LITMIR.BIZ

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you knew about it.”

      Minors was quiet.

      “If you had this understanding about her whoring, Trent, why did you toss her?”

      “Who told you I hit her?”

      Poe ignored his question. “Did you beat her because you thought she was holding money back?”

      “I told you I wasn’t her pimp!”

      “Then who was?”

      A heavy sigh. Minors said, “She told me she was set up by hotels.”

      “Havana?”

      “All of them.” He swallowed hard. “She got around.”

      “And you didn’t care?”

      “I didn’t say that,” Minors whined. “I just said I knew about it and tried not to interfere.”

      Poe said, “Can we go back to my original question? If you knew about it, had this understanding … why did you beat her?”

      Minors said nothing, leaving Poe to wonder what information he was sitting on.

      “Did she take up with someone else, Trent?” Poe asked.

      Minors stiffened. “Hey! I kicked her out. Not the other way around.”

      “After you found out she was shagging … who?”

      Minors bolted upward. “I don’t have to talk to you—”

      “Sit down!” Poe commanded. He put the mug on the coffee table. “Stop acting so … emotional.”

      A long silence. Then the dealer sat down.

      Poe stated, “Brittany had gotten involved with someone. Tell me who it was, and then I don’t drag you downtown. You make my life easy, I don’t have to say it came from you.”

      Minors cleared his throat. “She took up with the boss.”

      Poe paused. Did he mean Havana’s pit boss? “Are you talking about Pete Delatorre?”

      “Bigger than Havana.” Minors hitchhiked his thumb in an upward motion. “And higher up.”

      “A casino manager—”

      “Higher still.”

      Poe tried to keep cool. “This isn’t twenty questions, Trent. Give me a name.”

      “How about Parker Lewiston?”

      Poe opened his mouth and closed it. Lewiston owned half of downtown Vegas. Generally his taste in women ran a little older—mid-twenties and a hell of a lot more classy than Brittany Newel. Honey had been one of Parker’s ladies. Before he had put Honey out to pasture, he had fixed her up. The papers to a condo plus a yearly stipend. So what had happened with Brittany? And why would Parkerboy be attracted to a cheap whore like her in the first place?

      A pause.

      Of course, to paraphrase Virginia Hill’s statement to the HUAC, Newel, in her prime, could have been the best cocksucker in America.

      “Hard to believe, huh?” Minors had turned acerbic. “Brittany with Parkerboy.”

      “Lewiston takes care of his women, Trent.”

      “I told you. Brittany was out of control!”

      But Parkerboy never allowed his women to get out of control. If they used, he provided for them … kept them happy and content. Poe was suspicious.

      Minors was saying, “… threw it in my face constantly.” He turned his voice high-pitched and shrewish. Imitated, “ ‘You keep whopping me and I’m gonna tell Parker on you.’ ”

      “But she never did. Because if she had, you wouldn’t be working here … in this city.” Poe waited a beat. “She was using big-time when she died. Who’d she get her stuff from?”

      Minors shrugged. “Maybe Lewiston.”

      “Not if he dropped her.”

      “Then I don’t know.”

      “Who’d she get her stuff from when you knew her?”

      “Lewiston.”

      “She told you that?”

      “Yeah.” Angrily, he said, “Parkerboy made her what she is today.”

      “A corpse?”

      Minors turned crimson, stammered, “No, no, I’m not saying … I’m not implying Mr. Lewiston had anything to do—”

      “Stop sweating, Trent. He ain’t in the room.”

      Minors looked over his shoulder. “All I meant was … well, she wasn’t using heavy until she hooked up with him. He turned her into a crack whore.”

      Poe noticed that Minors had dropped his voice a notch.

      As if the walls had ears.

      And maybe they did.

      She had wanted to pretend she was sleeping, but Steve had caught sight of her open eyes.

      “You still up, baby?” he cooed.

      She said nothing when Steve sat down on the edge of the bed and loosened his tie. Out of her corner vision, she saw him lower his hand, felt him stroke her shoulder. An instant wave of revulsion pushed through her body. But this time she was determined not to withdraw from his touch.

       Make him think you’re getting better.

      Jensen continued to caress his wife. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

      She shook her head no.

      “Another rough night, honey?”

       They’re all rough.

      “I’m fine.”

      Her voice was a hush.

      Jensen checked his watch—five in the morning. Reluctantly, he stopped petting her. Stood and took off his shirt. “Nasty night out. We found someone in the desert. And lots of paperwork. That’s what took me so long.”

      She nodded.

      “It was … hard. This one in particular. Not that you have to worry about it. Some hooker who went with the wrong guy … obviously.”

      He realized he was gripping his shirt, nails digging into fabric made wet by his sweaty palms. He bit back panic and tried to smile.

      “Forget I said anything, Alison. I’m … running off at the mouth. I’m stupid sometimes.”

      No response.

      She knew he was aching to talk, to find an outlet for his troubled soul. Shouldering everything for so long. And still blaming himself for her illness. Silly. Because she had been decompensated long before he had started cheating.

      But back then, she had hid it better. Still, she was certain that he had his suspicions.

      She had been twenty when they had married; he had been thirty-two. Thinking about their wedding pictures. They had made such a handsome couple. When she combed her hair, she supposed they still looked good together.

      Jensen drew back the covers of the bed. “You’re still wearing your bathrobe, honey.”

      “Too lazy to change,” she whispered.

      “That can’t be comfortable—”

      “I’m fine—”

      “It’s so bulky, Alison,” Jensen said. “Let me get you your silky nightgown. The one you say is so soft against your skin. Now, do you want the purple or the pink?”

      “Pink’s fine.”

      “Hey,

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