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Chapter Twenty-Five

I dropped the CinSy They rented or sold their wares and offered ray contact lenses for 30 I’d enjoyed wearing undercover eyes and ht want to use them in the future Like a lot of people with vivid blue eyes, I was tired of being remembered only for that

I did have to pay for the three roupie have A buck-forty I should have charged her the going rate for a Cocaine own then

It also turned out that the "owner" had ordered that I be given a twenty percent "handling discount" on the entire package Cute Call hiuy didn’t h heart, er seat Quicksilver was not institutionally welco the Nevada Historical Society library to look up -person candidates for the lovers buried in Sunset Park I’d even called the police captain Ric counted as a source, Kennedy Malloy

I almost sed my wisdom teeth when an alto woman’s voice answered to the name She did tell me, reluctantly, the mint year of the silver dollars found at the site, 1921 Still in circulation in the seventies I couldn’t tell if her reluctance was the usual police reticence, or if she was as startled as I was to suddenly find Ric a bridge to a strange woured that his inside as Metropolitan Police would be a wo he’d want to know? Maybe I was prejudiced As I drove I replayed ourHad we been hit with some love potion that had been trapped with the dead lovers all these decades? Everyone liked to think roic, a for catching, like the plague?

I was glad to be heading for a place where I’d always been able to keep round and my head in the here and now: a library

A quick online search revealed the Clark County Library had the Las Vegas Evening Review Journal fro been just the LV Review Journal-on s in the library" to Quick and soon had Dolly aias The Clark County Library was only a block or so froratefullike those old reels of white-on-black filmstrips people had to reel past at seasick speeds years before, If I found anything of interest, I could simply print out a facsimile for a small fee

My only distraction: the ads for ere now vintage clothes oh ht sin If only tiot home, I noticed a scent of le the pre our first night in the cottage, he’d pawed open the French lever on one of the living rooone until he ju breakfast I tried tying thelever shut, but he used another one The next night I tied them all shut and he untied one with his teeth This was not a dog that would sleep by a cold fake fireplace all night

So I now left theover the laundry table open and Quick spent his nights doing whatever really big dogs do I couldn’t bla to be cooped up I just hoped he didn’t get hurt Even Superdog could run into trouble

I put downthe hall to the bedroo coe in the mirror at the hall’s always-dusky end ht when I’d coliirl in a different vintage dress

Then my double vision had cleared and I saas ray, despite the color-da contact lenses Weird But the hall was ill lit with a single overhead fixture, and I’d been drinking, not to ht, I just looked like me, only more casually dressed in slacks and a knit top I’d barely changed before the doorbell rang with an old-fashioned reenblack bug-eyes of an extra-terrestrial He just looked like an i of the Jolly Green Giant of TV co for his hairy han here, lady" As he handed reen delivery truck outside the open gate The print on the side read Mercury Express Ho, flat, and light, but way too deep to be pizza, unless it was a triple deep-dish Chicago style one Besides, it was only faintly warm from the suave the green guy a three-dollar tip and got a nasty look in return "I should get hazardous duty pay for delivering to Nightwine’s place, lady"

Twinkletoes stalked away, chi I hadn’t noticed the bells on the toe sandal straps before Only in Las Vegas, where every service person wore bizarre themed costu totable and pulled off the annoying invisible tape at the sides I heard the encouraging crinkle of tissue paper

This was beginning to look like a present Had Ric -?

Okay,on only one track lately

Oh No! It was the gown, and clips, from Deja-Vous A sheet of white velluundy ink read: "With my deepest compliments and self-interest Snow"

Amid the folds of black velvet coiled a slender lock of white hair,Then I noticed a PS under the note’s signature: "If I give you a piece of my power, maybe you won’t feel compelled to cut it off, cut it all off,those words Ridiculous I couldn’t, wouldn’t accept anything fro discount" even though the clerk had whined about uy feared his far-distant boss

I was ry than annoyed now The soft lock of hair reht tears tothe lost sensation of petting , pale hair

The da moved, faster than I could see Like a serpent it coiled aroundhard and silver and faht ar with an interior shiver that istered the lock’s silken circling of my wrist I’d felt it harden into cold ain

Honestly! Couldn’t anyone just leave me alone today?

I stomped to the door in my bare feet and pulled it violently open

The man on the stoop looked familiar, but totally huuy frooted Detective Haskell How had he gotten in here without going past the security system and Godfrey? Obviously, the delivery service had been passed through security, because it was a previous visitor, given the crack the guy htwine’s tips

"Yes?" I asked "You want?"

He walked in like he owned the place and planned to rent it to someone else

"You Don"

"Me? There must be some rabbed runted protest

The sound of a ine distracted us both

We had not heard an engine It was the deep sustained growl of a hundred-and-fifty-pound dog, like soe Quicksilver was standing in the hallway arch,forward

"Jesus!" Haskell didn’t drop my arm He drew his semiautomatic from a rear paddle holster with the other hand and pointed it at Quicksilver

"No!" I twisted s died on my watch, in my own place "Don’t shoot Quicksilver, no! Sit"

Haskell unleashed his own version of a growl "Get that aniht or he’s chopped liver"

Quicksilver was strong, big, and fast, but I wasn’t going to risk hiainst a hail of bullets, and I was sure Haskell was the type to overkill

"Back, boy!" I didn’t have a good place to pen him up, so I pushed him into the kitchen, and then shut the pantry door on hiht behind un down the front of his pants as proud and pleased as if it was so from the sudden threat to Quicksilver, but I found my calm, cool TV reporter voice "What’s this about, Detective?"

"Dead freak at the Inferno and you’re all over the security tapesit up with her in fancy dress Very fancy dress" He eyed me slowly, as if I was a naked centerfold

"If you want to talk to erprints Your DNA" He swaggered closer on each sentence

Quicksilver’s claere bounding against the shut door It wouldn’t hold hiet out of here before then Cooperation, capitulation, was the best etting literally inht to reht to an-" He stopped to stare atwhat’s left of one set of handcuffs you’ve escaped?"

"It’s a fashion state ave Haskell the spur he needed

"You’ll be ht" Haskell spun me around to snap both"You damn Goth punks with your fake prison tattoos and your heavy-ain"

He pushed ainst the nearest wall I avoided a broken nose only be turningso hard I could hardly hear anything over it No wonder First there’d been the threat to Quicksilver, now the swift administration of my favorite phobia: bound and in the hands of bullies I didn’t knohat had happened long ago to kick it off, but this scene wassanity

I had to cal that I should spread hs with thee and fear hting for control He was police He could maul me but he couldn’t really hurt"Always bad-uys and you turn around hot to be Meskin ood white skin wasted as black boys’ and bite boys’ meat" He pulled my hair, hard, back to examine both sides ofbite boy nibbles Wrists clean, but oh, too bad, somebody’s been bruisin’ ’em"

Yeah! Him!

"Bet you’ve done this bit before, babe, and liked it"

He jerked on my handcuffs I bit my lip to silence a cry Evidence of fear and pain only encouraged sadists like Haskell "Maybe you give out froh baby?"

A deep voice tolled like a basso bell in my mind You have a witness

Haskell’s head jerked up, as if he had heard it too "Is there someone here?"

I could hear a faint throb of fear Like all bullies, he feared soer And, yes, of course! I did have a witness!

"Nightwine," I called to the ceiling, re!" Just because his security ca 24/7 didn’tas Police Violence at this moment What could he do? Or Godfrey for that hs as Haskell stepped back to point it due north

"You got an accomplice up there? In the attic? This is only a one-story place Answer, bitch!"

"Nobody else is here, but this cottage stands on Hector Nightwine’s property He produces all the CSI shows"

He grabbed and pulled ain "You think I care who you service?"

"He’s my boss and a very paranoid man The whole estate is covered with security devices You’re on Candid Camera, Detective Haskell"

"I don’t believe you," Haskell said

But he was nervous now and backed away fro it way too easy First I got you on iie, Murder One Bet Cadaver Boy will be real upset about this Too bad"

He grabbedet in here, anyway?

I saw his car parked on the street He’d scaled the wall, so heEven better: Nightwine had hi personal property without a warrant outside as well as in, like the LA police getting into OJ Sied wife dead elsewhere Johnnie Cochran could ain

Haskell sla to push ed to duck, having seen enough crih live arrests in Wichita to know the drill

I fell sideways on a seat that smelled of sweat, vomit, and strawberry car freshener I almost added to the voh I wouldn’t want Haskell to knohat he’d done to ht, despite the bruising handcuffs I had excellent lower body strength from self-defense workouts Too bad it hadn’t paid to use them

He drove me down the Strip, a slow, public route that allowed people to gawk at hts I’d known cops I’d worked with theood, dedicated people But when one went bad, he went very bad indeed

At the cross street of Paradise, I spotted Quicksilver weaving in and out of the colorful trail of tourists on the sidewalks like a shaggy, ghostly greyhound

The pantry door would have to be completely replaced by the resident brownies, but I didn’tit as discreet as an ani

Chapter Twenty-Six

"Doas as The main police department offices were there, near the Fre since gotten its own building in the Sin City That Never Sleeps

Haskell left me handcuffed to a small, scarred table in a miserable cubicle of a roo (I wasn’t about to yell to that eye-in-the sky ceiling for help, anyway) In front ofof tar and nicotine I was sitting in a chair so plastic and imbued with sweat, fear, and other less mentionable bodily fluids that it o to the bathroom but knew that if I asked anyone he’d make sure I didn’t I’d covered crime stories I kne cops uilty of what? Back exposure with intent to seduce? It actually crossed my mind to wonder if Snoould bail me out It was probably his set-up anyway His note had implied that I had power of a sort Too bad nobody had clued me in on exactly what it was