82 Desire

friend.
    “Skip,” she said. “Are you coming back tomorrow?”
    “I don’t know. Why?”
    “On Tuesday, we’re running a story you’re going to be interested in. I might want to call you and tell you about it.” After the first edition’s all put together.
    “What’s up, Janie?” Skip spoke sharply.
    “I can’t talk about it yet.”
    “Is it something to do with Russell?”
    “Don’t make it hard for me, okay? I’ll tell you what I can, when I can. Just give me a phone number and I’ll do my best.” Skip gave her the name of a hotel.
    But Jane had a brainstorm. “Tell you what. I’ll fax you the whole story.”

Twenty-seven
    IT WAS MONDAY night by the time Skip and Steve got home.
    Russell and Dina were fine, getting better by the minute, but they hadn’t come around right away. Because they were so obviously drunk—and because of the evidence of so many glasses and bottles—they had been admitted to a hospital, where they had their stomachs pumped and didn’t even seem to notice.
    The doctors said they’d probably keep sleeping heavily, at least through the night.
    Skip had been the one to call Bebe, a good news/bad news proposition. Oh, well , she thought, surely Bebe could handle news of a girlfriend. It wasn’t like she was a model of fidelity herself.
    As it happened, she kept saying, “Thank God,” and crying, and then saying it again.
    After Bebe, Skip called Kelly McGuire and ran the whole thing down.
    “Let me get this straight,” said McGuire, and there was menace in her voice. “You went to Florida on your own hook and did police business?”
    “My friend and I went for the weekend, and I thought while I was here, I’d just… you know… make a cursory search.”
    McGuire laughed so hard Skip had to hold the phone away from her ear. “You’re a sketch, Langdon, you know that? What the hell am I going to do with you?”
    “Well, Lieutenant, I’ve been thinking about that.”
    “I’ll just bet you have. Look, you’ve got to question Fortier—he’s not accused of any crime, is he?”
    “We couldn’t think of one.”
    “So the Fort Lauderdale police have no reason to hold him. He could just take off the minute he wakes up.”
    “My thought exactly.”
    “So just work your regular shift in Florida. You can pay for the plane ticket yourself.”
    She hung up before Skip could either thank her or protest.
    By the time she and Steve got back to the hotel it was well after midnight, but she was up early, and over at the hospital by nine o’clock.
    Russell was being discharged. He seemed groggy, in fact had no idea who she was. The woman, Dina Wolf, came in with Rudolfo. She looked pretty shaky as well.
    “I’m taking them to Ms. Wolf’s apartment,” Rudolfo said, and gave Skip the address. “We’re putting a guard on them till we find out what this is all about. Let me give you a number.”
    It was a perfect day in Florida, and Skip could do nothing but chew her nails. Every hour she called the guard’s cell phone and each time she was told both Fortier and Wolf were sleeping. At two o’clock, she was told Russell had awakened and eaten some soup. He was sleeping again. Ms. Wolf hadn’t stirred.
    At three he was also sleeping.
    At three forty-five, the guard called her.
    She and Rudolfo arrived almost at the same time, to find Russell pale, shaking, and rubbing his head, dressed in a T-shirt that must have been Wolf’s, and the same rumpled khakis he’d had on the night before.
    “How’s Ms. Wolf?”
    “She says a truck hit her, call her in a month.” He grinned. “A train hit me, I think.”
    Rudolfo said, “I’ve got a friend who swears big, greasy burgers are the best thing for a hangover. Maybe we could go get one.”
    “I don’t know. I don’t think…”
    “Tell you what. Mick needs a break—let’s see if he’ll do it.”
    While Mick was gone, Russell rubbed his head almost nonstop and told the story of the night before … haltingly, and with lots of pauses, as if he’d forgotten things. Having been at Holser’s, Skip knew most of it, but there was one piece she didn’t—Russell had no idea who the two thugs were.
    “They sound like pros,” she said.
    He nodded. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
    “Any idea who hired them?”
    “Yeah. Oh, yeah. Goddam, I was stupid! Dina could have been killed.”
    Mick came back with a hamburger and a sack of greasy fries, and Russell began to change almost with the first bite. “Hey,