Detective Carson Ryder Thriller Series Books 1–3: The Hundredth Man, The Death Collectors, The Broken Souls. J. Kerley A.
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until then. After that it doesn’t make a bit of difference. He’ll either be a deputy chief or not.”
I asked, “How’s Poke putting the odds?”
Anyone with a jones for political intrigue suffers a touch of paranoia. Harry glanced around the room to make sure no microphones were aimed our way. “No one hears about this,” he whispered.
I slapped my forehead. “Shit. Dan Rather’s offering fifty grand to hear what Poke gets from scruffing through trash bags at City Hall.”
Harry sighed. “Tell Danny-boy odds are running about five to three in favor of Plackett…and that Squill guy hanging off his tit.”
“For nine days we’re gonna be shoved away from Nelson? Just so we don’t get lucky and break the case, maybe making the chief decision an even race at best?”
“Squill’s set to make a two-level jump, Cars. He doesn’t want even money.”
“Tell that to the next guy looking Mr. Cutter in the knife.”
Harry went to fetch a coffee. I watched him walk slowly through the maze of desks, giving himself time to think. He returned three minutes later, hard resolution in his eyes.
“It’s looking more and more like we’re gonna have to nigger this case, brother. Do most of the work for none of the credit. You cool with that idea?”
“It’s what we’re doing now,” I said, standing and rolling up my sleeves. “Let’s surf ’em and turf ’em.”
Harry shook his head sadly.
“That don’t mean a damn thing, Cars. They got to mean something.”
Apartment manager Briscoe Shelton wasn’t thrilled about being pulled from his TV viewing, a fuck opera by the sounds through his door, bass-heavy synthetic music and moan-inflected ululations. I’d returned, unsatisfied after Thursday’s toss of the place got chopped short by Squill’s meeting. Harry was pounding pavement, revisiting Deschamps’s contacts. He did what we were supposed to do, I did what we hoped would work, making one final run before Wally hippoed through. If Squill found out, I’d be humping an oil rig, handing Harry tools.
“How’s about you folks git through looking at this place so’s I can rent it,” Shelton whined after the key-flip bit again.
“How’s about you get your sorry ass back in your office and continue your jack-off session?” I replied. Screw public relations, sometimes it’s just not worth it.
It was a steam room inside. I hit the misnamed High button on the wheezing window AC and looked for fresh ground to plow. The contents of the aluminum box hadn’t magically returned, so I turned to Nelson’s junk drawer, where all the orphan crap goes to die. For Nelson it was matchbooks, broken combs and brushes, bent tweezers, a couple of screwdrivers, pliers, cracked candles, matchbooks, a half roll of duct tape, and a stack of menus.
I crouched in the tepid wind of the AC and flipped through the menus. Pizza. Sandwich shops. Gumbo joints. Rib shacks. More pizza. Lots of delivery menus. Made sense; judging by the paucity of gear in the kitchen, Nelson hadn’t apprenticed at Spago. I was set to move on when I noticed a room-service menu from the Oaks Hotel in Biloxi, part of the sprawling High Point gambling complex.
A woman friend and I had stayed at the Oaks a few months before, though we’d started at the Day’s Inn. After an afternoon of cheddar on Triscuits and experiments in fluid dynamics, we’d sashayed to High Point’s casino to try the blackjack tables. A well-timed jack had left me staring at over a thousand dollars. We’d shifted our experiments to the Oaks and left the cheese and crackers for some lucky housekeeper.
Two nights at the Oaks turned my windfall to vapor. Or, more romantically, to memories. I remember a bed large enough to confound a surveyor, a spa with gold-plated fixtures, and an honest-to-gosh bidet, which continues to perplex me. Though the experience was a kick, I was relieved when we left, like I’d reached some sort of limit.
So the question was, what was a sidewalk-level hustler with a small wallet and big dreams doing at the Oaks, if he indeed really had been there? I flicked the menu with my thumbnail and remembered back to the casino, how the one-eyed jack winked when I lifted the edge of the card.
Maybe it was time for a little more luck.
“I’m busy here, bubba,” the flat voice growled over the phone. “You get one minute.”
Ted Friedman was assistant director of security at the Oaks Hotel, an unhappy guy with a flat midwestern accent, Detroit maybe, or the hard side of Chicago. He spoke around a cigar. I laid out a sketch of what I hoped for and heard keystrokes in the background.
“If your boy was a hotel guest in the past year I can tell you. Lessee…Nalen, Naughton, Navis, Naylor…”
While Friedman talked I pictured a scowling, boiler-chested guy in a fog of stogie smoke, scrolling through a screen of guest names, the walls of his surrounding room filled with security monitors peeking down hallways and into elevators.
“…Nebner, Neddies, Neeland, Neeler, Neffington, Nekler, Nelson. Three Nelsons in the past year. Linda Nelson from Opeleika, Russell and Patricia Nelson from Green Bay, and John and Barbara Nelson from Texarkana. That’s it, bubba. Any help?”
“Not what I wanted.”
“Nice talking to you, bye.”
I recalled Nelson’s affinity for aliases. “Wait a minute, Mr. Friedman, my man’s got a thing for reshaping his name.”
“Time’s up.”
“Two minutes, Mr. Friedman. Five at the max.”
“Hanging up now, bubba. I just went on break.” I heard the phone leave his ear.
“You ever a cop, lardass?” I yelled.
I swear I heard Friedman’s phone rise back up; his air must have been scratchy with cigar smoke. “BATF. Twenty years with real law enforcement.”
“Always hated working with the locals?” I asked.
A satisfied snort. “Especially bubba locals.”
“I’d never have guessed. Fun to dish it out?” I heard his smile through the wires. “Turnabout’s fair play,” he crooned around the stogie. “Ain’t too bad.”
“What’d I do to you?” I asked.
“The runaround. The tickets. The general small-town-cop horseshit.”
I said, “I guess I don’t remember you.”
“Musta been one of your brothers.”
“Why don’t you slap that boulder off your shoulder, Friedman?”
“Why don’t you ride the bone, bubba. I gave you what you asked for.”
“That Nelson I’m interested in? He’s on the cold coast over here. No head. Got another just like him one drawer over. I’m expecting triplets any day. When it gets out some fatass at the Oaks could have made a difference, it’ll hit the papers big time. Especially when it turns out he’s an ex-fed. You might want to consult your PR director on this. Thanks for the help, Friedman.”
There was a five-beat pause before Friedman spoke. “You bought yourself two more minutes, bubba,” he said thickly; I wondered if he’d bitten off the ass end of the cigar. “What the hell is it you want?”
I heard Hembree’s voice in my head: “Jerrold Elton Nelson, aka L’il Jerry, aka Jerry Elton, aka Nelson Gerald aka Elton Jelson.” I remember this stuff perfectly until a case is closed, then kawhosh, my mind flushes it.
“Try Gerald. Can you do first-and last-name searches?”
Friedman sighed. I heard the cigar snuff out in a metal ashtray, followed by keystrokes. “I’ve got no last names ‘Gerald’