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The junkie scrawled his name on both parts, tore off his tab, slid the other end back to Bollimer. After keying in another code, Bollimer sent the seventy-five jingling down a tube. “You got thirty days to reclaim,” he said, and only shook his head as the man rushed out of the shop.
“He’ll be back, but not to claim this.” Bollimer tagged the wrist unit, set it aside. Then he ran a hand over the near-mirror gloss of his slicked-back hair. “What can I do for you officers today?”
“Regular customer?” Eve asked.
“Binks? Sure. This is his property.” Bollinger tapped the wrist unit. “I’ve seen him wearing it before.”
“Sooner or later, he’s going to get a jones on without anything to hock. Then he’s going to start stealing, end up mugging somebody.”
Bollimer nodded sagely. “It’s the way of this sad, sad world. I run a straight place. Licensed. I check the hot sheet for stolen merchandise every day, and cooperate with the authorities. You looking for something hot maybe hasn’t hit the sheets, you can take a look around.”
“We’re Homicide.” Eve pulled out her badge, held it up to the security screen. “We’re investigating the murder of Detective Coltraine.”
His mouth dropped open while his black weasely eyes popped wide. “What did you say? Ammy? You’re telling me Ammy got killed?”
“The media’s reported it. Her name was released to them a couple hours ago. Don’t you listen to the screen, Stu?”
“What the fuck I want to hear that shit for? Hold on. Just hold on.”
He pushed a button, had the screen coming down on his front door. Eve heard the lock click. Though his shock and distress rang true, she set a hand on her hip closer to her weapon when he pushed back on his rolling stool, got up, and hurried to unlock hi
s cage door.
When he came out, she saw the gleam of tears in his eyes. “What happened? What happened to that girl?”
“Somebody killed her last night. Her body was discovered in the basement of her apartment building this morning.” That much the media had.
“That’s not right. That’s just not right.” He pressed his fingers to his eyes for a moment. “You got she used me as a confidential informant?”
“Yeah. Did you feed her anything recently that might’ve pissed someone off enough to take her out?”
“No. No. Petty shit, just petty shit. I used to be higher level. Got busted. Did time. You know all that, too. Since then, I’ve kept it straight, mostly. I didn’t like the slam, and don’t want to go back. Ammy came in one day, with the blond cop. They’re looking for some jewelry got taken in a mugging. Turns out I had one of the pieces—a ring. I did the transaction like an hour before. Son of a bitch. I usually got a nose for the hot.”
He tapped his finger to the side of his bladelike beak. “The blonde, she comes down hard—but the thing is, it wasn’t on the hot sheet yet. What am I, I says, a fucking mind reader? I give them the ring, the ticket, the ID copy. Full cooperation. Me, I’m out the two hundred I paid, but that’s the way of it.”
“They get the guy?”
“Yeah. Ammy, she comes back alone the next day, to thank me. How about that?” he added with a slow, sappy smile. “She comes in to thank me, and to tell me the guy who rolled the couple for the jewelry and shit gave the ring to his girlfriend. And she turned right around and comes in here to hock it. So they got her to flip on the boyfriend, recovered all the shit. Hardly ever happens that way. We got to talking, ’cause we’re both from Georgia. I haven’t been south of Jersey for about twenty years, but still. She’d come back in, by herself, bring me coffee. How about that? And I sort of fell into passing her information if I had any. She was a sweetheart. A goddamn sweetheart.” Those tears gleamed again. “They hurt her?”
“Not as much as they could have.” Eve took a chance. “They took her piece. Do you have a weapons business on the side, Stu?”
“I won’t even take knives, much less stunners or blasters. But I know people who know people who maybe do. I’ll check around.” He cleared his throat. “Is there going to be a service for her, anything like that? I’d want to come. I’d want to pay my respects. She was a sweetheart.”
“I’ll make sure you know when I have the details of that.” She drew out a card, passed it to him. “If you find out anything, hear anything, think of anything, contact me.”
“You got that.”
Eve started out, turned. “You said she came back, alone. Did she always come in here or meet you solo?”
“Almost always. You know how it is when you’re courting a weasel. It’s one on one.”
“Yeah. Yeah, it is. Thanks.”
Peabody sniffled when they stepped outside. “God, he nearly had me dripping. I think he loved her—sincerely. Not like I want to roll with you in chocolate sauce, but like a daughter or something.”
“She’s coming across as having that effect on people. Maybe she was going out to meet another weasel. One she was courting.”
“I like that better than thinking somebody in her own squad did her.”
