Prologue 4

When I got to the office the next morning, it was almost noon and I was in the middle of trying to kill my morning breath with strong coffee from a Styrofoam cup.
Ariadne raised a brow at the rumpled shirt I had pulled out of the hamper, but chose to comment on my whiskers instead.
"No hot water again? Good thing you're rent's so cheap -- you're not getting much in return."
I shrugged off my coat and then went to the bathroom to shave.
When I came back, smooth as an angel's sole, Ariadne had printed out some addresses and was slipping on her jacket.
"Put your coat on," she said, slipping the papers and her notepad into her jacket pocket. "We're going to start with the station. Steve wouldn't email me the driver’s licenses for our Joes, so we have to go down there to see them on his computer. After we treat him to lunch at Narssicite..."
I winced at that.
"Sorry, I know you hate that place, but he's doing a favor for us. After we treat him to lunch, we're going to stop by Roy's apartments and canvass both neighborhoods. Zone Inferno, Roy's bartending gig, opens its doors at four."

Steve's computer showed us some interesting things. One of the Joesphine Williams was our client, dead-on. The picture was very recent and the address matched the one she’d given us. One of the Josephs, though, was also our client. He wasn't a blonde, but he did have blue eyes. Even I could see the face was the same, though younger. The license was due to expire later this year. I wondered if he was planning to renew it. The address was different, so we wrote it down.
Steve ate well for his trouble. I suffered through the pomp and pretense of Narssicite and I ponied up my half of the sizeable bill.

You can tell a lot about a person’s aspirations by where they live. Some kids value homes with good schools and quaint homes, while some want the media-spawned life of image and artistic surroundings. Just as you can judge a man by his clothes, you can do the same with his choice of home.
We tried Roy Webber’s address in Greenvale Park first. The neighborhood looked like a magazine spread. There was green grass and actual trees. The houses were well kept, the bushes trimmed to elegant shapes. Even the apartment buildings were elegant, and I hadn't really believed that possible.
Roy's apartment was in a tall white building with a huge lobby. We found the desk clerk behind a big curved desk of polished wood and stone.
His nametag said "Elroy Robertson" and he looked like a chubby police recruit who'd been rubbed raw. His rounded cheeks were very pink and he nervously straightened his navy blue uniform when we said we were detectives. From his demeanor, he had assumed we were police detectives. We didn't correct the assumption.
"Umm, yeah, Roy's a tenant here. Number 204. He's a real ladies' man."
Ariadne smiled a little. I recognized her “put ‘em at ease” mode.
“Really?” she asked. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, every time I saw him he had a woman on his arm. And there were lots.”
Ariadne raised her brows, encouraging him to continue.
“Red heads, brunettes, blondes. All dressed up like movie stars. Real lookers.”
“Did he ever say their names when you could hear him?”
“Nah, they would just breeze through. They never really stopped to talk to me, and when they talked to each other, it was pretty quiet.”
“If we showed you pictures, could you identify them?”
“Uh, maybe, but they all wore big dark sunglasses, like a movie star, like I said. Great legs though.”
Huh. That gave me pause. I decided to enter the conversation.
“Were all these women about the same height, same build, with long legs and short skirts?”
Robertson started to nod slowly as he sifted through his memories. He nodded more quickly and looked up at us in surprise.
“Yeah, they were!”
“They were all the same woman, Einstein.” I turned away. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Witnesses were so unreliable.
Ariadne smoothed everything over with Robertson; she didn’t believe in burning bridges.

We went up to number 204 and knocked on the door. There was no answer. I tried the knob and we got lucky. It was unlocked.
I went in first and drew my gun. We weren’t police anymore, but there was no way I wasn’t going to take measures to protect myself.
I don’t know what we were expecting, but whatever it was, we didn’t find it. I stood in the doorway in amazement, until Ariadne jabbed me in the back, telling me to get out of the way so she could see.