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Brown hair and eyes The girlish voice Soel" because of his sweet voice and because he had a cute baby face Bobby was thirty years old, but he looked sixteen Each of the nine victims had seen her assailant’s face, and each had said he looked like a kid, but handled hih, cruel, clever, and sick man
The chief bartender in Paradise left the business to his two subordinates and exa shots of Bobby Valdez that Frank Howard had put on the bar His na man, darkly tanned and bearded He hite slacks and a blue body shirt with the top three buttons undone His brown chest was olden hairs He wore a shark’s tooth on a gold chain around his neck He looked up at Frank, frowned "I didn’t know LA police had jurisdiction in Santa Monica"
"We’re here by sufferance of the Santa Monica PD," Tony said
"Huh?"
"Santa Monica police are cooperating with us in this investigation," Frank said iuy?"
"Yeah, sure He’s been in a couple of tio Maybe longer"
"Not recently?"
The band, just returned fro
Otto raised his voice above the music "Haven’t seen him for at least a month The reason I reh to be served I asked to see soot mad as hell about that Caused a scene"
"What kind of scene?" Frank asked
"Deer"
"That’s all?" Tony asked
"Called rim "Nobody calls me names like that"
Tony cupped one hand around his ear to funnel in the bartender’s voice and block some of the music He liked most Billy Joel tunes, but not when they were played by a band that thought enthusiasm and amplification could compensate for poor musicianship
"So he called you naized"
"Just like that? He deht away apologizes?"
"Yeah"
"Why?"
"I asked him to," Otto said
Frank leaned farther over the bar as the ized just because you asked hiht hiest and ets rowdy, I don’t ever have to touch him to quiet him down"
"You must have a hell of a lot of charm," Frank yelled
The band finished the chorus, and the roar descended froh to make your eyeballs bleed The vocalist did a bad imitation of Billy Joel on a verse played no louder than a thunderstor at the bar next to Tony She had been listening to the conversation She said, "Go on, Otto Show theician?" Tony asked Otto "What do you do--make unruly customers disappear?"
"He scares them," the blonde said "It’s neat Go on, Otto Show theed and reached under the bar and took a tall beer glass from a rack He held it up so they could look at it, as if they had never seen a beer glass before Then he bit off a piece of it He clamped his teeth on the rih the last chorus of the song and gifted the audience with merciful silence
In the sudden quiet between the last note and the burst of scattered applause, Tony heard the beer glass crack as Otto took another bite out of it
"Jesus," Frank said
The blonde giggled
Otto cholass and spat out a mouthful and chomped some more until he had reduced it to an inch-thick base too heavy to succu hunk in the can and suy who’strouble Then I look mean as a snake, and I tell him to settle down I tell hioddaaped at him, amazed "Have you ever done it?"
"What? Bitten off soh to et many hard cases here?" Frank asked
"Nah This is a class place We have trouble maybe once a week No more than that"
"How do you do that trick?" Tony asked
"Biting the glass? There’s a little secret to it But it’s not really hard to learn"
The band broke into Bob Seeger’s Still the Sa into a nice house with the intention of trashing it
"Ever cut yourself?" Tony shouted to Otto
"Every once in a while Not often And I’ve never cut n of soue," Otto said "My tongue has never been cut"
"But you have injured yourself"
"Sure My lips a few times Not often"
"But that only makes the trick more effective," the blonde said "You should see him when he cuts himself Otto stands there in front of the jerk who’s been causing all the trouble, and he just pretends like he doesn’t know he’s hurt hiht and with a hard little spark of animal passion that made Tony squirm uneasily on his barstool "He stands there with bloody teeth and with the blood oozing down into his beard, and he warns the guy to stopa ruckus You wouldn’t believe how fast they settle down"
"I believe," Tony said He felt queasy
Frank Howard shook his head and said, "Well"
"Yeah," Tony said, unable to find words of his own
Frank said, "Okaylet’s get back to Bobby Valdez" He tapped theon the bar
"Oh Well, like I told you, he hasn’t been in for at least a ry with you, after you settled hilass trick, did he stick around for a drink?"
"I served him a couple"
"So you saw his ID"
"Yeah"
"What was it--driver’s license?"
"Yeah He was thirty, for God’s sake He looked like he was in h school junior, maybe at most a senior, but he was thirty"
Frank said, "Do you remember what the naered his shark’s tooth necklace "Na," Frank said, "is whether or not he showed you a phony driver’s license"
"His picture was on it," Otto said
"That doesn’t e pictures on a California license Doesn’t the card self-destruct or so the whole card ued "Forged credentials" Clearly, he had watched a couple of hundred old espionage ?"
"I think we’ve gotten turned around here," Frank said impatiently
"Huh?"
"We’re supposed to be the ones asking questions," Frank said "You just answer them Understand?"
The bartender was one of those people who reacted quickly, strongly, and negatively to a pushy cop His dark face closed up His eyes went blank
Aware that they were about to lose Otto while he stillimportant to tell theently "You don’t want hilass, do you?"
"I’d like to see it again," the blonde said, grinning
"You’d rather do it your way?" Frank asked Tony
"Sure"
"Go ahead"
Tony smiled at Otto "Look, you’re curious, and so are we Doesn’t hurt a thing if we satisfy your curiosity, so long as you satisfy ours"
Otto opened up again "That’s the way I see it, too"
"Okay," Tony said
"Okay So what’s this Bobby Valdez done that makes you want him so bad?"
"Parole violations," Tony said