Baby Face by Steve Brewer

Author:Steve Brewer [Brewer, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9781890768201
Google: aLOEQjD2VPIC
Amazon: B004VFTOMA
Goodreads: 11827781
Publisher: Intrigue Press
Published: 1995-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

I spend most of my time trying to convince people I'm Sam Spade, and instead I come off like Gomer Pyle. I try to conceal something, I'm transparent. I try to be sly, I trip over my own feet. I'm a freaking goof. Such thoughts kicked me down the City Hall escalator and back to my car.

I wandered around Downtown, sitting at one red light after another, replaying the City Council conversations in my head.

If what Alice said was true, Quentin Dudley had beaten up at least one hooker in his life. Why not more? Maybe the pressure of campaigning and crusading had gotten to him, had sent him out to repeat the One Big Sin of his youth.

I shook my head to clear the thoughts. Who was I kidding? Quentin Dudley? City Councilman Quentin Dudley? Dropping into cheap motels to slice and dice a whore or two? Get real.

That Alice would repeat the high school story to someone like me showed just how insanely ballsy she could be. What if she was in Dudley's office right now, confronting him with the rumor I'd repeated? The thought of a summons arriving at my door gave me a loose feeling in my bowels.

I steered the Chevy into a diagonal parking slot on Central Avenue and cut the engine. Lindy's, a Downtown institution, was just down the street, and they had a bathroom there if I needed it. I swallowed hard, rested my head back on the seat, and, with an effort, gained control of all bodily functions. My breathing slowed. I dried my sweaty palms on my jeans.

Even with the window down, it started getting hot in the car. The wind that had whipped the town senseless for weeks had vanished. Without it, Albuquerque heats up in a hurry. At one mile's elevation, the sun's light is white and bright, and you can almost feel future skin cancers bubbling up on your arms. I got out of the car and found some shade on the sidewalk.

Downtown, Central Avenue is a different world from the one where I live. Out on East Central, everything was built in the fifties and it all has that neon-lit, streamlined chrome, tail-fin Cadillac look. But Downtown, Central looks old and weary – two- story brick buildings with ornate false fronts, toothless old cars limping along, toupees of black asphalt patching potholes.

Closer inspection revealed the windowless storefront I leaned against was a porn shop, a branch office of the Newsworld shops on East Central. Just where I wanted to be seen hanging around. I moseyed on down the dusty sidewalk toward Lindy's, keeping to the shade.

I sat at the counter and ordered a Coke. The cafe was empty except for a trio of old men nursing coffees near the door. Granted, it was a Saturday, when no office workers are Downtown, but the lack of customers made me sad. Not that I wanted a crowd buzzing around me while I tried to think, but the old-fashioned counter and the padded booths made me sentimental for a time in Albuquerque I'd never known.

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