Page 10 of Dodge

He glanced at the text, lifted a surprised eyebrow. “Well. Got a lead. Our data surveillance people just had a credit card hit. The name on the card was an alias she’s used before. A motel in Harvey. Nearby?”

“Town next door. Twenty minutes on the highway. Turn right, next light.”

“It’s the Western Valley Lodge.”

“Dive of a place—right by the railroad, which they don’t mention on the billboards. And it’s a meth quick mart. Girls too.” Lombardi’s heart began to thud fast. Audible to him. Was it to the marshal?

Of course not.

“Left, next intersection.”

“Might be a waste of time but ...” Greene shrugged. “I’m the eternal optimist. When I first heard that, I was a kid. I thought it wasinternaloptimist. You have children?”

“Not yet. It’s part of the plan.”

“Your wife work?”

“Teacher. She says maybe she’ll just buy one in her class. Easier, and they’re housebroken.”

Greene didn’t smile. Should he have said Jess “joked”? Greene wouldn’t really think she was serious about buying a kid, would he?

Then he told himself to relax.

Confidence ...

“You have a family, Ed?”

“I do. My wife’s an administrator, Chicago PD. We have two boys. High school and middle. Into soccer. Well, and girls. But that goes without saying.”

“Your next right. How do you like working the city?”

“Well, never dull. But there’re issues. Everything we do, we’ve got to keep the press in mind. They’re always looking for us to screw up.”

“We’ve got one paper, theCounty Gazette. They dropped the Police Blotter page when they had to cut back. Now it’s ag event stories, local politics and classifieds.”

Greene looked his way. The handsome face smiled. “I detecting a little dissatisfaction? You thinking of moving to the big city?”

A shrug. “You never know. Have more chances to move up. And the pay’s better than here, gotta be.”

“It’s a balance. Parts of the city’re war zones. You go into apartments, you never know if they’re waiting for you. There’re plenty of Marlowes out there. Don’t give a shit if they kill a cop. Fact is, sometimes they go out hunting for us. Gives them street cred. Plenty of weapons too. Hey, you ever serve paper?”

Lombardi said, “Warrants? Sure.”

“Some advice. Best way to do it is kneeling in front of the door when you knock.”

“Kneel?”

“Yep. If there’s a shooter inside, they aim for your chest through the door. And you can’t stand to the side either, since they’ve conned to that and fire there too. Keep low.”

“Hm.” Lombardi was scheduled to serve divorce papers on Harvey Engels and the man was never sober, and he sure did like to shoot his Browning 12-gauge at the moon. Lombardi’d remember the trick.

He told the marshal, “Give you an idea of policing around here, last year I collared a perp for kidnapping a cow.”

“You mean, like rustling?” Greene smiled. “Speaking of Westerns.”

“No, Jon Perry drove onto Elbert Sands’s place at midnight with a transport and made off with a Hereford. Sands was four months behind on a debt.”

“And he didn’t put up livestock for collateral. So it had to be snatched.”

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