Page 40 of Concealed

“Sure, something like that was exactly what I meant, Mr. Chider.”

I’m certain my pals in blue don’t speak to him with anything resembling respect, so he’s already thinking I’m different. His contemplative expression suggests the wheels are turning in his thick head.

And if all it takes is making a speeding ticket go away, then shit, everything in my life should be so easy.

“So, whattaya want then?” he demands.

This is where it gets delicate, and I have to be careful how much information to give away. Someone like him wouldn’t know the extent of the trafficking ring, but he might knowsomethingthat got him thinking and would give me a lead.

“Have you heard about any missing hookers?” I ask.

I can’t bring up how young the girls are, or he’ll immediately shut down and think I’m trying to frame him for something. Someone as stupid as this guy sure as shit isn’t running a human trafficking ring, so he’s not giving me enough credit if he thinks he’s a suspect.

“What the hell would I know about hookers?” The suspicion is back on his face, and I have to be very careful.

“Not you, but maybe someone you know, a friend of a friend, said something. You heard something. A rumbling, a rumor.”

“About missing whores? Who the fuck cares?”

I shrug. “My boss.” I give him a shit-eating grin and pretend that we’re friends even though I want to kill him.

“Fucking bosses,” he mutters.

“Right?”

“Well…”

I’ve always called it my spidey sense, and the tingles shooting up and down my spine are in full swing. He knows something. And I need to play it cool, or I’ll never get it out of him. He can’t think that whatever he’s telling me has more value than a speeding ticket.

“You’d save me a huge headache,” I prompt.

“The ticket?”

“Consider it gone,” I promise.

He scratches his chin and seems to debate whether the life of a hooker is worth more than his speeding ticket.

“She ain’t no hooker, not really. She’s a kid and not the typical street kid either. Some of the people I know are associated with people who pick up girls like her off the street, you know? Not something I’d do, of course.”

“Course not.”

“But the girl… Roxanne. She was just gone one night. And there ain’t no way she moved back home.”

Roxanne Martin is the girl we know for certain is missing and whose disappearance allowed us to connect the dots on enough cases to build a task force.

“What’s the rumor?” I ask.

“Something went bad with her pimp. Maybe he offed her.”

Well, I doubt someoneoffed her, at least intentionally, but they might have sold her. Dead product isn’t good for business.

“Name?” I demand.

“It’s some chink name that’s hard to say. Oh, sorry. Some little Asian punk.”

I’m not sure that his correction is any better than the first label, but now isn’t the time to scold him for being a bigot.

“Try,” I insist.

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