Read A Ticket to the Boneyard for Free Online Page A

he said, and he clapped one hand over her mouth and used the other to find the spot on her rib cage. This time she did pass out, and when she came to he was gone.
     
     
    The first thing I did was take her over to the Eighteenth Precinct. The two of us sat down with a cop named Klaiber and she filed a complaint, charging Motley with assault and battery and forcible sodomy. “There’ll be more charges after he’s picked up,” I said. “He took money from her purse, so that’s robbery or extortion or both. And he got into her apartment in her absence.”
    “Any signs of forced entry?”
    “Not that I could spot, but it’s still illegal entry.”
    “You already got forcible sodomy,” Klaiber said.
    “So?”
    “Forcible sodomy and illegal entry, you put them both down and you get a jury confused. They figure it’s two ways of saying the same thing.” When Elaine excused herself to go to the bathroom he leaned forward and said, “She a girlfriend or something, Matt?”
    “Let’s say she’s been the source of a lot of useful leads over the past few years.”
    “Fine, we’ll call her a snitch. She’s on the game, right?”
    “So?”
    “So I don’t have to tell you how hard it is to make an assault charge stand up when the complainant is a prostitute. Let alone rape or sodomy. Far as your juror’s concerned, all she did was give away what she usually sold.”
    “I know that.”
    “I figured you did.”
    “I don’t expect a pickup order’s going to accomplish anything, anyway. His last known address is a Times Square hotel, and he hasn’t lived there in a year and a half.”
    “Oh, you’ve been looking for him.”
    “A little bit. He’s probably in another midtown flophouse or living with a woman, and either way he’ll be hard to find. I just want her complaint on file. It can’t hurt further on down the line.”
    “Got it,” he said. “Well, no problem, then. And we’ll put out a pickup order just in case he happens to walk into our arms.”
     
     
    I called Anita and told her I’d be staying in the city around the clock for the next few days. I told her I was on a case I couldn’t break away from. I’d done this before, sometimes legitimately, sometimes because I hadn’t felt like going out to Long Island. As always, she believed me, or pretended to. Then I cleared all of my own cases, dropping some and shunting others off on other people. I didn’t want anything else on my plate. I wanted to get James Leo Motley, and I wanted to get him right.
    I told Elaine we’d have to trap Motley and she’d have to be the bait. She wasn’t crazy about the idea, didn’t really ever want to be in the same room with him again, but she had a nice tough core to her and she was willing to do what had to be done.
    I moved in with Elaine and we waited. She canceled all her bookings and told everyone who called that she had the flu and wouldn’t be available for a week. “This is costing me a fortune,” she complained. “Some of these guys may never call back.”
    “You’re just playing hard to get. They’ll want you all the more.”
    “Yeah, look how well that worked with Motley.”
    We never left the apartment. She cooked once, but the rest of the time we ordered in. We pretty much lived on pizza and Chinese food. The liquor store delivered bourbon, and she got the guy at the corner deli to send over a case of Tab.
    Two days into it, Motley called. She answered in the living room and I picked up the extension in the bedroom. The conversation went something like this:
     
     
    Motley: Hello, Elaine.
    Elaine: Oh, hello.
    Motley: You know who this is.
    Elaine: Yes.
    Motley: I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to make sure you were all right.
    Elaine: Uh-huh.
    Motley: Well? Are you?
    Elaine: Am I what?
    Motley: Are you all right?
    Elaine: I guess so.
    Motley: Good.
    Elaine: Are you—
    Motley: Am I what?
    Elaine: Are you coming over?
    Motley: Why?
    Elaine: I just wondered.
    Motley: Do you want me