it, no problem.”

“When he hung up, what did he say?”

“He said he had to move fast, that he had to drive to this hick town in Kentucky tomorrow, he had to leave real early Monday morning. Oh yeah, he wrote down lots of stuff. Directions, I guess. Then this photo came through his fax machine.”

Savich pushed the second hundred-dollar bill across the table. It disappeared into her bra.

“Okay, the fax—it was a woman, young, pretty, okay blond hair”—she tossed her head again—“but she had this real cool braid. So I asked him what he was going to do to her and he said, nothing much, just put out her lights, and he slogged down another shot of bourbon. While he poured, I picked up her photo—it was off a driver’s license, but like I said, I could tell she was pretty even though the picture was crap. When I get a driver’s license I’m going to sleep with the guy taking the pictures so I can get me a good one.”

Savich began to smooth out the third one-hundred-dollar bill.

“He grabbed the fax from me, started talking to himself, like, ‘I need a full clip, maybe two, that’ll do it. Cheap bastards, ’ on and on like that, you know?”

Bastards. Plural. Savich nodded. “Angel, by any chance did Roddy ever use your cell phone?”

She thought about that, and Savich could see her mental wheels spinning. “Well, yeah, maybe, a couple of times.”

“How long ago did the graduate student trade your services for a cell phone?”

“Well, I guess I should tell you I gave that grad student a smiley face when I was living with Roddy.”

“And you still have your cell?”

“Yeah, sure, but like I told you, it’s deader than the fish my uncle Bobby shot out of the water when he was aiming for my little brother.”

No, Savich thought, don’t go there. “I’d like to borrow your cell phone, Angel. I’ll return it. In fact, I’ll pay you a rental fee. What do you say?”

Greed gleamed in those innocent eyes. “How much you willing to pay me? It’s a good phone, lots of fancy things on it. Well, to be honest here, and that hurts real bad, I don’t think it’s got many minutes on it now.”

“However many minutes you’ve got will be perfect,” Savich said.

“You know, a cell phone’s like a guy; if you don’t plug him in every night, charge him good, you got nothing at all.”

Savich slid two bills across the table as Angel dug her cell phone out of her pocket. “I need some lipstick, but they wouldn’t give me my purse. They didn’t take my cell because it’s dead, I guess.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll return it nicely charged.” Savich rose, left the last hundred-dollar bill on the table. “Sherlock, why don’t you give Angel your lipstick. It’s a real pretty shade. See if you can’t make her earn that last hundred.”

He said to Angel, “I’ll see you soon. I think your information was so valuable that I’m going to speak to the people in charge and have all charges dropped.”

She gaped at