No Goodbye
A Jack Brady Story
by Robert W. Tinsley

George Denham was the odds-on favorite to be the next mayor of El Paso. The fact that his wife was missing hadn't changed that -- yet. He walked into my office on a Tuesday morning as I was working on a carved walking stick for a friend up in Santa Fe. I got up, brushed off most of the wood shavings, and met him in the carpeted sitting area in front of my desk. He looked at me a little oddly, but I'm used to that. At six-four, two-eighty with a tattoo of a Navy SEAL Budwiser on my left forearm, I often attract odd looks.

"I'm Jack Brady, Mr. Denham. What can I do for you?"

Denham plopped into one of my chairs. He didn't appear to be the type that usually plopped into anything. "It's my wife. She's disappeared." Denham was six feet tall, medium build, clean-shaven, with dishwater blond hair. He appeared to be in his mid-forties, but I knew him to be at least ten years older. "She wasn't there when I got home last night. She didn't come back at all." He was dressed in a tailor-made dark gray three-piece suit even though it was July in the West Texas desert.

"Have you called the police?"

"Of course I have." He was wringing his hands, fidgeting in his seat, and his eyes looked like he should have been using Visine. "I'm horribly worried. This isn't like her."

"Who did you talk to, and when?"

"When Amanda hadn't come in by ten o'clock last night, I called a captain, Lou Estrada, at home. He's an old friend. He asked me a lot of questions. He said that there was no evidence that she left other than of her own free will. Until she had been gone for more than seventy-two hours or I received a ransom demand, there was nothing that the police could do. He also said that if I insisted on doing something immediately, I should get in touch with you."

I made a couple of notes on a steno pad. "But you waited until this morning. Why?"

"Oh, I don't know! I kept hoping that she would call or walk through the door. But she didn't. I finally fell asleep on the couch. I woke up this morning hoping it was all a dream. When I realized it wasn't, I called you."

"Are you sure you don't want to wait to get the police involved in this? They have more manpower and resources than I do."

"No!" Denham almost came out of his chair. "I want you on this immediately. I'm sure something bad has happened."

"What makes you think that?" I asked. "Captain Estrada seems to think that she left of her own accord."

Denham bounced out of his chair and began pacing. "She couldn't have! She would have left me a note, something. We were happy. There was no reason for her to leave me. If she were called away somewhere suddenly, she would have said goodbye. She always did"

"Did you notice anything unusual about her lately?"

"Well, she seemed to be a little distracted the last couple of days. I asked her about it, but she said it wasn't anything important."

"Have you checked with her friends?"

"I've called everyone I can think of. No one has seen or heard from her."

"What about relatives?"

"She has none. At least none living that she ever mentioned. I once asked her if she wanted to vacation somewhere that had pleasant memories for her. She told me that she didn't have any pleasant memories before she met me. She never talked about her past, and since the subject seemed to make her uncomfortable, I never asked."

I sighed. "What did she take with her? Car? Clothes? Credit cards? Did she raid any of your bank accounts?"

Denham plopped down again. "As far as I can tell, she left with the clothes she had on. Her car is still in the garage. Her purse isn't around, so she must have taken it with her. As for the bank accounts, I don't know. Should I check?"

"Yes, do that after you leave here." I paused a moment. "I'll look for your wife, Mr. Denham. But if I find her and she doesn't want to return, I won't tell you where she is."

Denham waved his hands in dismissal. "Fine, fine. Just find her. I have to know she's all right."

I nodded. "I'm going to need to see the house, her room."

"Search it, you mean?"

I shrugged. "Not so much search it as look around. Get a feel for who she is and how she lives."

Denham shook his head and sighed. "Well, if you feel you must. You can meet me there at noon. I'll have the answers on the bank accounts by then."

* * *

Denham lived on East Rim Road, about a hundred yards from where it turned into Scenic Drive and wound around the southern end of Mount Franklin. The road was built above a cliff a hundred feet or so high. A two-foot stone wall ran along the edge of the cliff; the houses on the other side of the road ran well into six figures.

I pulled up in front of the Denham residence at five minutes before noon. It was a two-story brick affair that, like its neighbors, had been built back in the '60s.

Denham must have been watching for me. He opened the door, a heavy hand-carved affair, before I could take my finger off the bell. He led me through a short entrance hallway and into a large, airy room that must have taken up a full quarter of the first floor. The room was furnished with antiques. There was a black baby grand near one of the east windows. The glistening top was liberally scattered with photographs of a very attractive woman in various seasons, clothes and poses. I walked over and picked one up.

"Is this your wife?"

"Yes. That's Amanda. Isn't she beautiful?"

She was every bit of that. Ash-blonde hair, high cheekbones, a firm jawline. Everything in the right places and in the right proportions.

"Is this picture recent?"

Denham took a closer look and said, "That was taken about six months ago. We were at the Grand Canyon."

"She seems quite a bit younger than you. Has that been a problem?"

Denham looked puzzled. "What do you mean? What kind of problem?"

"Oh, you know. The usual. She likes to go out and party, you like to stay home. She likes loud rock music, you like Bach. She runs with a younger crowd, you run with the old fogies. That sort of thing."

"That's never been a problem with us. We're very well matched."

We went upstairs and into their bedroom. It was a large bedroom with a deep pile carpet the color of cinnamon toast. The king-size bed was covered with a sky-blue comforter. There was a large makeup case sitting on the dresser. It was covered in dark green leather that had been well-scuffed over the years. It looked like something a stage actor might have. "This is a substantial amount of makeup. In the pictures I saw, your wife seemed to be wearing little or no makeup. Was she in a theater group?"

"No. She never used more than one or two things out of that kit. I wondered about that too. She told me once it was her survival kit. For when she got old and ugly."

I looked into the walk-in closet, one side his, one side hers. "What about her clothes? Does everything seem to be here?"

"As best I can tell."

I walked into the master bathroom. It was almost the size of my bedroom. It had, aside from the usual accouterments, a whirlpool tub, a bidet, and a shower big enough to make the old joke about conserving water feasible. I opened the medicine cabinet. "Was she taking any prescription drugs, herbal concoctions, health foods?"

"No, nothing like that. She hates pills."

"Well, it doesn't look like she planned to be missing today. What about the banks?"

"Last night, between eleven and midnight, she used her ATM cards to withdraw two hundred dollars from each of three of our accounts."

I led the way back into the living room and stood looking at a photograph of Amanda Denham fresh off a tennis court, her face flush with victory. "Have there been any transactions since?"

"No. But she did call all three banks this morning to report the cards stolen."

"Well, at least we know that she was alive and presumably well this morning. Did she keep her PIN numbers in her purse or wallet or anywhere near the cards?"

Denham shook his head. "Absolutely not. She had an excellent memory, and she was almost paranoid about having her purse stolen. She would never have done that." He paused, and that stricken look came over his face again. "Is she doing this on her own, voluntarily?"

I didn't want to answer his question, but I didn't see any way not to. "Probably. If her purse had been stolen, how would the thief or thieves have gotten her PIN numbers? If they had her driver's license, and she'd based one of the PIN numbers on her birthday, then maybe they could have figured that out. But they couldn't have guessed three of them. And if she had been kidnapped and forced to withdraw the money from the ATMs, then she wouldn't have called to report the cards stolen. Unless she managed to escape, but then why wouldn't she have called you or come home? I hate to have to say this, but it's looking more and more like she disappeared under her own power."

Denham paced and wrung his hands. "But, why? During the two years we've been together, we've hardly had a cross word. There's nothing wrong with our marriage."

"She is considerably younger than you, Mr. Denham. Perhaps that's it, or perhaps she just didn't feel like being the wife of a politician."

"No, no. That's not it. She supported me one hundred percent. I wouldn't have begun campaigning otherwise."

I sighed. "Well, I have some other avenues to follow." I picked up the Grand Canyon picture. "If I can take this picture, I'll have some copies made and start checking around."

"Yes, that's fine. But please be as discreet as you can. I don't want the media getting this any sooner than absolutely necessary."

I climbed into the agency Explorer and headed west on Rim toward Mesa. I picked up the cellular and called the office.

Kathleen picked up the phone on the first ring. "Brady Investigations. May I help you?"

"Kathleen. I've got some work for you."

"Hi, Boss. What do you need?"

"Saddle up your little computer and find out everything you can about one Amanda Denham." I gave Kathleen Amanda's maiden name and Social Security number. "Also check plane and bus manifests. Oh, and check Amtrak too. I think the train was headed west yesterday."

"Got it. Is this the new job?"

"Yeah. Wayward wife. But this one's a name."

"OK, Boss. Call back in a couple of hours. I should have something by then."

My next call was to a friend at the Texas State Bank.

"TSB Credit Department, Sherri North speaking."

"Hi, Sherri."

"Jack Brady! What a pleasant surprise! How have you been doing?"

"Fine, Sherri. Listen, I have a favor to ask. I wouldn't have come to you, but it's very important, and I need the info fast."

"Jack Brady! If you had gone to anyone else, I would have never spoken to you again. After what you did for Bill.... What do you need?"

"George Denham and his wife Amanda have Visa cards issued by your bank. I need to know if there's been any action on them within the last forty-eight hours."

"Hang on, Jack."

Sherri started the Muzak in my ear as I turned north onto Mesa from Kerby. Traffic was heavy as usual since Mesa is the only main drag in this part of town. I made it up to the Chevy dealer before she came back on the line.

"Here we are. Last night at 7:04, a purchase was made with the wife's card at Modas Claudia on South Stanton Street. The address puts it within a couple of blocks of the International Bridge. And that's not all. This morning she called in and reported her card stolen. What's going on, Jack?"

"You always were one for asking the right questions, Sherri. Thanks a lot! One of these days soon we'll sit down over a beer."

* * *

My next call had been to Jessica Hirschorn, who George had told me was Amanda's best friend. She agreed to see me, so I drove up into the Coronado Hills to her house, though the word house turned out to be something of an understatement.

The lady was a fox! Early forties, tall, slim, athletic. Healthy, very healthy. Dressed in an unassuming white blouse and slacks the exact same shade of green as her eyes. The outfit, without being blatant about it, complemented a figure that would turn male heads wherever she went.

"Come into the living room," she said in a contralto voice that made my toes curl. "Please have a seat. May I get you something to drink?"

"No, thank you."

"Would you mind if I had one?" She started pouring from a cut-glass decanter before I had a chance to answer. This was a woman who was used to getting her way. "On the phone you said something about Amanda being missing?"

"Yes, ma'am. She didn't come home last night."

"What do you want from me?"

"Just some information. Mr. Denham told me you were Mrs. Denham's best friend."

"Did he, indeed?" She tilted her head, her auburn hair falling back to expose what some people would call 'good bone structure.'

"I was wondering if Mrs. Denham said anything to you, yesterday or anytime in the past, that would lead you to believe that she was planning to go anywhere."

"I haven't talked to Amanda for almost a week, but, frankly, I don't think she would have gone anywhere without telling George about it."

"Why?"

"Because she is in love with her husband. I don't mean that in the run-of-the-mill way that wives love their husbands, if indeed they really do. She literally would do nothing, intentionally or unintentionally, that would cause George a moment's worry or concern." She paused and took a sip of her drink. "Now, I'm not much of a believer in 'true love', and since I've been married four times, I feel I'm something of an expert. But if any woman could be considered to be truly, wholly in love with her husband, it would be Amanda."

"And is Mr. Denham equally in love with her?"

"Head over heels. I really don't understand it, but it certainly makes a person think about their own life."

"Did Mrs. Denham ever discuss her past with you?"

"Oh, sure. We used to have girl talks about our high school and college days all the time."

Well, it was about time I found someone who knew something about her past. "Really? Where did she go to college?"

"Why, she went to...." She broke off and frowned, not too hard, in puzzlement. "You know, that's odd."

"What is?"

"I don't think she ever mentioned where she went to college. Or high school either, for that matter."

"What about the period between college and the time she met you?"

"We never really talked about that. Oh, I brought it up a couple of times, but she would always change the subject. I got the impression that it was a time she'd rather forget."

"Can you think of any place she might go if she wanted to be alone?"

"No. No, I really can't think of a place. I can't even imagine her in the kind of emotional state that would make her want to be alone."

"Oh, really? Why do you say that?"

The lady took a thoughtful sip of her drink. "Under her pretty, rather inoffensive exterior, Amanda is one tough cookie. I can't imagine any situation she couldn't handle."

I got up and handed her my card. "If you think of anything more, please don't hesitate to call me any time. And, please, Mr. Denham wants to keep this as quiet as possible. He would appreciate your cooperation."

* * *

It took me about twenty minutes to travel from high-class expensive to low-class cheap. The address for Modas Claudia put it on Stanton Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. At that point Stanton is a one-way street headed North, away from the river. It's the downtown crossing from Juarez into El Paso. I drove South on Mesa Street until I hit Eighth, then turned East and began cruising for a parking space. This part of downtown El Paso is almost indistinguishable from downtown Juarez. Most of the signs in the store windows were in Spanish; all of the radios playing in the shops were tuned to Mexican radio stations; and most of the people on the street were Mexican nationals.

Modas Claudia was a seedy little clothing store within rock-throwing distance of the river. It had a moldy smell, due in part to bad ventilation and part to the fact that the building housing it, along with four other equally seedy businesses, was probably ninety years old. The shop seemed to specialize in spandex. If the vice cops wanted to put together a rogues' gallery of the street trade, all they'd have had to do was set up a van across the street with a hidden camera. I'd bet every hitch-hooker in town did their wardrobe shopping here.

The place was no more than twenty feet wide by sixty deep. It was dimly lit, whether by accident or design was anybody's guess. The floor space was jammed with merchandise. If anyone fumbled a match while lighting a cigarette, the whole block would be smoke and ashes in minutes. The cash register was at the front next to the door. Presiding over it was a sharp-eyed harridan, a hundred pounds overweight, with badly teased hair the color of burnished copper.

She grinned at me, showing teeth that reminded me of a picket fence. "What can I do for you, handsome?"

I pulled out the photo of Amanda Denham and showed it to her. "Have you seen this woman?"

She squinted at the photo, then looked up at me, the professional smile still in place. "Pretty girl. You a cop?"

"No. Have you seen her?"

"You got a reason to know?"

I pulled a twenty out of my pocket and laid it on the counter between us. "I got twenty of 'em."

"What you want with her?"

"Just to find her. Got something to tell her." I gave her my best reassuring smile. It must have worked. Either that or the other twenty I put down.

She picked up the two twenties, then the photo and squinted at it again. "This picture don't look much like her, but, yeah, she was in here last night."

"You sure it was her?"

Only an ex-whore or a preacher could look that indignant. "Sure, I'm sure! I don't forget my girls. Just 'cause she went away for a while, don't mean I forget what she looks like."

"What do you mean, 'your girls'?"

"My regulars. You know, working girls."

Oooh-kay. Things were rolling now. "You said she'd been away for a while. How long?"

The harridan screwed up her face in concentration. "Lemme think.... Last time I saw her was right after Tio Julio died. Four years ago. She sent flowers. Nice girl."

"Did she say where she had been?"

"No. Just out of town."

"What did she buy?"

"A new outfit. From the skin out." She winked at me. It was like half of her face folded in on itself.

"What do you mean?"

"Everything. Underwear, stockings, garter belt, shoes, and one of the best dresses I got. A black knit that you can adjust from top or bottom, depending on how much you want to show before you see the color of his money."

"Did she say anything about where she was staying or what she was doing?"

"She didn't tell me nothing. Just that she was back on the street. Hey! You used up your reasons. Go 'way. You scaring my customers."

Since I had no desire to put Claudia out of business, I left.

I was getting somewhere, but I was pretty sure I didn't want to be there. One reason a missing person leaves all their possessions behind is that they left under duress. Another reason is that they don't want anything to connect them to their previous life. It was beginning to look like duress wasn't an option.

My car was almost directly across the street and walking down to the corner seemed like a waste of time, so I decided to jaywalk. I stepped out into the street from between two parked cars. I was about halfway across the street when I noticed a shiny red Crown Victoria pull out of a parking space down the block. I didn't pay it any particular attention at first. It was just one more item that I was aware of. Then I heard the engine roar and the tires chirp. The car had my full attention now!

I took a flying leap toward the top of my Explorer's hood. The car roared past behind me. Some part of it, probably the passenger side door post, clipped my heel just enough to send me spinning like the needle of a compass as you pass under the North Pole. I wound up sitting on my butt on the sidewalk with my back to the street.

Some guy pushed his face in front of mine. "Hey, man! You OK?"

I took a quick inventory. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." Places hurt where I had forgotten I had places, but nothing seemed to be broken. Back during Hell Week when I was young, vigorous and stupid, my instructors pounded into me the following axiom: "Pain is your friend. It is God's way of telling you you are still alive." Now that I'm in my fifties, pain seems a lot less friendly.

"That was close, man! You sure you're all right?"

"Yeah, thanks." I pushed myself up. "You get a look at the driver?"

He shook his head. "No, man. All that dark glass, you know?"

"Yeah. Thanks again." I stood there a minute, counting my lucky stars. It was probably just some drunk concentrating more on staying awake than on where he was going. But then, there was my Tickler, that cold spot between my shoulder blades. It had kept me whole more than once in the late Southeast Asian unpleasantness, and it was working overtime now.

* * *

The downtown police substation is right across the street from the county jail and the county courthouse. I parked in the courthouse parking garage and walked the block to the substation. The street in front of the jail always has people on it. Women stand across the street and gesture in a private semaphore code, trying to communicate with their incarcerated boyfriends or husbands.

I walked in and greeted the desk sergeant. "Hey, Mac."

"Jack! How's it hanging?"

"Just out of reach. Is Ted in?"

"Sure, go on back." He buzzed me through the gate, and I headed for the squad room.

Detective Sergeant Ted Schilling was sitting at a desk against a wall that used to be a garage door when this building was a fire station. "How's it going, Ted?"

Ted is a large man, though not in my class, and blond almost to the point of being as white-headed as I am. "Pretty well, Jack. Have a seat and take a load off." He leaned back in his chair, eliciting a squealing protest from the springs. "What brings you down to my little kingdom?"

"I'm working on a missing persons case that looks more and more like it's going to wind up among the working girls."

"What? You got a runaway?"

"Kinda. Anything unusual happening on the street right now?"

"Don't know if you'd call it unusual, but there's a new player in town."

"Oh, yeah? Who?"

"Name's Pedro Armindarez. He's not really new, though. Several years ago he pissed off a minor drug lord and had to blow town for his health."

"The druggie finally cool off?"

"No, he just got cooled." Ted guffawed at his own joke. "The guy Pedro pissed off was Mando Lopez."

"Didn't the Border Patrol fish him out of the river about a month ago?"

"Glad to see you keeping up on your current events, Jack. Pedro must have gotten the word, so he blew back into town about a week later with a couple of new fillies. Since then he's been trying to pick up some of the girls from his old stable. The regular players aren't real happy about him being back, but I think he's tough enough to make it stick. His rap sheet shows a string of simple assaults and ADW using a knife."

I pulled the picture of Amanda from my pocket and showed it to Ted. "Know the woman in this picture?"

Ted studied the photo for a minute, then shook his head. "Looks familiar, but I can't place her."

"Imagine her with heavy makeup and a puffed-up hooker hairdo."

He studied the picture some more, this time squinting a little. "Maybe. Hang on a second." Ted scooted his chair over the floor to a filing cabinet, pulled open a drawer, and rooted around in it. He pulled out a file and opened it. "Yeah, this could be her. 'Cept she's a brunette. Trish Golden. Least that's the only name we ever had on her. She was a regular on the streets until four years ago. Nothing on her since. She the one you're looking for?"

"No, but she might know the girl I am looking for. This Trish Golden was in Pedro's stable?"

"Yep. In fact, the last we have on her was just before Pedro took his extended vacation."

"Great. Thanks, Ted." I got up and headed for the door. "I owe you lunch."

"Tuesday's good for me," he called out. "And you be sure to keep in touch on this."

I was paying the parking fee on my way out of the garage when the phone rang. "Brady Investigations."

"Hi, Boss. I have what you wanted, but it probably isn't going to make you very happy."

"No records past about three years ago, right?"

"If you already know the answers to the questions you ask me, why do you ask me?"

"Because, Kathleen, me darlin', if I didn't ask you those questions, what would I pay you for? Besides, I have something else for you to do. Scan that picture of Mrs. Denham into your magic computer. Heavy up the makeup, change her into a brunette, and give her a pouffy hair-do."

"You want me to make her look like a hitch-hooker?"

"You got it. How long will it take you?"

"About an hour."

"Great. When you're done, print it out and make me some copies. I'll swing by and pick 'em up."

"Why don't you just call me and tell me where you are. I'll bring the pictures to you."

"If you leave the office, who's going to cover the phone?"

"It's already after five, and, besides, that's what call forwarding is for. Come on, Boss. How am I ever going to get any field experience if you never let me out into the field?"

I heaved a deep sigh. This was turning into a regular argument. One I seldom won. "Look, Kathleen, I'm going to be bar hopping through some of the roughest parts of town. That's no place for you."

"Oh! Like I never did any of that while I was in the Navy."

"Well, you're not in the Navy anymore. You're not a Master at Arms. You're my secretary."

"Assistant!" I had to hold the phone away from my ear. "I ... am ... your ... assistant! I am going to get my license, you know."

"Assistant. Whatever. All right. Meet me at the corner of Overland and San Antonio at eight."

"Great! See you there, Boss!"

* * *

On the way home, I stopped off at the Colonel's for a light dinner consisting of an eight-piece bucket and a pint of mashed potatoes. After changing into my biker clothes, I headed for my rendezvous with Kathleen. She was already there, leaning up against the passenger door of her Blazer. Kathleen and I always turn heads when we're together. I'm big, any way you look at me. Kathleen, in low heels, stands an honest six feet and has the body of a dancer. Tonight she was dressed in low-heeled cowboy boots, jeans, a black turtleneck, and a jeans jacket. Her dark hair was loose around her collar.

"Kathleen, if you insisted on getting here early, you should have waited in the truck with the doors locked."

"Boss, when are you going to accept that I can function down here just as well as you can?"

I had accepted that a long time ago, but I wasn't about to let Kathleen know it. Her time in the Navy as a Master at Arms, the Navy's police force, taught her how to handle the rough trade. Her biggest disappointment in the Navy had been that, as a woman, she couldn't be a SEAL.

We started touring the downtown streets, hitting every bar we could find. While I was in the Navy, I became intimately familiar with seedy bars, both in-country and out. They are all remarkably similar. The decor doesn't change much; the smells are the same; fights are started by the same words; even the booze tastes the same. About the only things that change, usually according to location, are the music and the language. Every bar we hit could have been put down anywhere between El Paso and Tierra del Fuego without anyone noticing the difference. The music ran to rancherias and conjuntos, and the language was almost exclusively Spanish.

The latter wasn't a problem. You can't be a P.I. in this town without either speaking Spanish or having a partner who does. Since I didn't have a partner, whatever Kathleen might think, that just left me.

The music was a different story. I hated it. I can barely tolerate country-western. Rancherias and conjuntos make American country-western songs sound like Viennese waltzes.

The drill was the same in each bar. Go in; show the picture to the bartender, the staff if there was any, and whatever portion of the clientele looked sober and docile enough. Ask if anyone had seen Pedro Armindarez, leave a card and move on. The first fourteen places we went into were dry wells, or so it seemed. I had just gone through the drill with yet another bartender in a joint called "Chuy's" when a guy hailed me from a table near the jukebox.

"Hey, Man Mountain. Come join me and my lady."

The man was tall and thin, his cafe-au-lait skin contrasting with his white linen suit, white patent leather shoes, pastel yellow shirt, and white Panama hat. His tie had so many colors, it looked like a painter's drop cloth. His lady was a knockout redhead wearing a simple green sheath dress that hugged all the right places. It should have been illegal for her to be seen outside a male fantasy. Kathleen and I walked over and sat down.

"My, my, my! Your lady certainly is a fine one. Say, honey, how would you like to come to work for me?"

Kathleen gave him a look that would make an Eskimo shiver. "How would you like to wear your balls for earrings?"

He put his head back and laughed. "Oooo-eee! Spirited too. You want something to drink, man?"

"No, thanks." I was busy figuring the best way to tie his ankles up around his ears. "You had something to say to me?"

"Yeah. I hear you looking for Pedro Armindarez."

"That's right. But I have the feeling you're not him."

He laughed again. A real jolly fellow. "You got that right! I guess that's why you're a detective. They call me Tricky Dickie."

"And you are a ... uh ... colleague of his?"

"You could say that, Mr. De-tec-tive. 'Cept we're not what you might call direct competitors. I'm uptown, and he's more downtown."

"You're awfully far downtown for an uptown kinda guy."

"As I said, I heard on the 'vine that you looking for Pedro. Since old Pedro, he ain't been back in town long, ain't got him a regular address yet, so to speak, I thought you might need a little help."

"You want to help. So maybe good old Pedro, back from his extended vacation, wants to do a little uptown business now?"

"Hey! I ain't afraid of a little competition, especially from that little jerk." He leaned back in his chair and smiled the smile of purest innocence. "I just want to help you find him."

"Ooo-kay. So, where is he?"

Tricky Dickie looked up and pointed at the front door with his chin. "That'd be him coming through the door now."

Kathleen and I turned in our chairs and looked. The man coming through the door was considerably shorter than my six-four and downright skinny. He was dressed in a flashy, multicolored silk shirt and bright green silk pants. He had on a pair of high-heeled boots so pointy that the toes turned up. His hair was midnight black and about shoulder length, pulled back into a ponytail. He had the high-cheekboned face of a mestizo and the jaunty, macho walk of a pimp. He bopped over to the bar and had a short conversation with the bartender. He looked over at us, then headed for our table. As he got closer, I stood up.

Armindarez stopped within my sphere of discomfort and looked up at me. "You a big one, ain't ya? You the shithead been looking for me?"

I stared him in the eye and hooked my thumbs in my belt. I could hear Kathleen dragging our chairs back out of the way. "I don't know. Who are you?"

"Don't give me no shit, man. You know who I am. Dick-head here would have told you."

Trickie Dickie wasn't going to let that one go. "That's Dickie, you little shit!"

"You shut up." Armindarez didn't take his eyes off me. "I'm not talking to you. And you, King Kong, I don't like people going around looking for me."

"I don't much care what you like or don't like, Pedro. I want to talk to you about one of your former girls."

"But I don't want to talk to you. I don't never want to see your face again. I do, and maybe I'll change it for you."

I shook my head and sighed. I could see Kathleen out of the corner of my eye. She was well out of the way and bouncing on her toes like a prize fighter. "Pedro, we're going to talk. We can go over to that booth and do it easy, or we can go outside and do it hard. Your choice."

"I'm not going anywhere with you, man! I think I gonna cut you a little. Just to make you a believer."

With one easy motion, he pulled a switchblade out of his pants pocket, snapped it open, and started a thrust toward my gut.

I had been ready for the move. I made a gate turn to the right and watched as his blade passed inches from my belt-buckle. I waited until he was fully extended, planted my left hand behind his right shoulder and pushed. Pedro went into a headlong, unbalanced run. He ran into a table and went down in a tangle of chairs.

"Put the knife away, Pedro," I said. "You're liable to get hurt."

He glared up at me from the floor, then fought his way to his feet. "You the one gonna get hurt, big man." He charged at me, the knife held about two feet out from his belt.

I turned like a matador as he reached me, but instead of pushing him on his way, I grabbed his knife hand and pulled up and back. His feet came off the floor. He reached horizontal about four feet in the air, then started down. You could hear the thump of his landing over the jukebox music. I twisted the knife out of his grip. "Give it up, Pedro. I can play like this all night. You'll wind up in the hospital."

Pedro rolled, groaning, into a crouch. His face was not a pleasant sight. "Fuck you, man! I'm gonna get you for this!" Then he was up and out the door like an Olympic sprinter.

"Shit!" I hadn't been ready for that one. I got my ass in gear and burst out the door just in time to see a shiny new red Crown Victoria squeal away from the curb and roar off down the street.

The door to the bar crashed open again, and I spun to face it. Kathleen skidded to a stop and looked around. "He got away?"

"Yeah. That's the second time that little bastard's tried to kill me today. He's starting to piss me off."

I closed the switchblade and tossed it to Kathleen. "There's another one for your collection."

We each headed for home, but before I could get there, my cell phone rang. "Brady Investigations."

"This is Amanda Denham. I want you to stop looking for me."

After nearly taking out a light pole, I decided to pull into a Jack-in-the-Box parking lot. "Mrs. Denham, your husband is very worried about you. He loves you very much and would like to know what's going on."

"Look, I'm sorry I have to put George through this, but, believe me, there's no other way."

"If you have a problem, maybe we can work it out. Just meet with me."

She sighed. "I don't want to meet with you. This is hard enough as it is."

"I told your husband when he hired me that if I found you, and you didn't want to come back, I wouldn't tell him where you were. But to be fair to him, I need to meet with you face to face. I need to know that you're doing this of your own free will. Telling me over the phone just isn't good enough. For all I know, someone could be holding a gun to your head."

She paused so long I began to wonder if I had lost her. "All right, Mr. Brady. Come to the Travel Inn Motel at I-10 and Yarborough at midnight tonight. Room 110. But I'm not going to change my mind."

* * *

The motel was one of those $28-a-night white boxes on I-10 just east of Yarborough. Room 110 was on the side of the building away from the freeway. Next to it was Pedro's Crown Victoria. I drove around and parked on the freeway side of the building. There was nothing around the building but asphalt and concrete, no bushes or ornamental plants of any kind to soften the stark plainness of the two-story rectangle.

The Crown Vic meant that little Pedro had gotten there before me. I didn't know which side of the table Amanda Denham was playing, and besides, Pedro had already tried to kill me twice today. I didn't plan on giving him another chance.

I pulled a Charter Arms .44-caliber Bulldog out of the glove compartment and clipped it to my belt in the cross draw position. Walking back to the room, I felt like a bug under a magnifying glass. The place was lit up like the Sports Park for a night game.

Room 110 was the third room from the back of the building. As I walked up, I could see the door of the room wasn't closed completely. Shoddy construction or cheap door hardware or both had kept the door from swinging completely shut and latching.

My Tickler was starting to chill my whole body in spite of the day's residual heat rising off the pavement. I pulled the Bulldog and approached. The door opened to the right, against the common wall with Room 109. I stood to the left of the door and, keeping my body against the wall between the door and the window, shoved the door open. I ducked my head into the doorway long enough to get a decent look into the room without giving anyone inside enough time to take a shot at me.

What I saw was enough to convince me that I wasn't in any immediate danger. I caught the door as it swung back and stepped inside, closing the door firmly. Every light in the room was on. The place looked like a slaughterhouse. There was blood everywhere, on the walls, on the furniture, on the carpeted floor. The blood had come from the two bodies in the room.

The body facedown on the floor was that of a man. I could see enough of his face to recognize Pedro Armindarez, pimp extraordinaire. He had an automatic knife with a four-inch blade, what we ancients call a switchblade, in his right hand. I'd given its twin to Kathleen earlier in the evening. His fancy shirt was almost in shreds from the knife cuts, and from the size of the bloodstain on the carpet, his front must have been worse than his back.

Draped face-up across the foot of the blood-soaked bed was the body of my client's errant wife, at least, as near as I could tell. She had a small pearl-handled dagger in her right hand and was cut up as badly as Pedro. The room was a shambles. The only way the fight could have gone unheard and unreported was if the surrounding rooms were empty.

I was about to dial 911 when the body on the bed groaned and stirred.

She opened her eyes and looked at me. "Are you Brady?" Her voice was so faint I had to kneel next to her head.

"That's right. Hang on. I'll call for an ambulance."

"No! Don't do that." The effort cost her. She closed her eyes for a moment, then reopened them. "It's too late for that. Even if I wanted it." She took a deep, shuddery breath. "Don't tell George that you found me."

"I have to. He's my client."

"No. Listen. I was a hooker before I met George."

"I know," I said.

She closed her eyes and took another shuddery breath. "When Pedro left town, I decided to get off the street." She opened her eyes and looked at me. "I have an education. I did it."

"Yes, you did."

"About two weeks ago, Pedro called me at home. He must have seen me downtown and followed me." Her voice trailed off. She was getting weaker.

"You don't have to tell me this. Just rest."

"No! I have to make you understand. Pedro was trying to blackmail me. He threatened to tell George. It would have killed any chance of him being mayor. So would giving in to the blackmail, eventually. He deserves to be mayor."

"He seems like a good man."

"I thought I could hide my past. But I was wrong. Someone else would have found out sooner or later. I had to get out of George's life. And I had to take Pedro with me."

There wasn't much to say to that. "He loves you very much, you know."

The pain that had suffused her features a moment ago vanished with the smile. "I know. And I love him, more than I can say. But don't tell him." She rested for a couple of heartbeats. Her breath was coming short and fast now. "That's my dying wish. You honor dying wishes. Don't you?"

"He has a right to know."

She shook her head. "Amanda Denham, dead in a hotel room with a pimp. That would hurt George. Trish Golden, hooker with an arrest record. She won't affect his career. No matter how she's found."

With that, she finished dying. I searched her purse and the room as carefully as I could, leaving no obvious signs that I had done so. There was nothing there to point to Amanda Denham. Only Trish Golden was left.

I called the police. When Lieutenant Johnny Soto of Crimes Against Persons asked me why I found the scene, I told him I had heard she had a line on a runaway I was tracing. Ted Schilling would confirm that I was looking for her and had mentioned a runaway.

It was almost dawn when I got home. About the middle of the afternoon, I called George Denham. I told him that I had done as much as I could and advised him to file a missing persons report with the police. Of course, they'd never find his wife either. Amanda Denham didn't have her fingerprints on file, and Trish Golden, thanks to me, wasn't a Jane Doe, so they'd have no reason to compare the two women.

Sometimes I wake up at night thinking about the Denhams. When I think about the look on his face at our last meeting, I wish I could tell him that the last thing she did was tell him goodbye.

ROBERT W. TINSLEY is a licensed engineer in private practice. He has published three other Jack Brady stories -- two in P.I. Magazine, one in Issue 28 of HandHeldCrime -- and numerous magazine articles on subjects ranging from blood transfusions to NASA's nuclear propulsion program. He is also a member of the editorial advisory board for "Heating, Piping, and Air Conditioning" magazine.

Copyright (c) 2002 Robert W. Tinsley

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