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truth
was simply too insane to be believed.
    I had just pulled my door shut when my
next-door neighbor stepped out of her room and, not paying
attention to where she was going, stumbled directly into me. She
jumped back with a yelp, teetering on a pair of platform heels that
looked a half-size too big. Regaining her composure, she shuffled
then leaned against the doorjamb. I wasn’t sure if she was doing it
for balance, or if she was trying to look alluring. Maybe it was
both, although she wasn’t accomplishing the latter—in my eyes at
least. Either way, she simply looked me over and smiled.
    I muttered, “Sorry,” then gave her a nod and
started for my car.
    “Gotta light, Mistuh?” she asked before I’d
made it two steps.
    Even though it was against my better
judgment, I stopped and looked back at her. In the dim swath of
yellow spilling from the overhead light, I could see enough of her
face to tell that her vacant eyes were fixed with a
substance-induced glaze. I didn’t really want to know which
substance. Her vinyl skirt was too short, her top too tight, and
her makeup too thick. She looked like she was in her late forties,
but something about her felt like she was maybe all of fifteen.
    I rummaged quickly in my pocket, withdrew a
book of matches and tossed them the short distance to her. She
missed the catch even though my aim was dead on, so she stooped to
pick them up. While she was doing so, I took a quick glance around
to make sure I wasn’t being set up for a mugging or some such and
then hurried on to my vehicle.
    As she stood again, she let out a hoarse
giggle and called after me, “Ah won’t bite, shuga. Unless tha’s
what ya’ wan’ me ta’ do.”
    By now I had the car door open and since I
had originally backed in was just getting ready to turn and slip
into the driver’s seat. Out of reflex, I shook my head while saying
across the top of the sedan, “No thanks.”
    I heard her reply as I was pulling the door
shut.
    “Ya’ sure ya’ not lookin’ fuh comp’ny,
bay-bee?”
    If she said anything after that, I didn’t
hear it because the windows were up, the engine was running, and I
was already pulling out of the parking space.
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER 3:
     
     
    B en had given me something
to go on whether he realized it or not. It was tenuous, I admit,
but it was something. He’d told me they found the victim in a motel
room, specifically, the no-tell type. So, that was where I would
start my search.
    When I first set out, I even gave serious
consideration to the fact that the murder might have happened right
where I was staying. In fact, I was less than a mile up Airline
Highway when I literally thought about turning around and going
back, imagining for a moment I might be able to exchange some cash
for information from my next-door neighbor. That sort of
transaction would probably make me her easiest client of the night.
Of course, that would all hinge on whether or not she actually knew
anything, and she hadn’t struck me as the type to stay up on
current events that weren’t a part of her immediate future.
Besides, at the rate she’d been going, she had most likely already
found someone in need of her particular brand of personal services
by now, and I would have to wait until I could catch her between
clients. In my mind, standing around waiting for that to happen
wasn’t exactly an enticing prospect considering the fact that I was
sure to be faced with extricating myself from another sort of
proposition yet again. On top of that, it didn’t sound particularly
safe either. But, in the end it wasn’t fear or even the distaste
that kept me from making the U-turn. There was a niggling hunch in
the back of my head, and it kept telling me that I needed to look
somewhere else. So, I listened to it.
    I had seen the crime scenes in Saint Louis;
therefore, I knew the types of venues the killer chose. While they
were certainly establishments of the hourly rate persuasion, they
were