Read Thrill Kill for Free Online Page A

problems with anyone, anyone who would want to hurt her?”
    “All the girls loved her. There was no competition. Some men like her Barbie look, some like full-figured dark meat. Never heard a trick say she didn’t treat him good. But you know, Sinclair, sometimes a john can go off.”
    “Have there been any weird or rough tricks around lately?”
    “No more than usual.” Tanya loudly sucked the last of her milkshake through the straw and threw the cup on the floor next to the wrapper. “I didn’t ask because I know you homicide, and if you asking about Blondie, it means she dead. How’d she die?”
    “Someone shot her and hung her from a tree out in East Oakland.”
    “Honey, that’s some cold shit. You gonna get whoever did that?”
    “Oh, yeah, I’m gonna get him.”
    They dropped Tanya off on her corner and headed up Market Street. “You were awful quiet,” Sinclair said to Braddock.
    “I know better than to interfere when you’re working your Sinclair charm with the ladies.”
    “Yup, buy a girl dinner and they put out for you.”
    “Is the Jimmy she mentioned the famous CI I’ve heard so much about?”
    “Jimmy Davis, confidential informant extraordinaire. I popped him for a two-eleven strong arm when I worked robbery. He was a tennis-shoe pimp, running two or three old worn-out whores at Thirtieth and Market and supplementing his income by robbing tricks. I had three robbery cases on him. Needless to say, none of his victims were too thrilled about testifying. Who’d want to admit that when you’re getting headfrom some skanky whore, a guy yanks open the car door and rips your wallet out of your pants? But I told Jimmy he was looking at five to ten with his past record. He came up with the names of the crew that was responsible for twenty bank jobs in the Bay Area. I had one of the cases—three guys all wearing masks who hit the Wells Fargo. The FBI coordinated the cases from eight different cities. They had no leads, but Jimmy’s info was enough for me to get a search warrant. From there, I had enough evidence to arrest the suspects and clear all the cases. Of course, the FBI tried to take credit for it.”
    “Did Jimmy walk on the strong-arm robberies he committed?”
    “I could have gotten him a pass, but he was out of control and needed to go away for a while, so I asked the DA to offer him six months.”
    Braddock smiled. “And thus the relationship was formed.”
    “He’s called me with tips ever since, and helped me solve three murders. If anything’s happening along West Mac or the San Pablo stroll, Jimmy knows about it. But it’s a tradeoff between the info he provides and his menace to society. He was all coked up last year and nearly beat some tweaker to death. It wasn’t a strong case, but everyone knew Jimmy needed to do some time, so they let him plead to a bullet in Santa Rita.”
    “One year with no good time?”
    “That’s what it was supposed to be, but it sounds like he got out early.”
    “Do you believe what Tanya said about him being Dawn’s pimp when she first arrived in Oakland?”
    “Jimmy was different before he started shooting heroin and smoking crack. He was smooth and quite the charmer, even when high, so I guess it’s possible.”
    Sinclair pulled into the parking lot of the Palms Motel. The Palms had been around before the 580 Freeway existed, when MacArthur Boulevard was the main thoroughfare from the San Francisco Bay Bridge through Oakland and to cities beyond. It was among a dozen motels where travelers stayed back then, butfor the last forty years, the Palms and other motels along West MacArthur mostly catered to prostitutes, drug dealers, and occasional out-of-towners who didn’t know any better.
    Sinclair flashed his badge to the elderly Indian man on the other side of the bulletproof partition that separated the tiny lobby from the office. He handed Sinclair the registration cards. Sinclair shuffled through them but didn’t see Jimmy or