“Downtown” was more than a figure of speech in Las Vegas. The main police department offices were there, near the Fremont Hotel, but homicide, aka crimes against persons, had long 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 room with soundproof tile on the ceiling. (I wasn’t about to yell to that eye-in-the sky ceiling for help, anyway.) In front of me was a table bearing nothing but one empty ashtray stinking of tar and nicotine. I was sitting in a chair so plastic and imbued with sweat, fear, and other less mentionable bodily fluids that it made my skin crawl.
I really needed to go to the bathroom but knew that if I asked anyone he’d make sure I didn’t. I’d covered crime stories. I knew how cops made suspects squirm by any means. So I was guilty of . . . what? Back exposure with intent to seduce? It actually crossed my mind to wonder if Snow would 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.
“Miss . . . Street?” The woman who poked her head in the door was blonde but hard-edged. Maybe five years older than I was. Carried her shoulders like she worked out and had mojo authority. Was a pretty cool chick, really. Ric’s captain friend. Oh, shit.
I nodded.
“I’m going to have to testify to your phone call proving prior interest in the Inferno, from witnessing the Sunset Park crime scene.”
“Be my guest.”
“Being a hard-ass won’t help you.”
“Funny. I thought telling the truth might.”
“Haskell says before this came up you impersonated an officer on that crime scene.”
“I implied, he inferred. He was being sexist.”
Blondie’s poker face didn’t move. She faced sexist every day.
“And racist,” I added.
A little of the ice broke. She really did like Ric.
“Haskell has issues,” she conceded. Malloy started to leave, then hesitated. “You might want to reconsider saying anything.”
I nodded. Message received. My truth could be my fall. I felt a shiver of silver moving along my arm to my hand. A white flash settled around my neck on a chain. Won’t you wear my ring. No!
Haskell poked his red, hypertensive face into the room. “Guess what. Guess you do have a man upstairs. Your ‘lawyer’ is here.”
All right! My lawyer. Pretty fast service from someone. Hmm.
“I hope you haven’t cuffed her,” I heard an authoritative voice say in the hall. A boldly black-and-white CinSim rolled into the room, maybe 270 pounds of designer suit. He had a baritone deep enough to take out the Three Tenors. Cool enough to chill dry ice.
“My name is Mason,” he said. “Perry Mason.”
Not Johnnie Cochran, but not bad.
Nightwine must have caught up with the tape pretty damn quick after we left. Who else would send Perry Mason, for God’s sake?
I sat up straight in my scuzzy jailhouse chair. I couldn’t wait for my next line. “My name is Street. Delilah Street.”
He took the chair across from me like a pope deigning to sit on a toadstool. “What a coincidence. My personal assistant’s name is Street. Della Street. May I call you—?”
“Delilah.”
He looked uneasy for the first time “Delilah. I like it. Now, Delilah Street, how do we get you out of this mess?”
“I thought that was your job.”
“Here, yes. The convincing explanations later are up to you, young lady.”