Chosen Prey

trouble with a customer who expected fidelity, she might move in with Darrell.
    He would grudgingly take care of her, and if she wanted to chip in a few bucks every once in a while, and maybe clean house and cook a few meals, that was okay. And if she didn’t, that was okay, too. They tended to drift away when they discovered that Darrell really didn’t care.
    At all. About anything.
    Except cars.
    Darrell was a professional house-sitter.
    “Can’t believe he got a gig in Edina,” Lucas said, as they pulled into his driveway. They were driving a city car, a dented Dodge, and they all peered through the windshield at the house. The house was long and white and two-storied, with double faux-marble pillars on either side of the front entry. “Wonder what the neighbors think about the whores going in and out all the time?”
    “Maybe they think it’s colorful,” Del said.
    They got out of the Dodge, and Lucas took a second to look around the neighborhood. Nothing moved: The place was one large bedroom.
    When Lucas caught up, Del and Marshall were already looking at an enormous wrought-iron knocker on the front door. “Use the doorbell,” Marshall said. “You’ll knock the door down if you use that thing.”
    “How about a nice-knocker joke?” Del asked.
    “None of those either,” Lucas said. Del leaned on the doorbell, and after three long buzzes ten seconds apart, a woman with power-frizzed hair, wearing a pale blue quilted housecoat, stuck her head out, looked at the three of them, and snarled, “What?”
    “Time to get up, sleepyhead,” Del said, showing her a badge. “We’re friends of DDT. Is he home?”
    “Yeah, but he’s in the spa,” she said.
    “That’s something I wouldn’t want to miss,” Del said. He stepped forward and the woman stepped back, a good enough invitation, they thought, and they all trooped inside.
    “It’s outside, on the deck,” the woman said, pointing at faux French doors at the far end of the living room.
    Del’s nose was working. “Something smells like dog shit,” he said.
    “We got a new puppy,” the woman said. As she passed the table, she picked up a bottle half full of white wine and started working the cork loose. “We’re paper-training it. You guys want some wine?”
    Lucas said, “No, thanks,” and she took a pull on the bottle, and Del and Lucas walked over to the French doors and out onto a deck.
    The spa was big enough to seat eight, but in this case, sat three: DDT, a large, balding, and mildly fat man with scant chest hair, who was reading a folded copy of The New York Times; and two women, both with short mousy brown hair. Steam rose out of the spa into the cold air, but they all seemed comfortable: None of them were wearing any clothing at all, and when Lucas, Del, and Marshall pushed through the doors, one of the women said, “Better turn on the bubbler, Marie.”
    “Hey, Lucas, how they hanging, man?” DDT said, looking up from the paper. “Del, you fuckhead. What’s happening?” To the girls he said, “They’re cops.”
    “We got a problem, Darrell,” Lucas said. “We’re looking for a girl named, uh . . .” He looked at Del.
    Del said, “Charmin.”
    DDT pointed at one of the mice, who said, “Jesus Christ, it’s Charmin’, like in Charming, you asshole. It’s not sharmin, like the toilet paper.”
    “We thought maybe it came from Please Don’t Squeeze The,” Marshall said. The crow’s-feet around his eyes compressed a little, and the corners of his mouth may have turned up. He was being funny, Lucas realized.
    “No, it don’t,” the woman said frostily.
    “You guys want to get in? Plenty of room. Water’s hot,” DDT said, nodding at the bubbling surface.
    “Ah, we’re kinda running,” Lucas said, looking at Charmin’ she was the larger of two women, and her breasts were floating on the top of the water, her nipples pointing straight out like the prows on a couple of fancy powerboats. “Charmin’, you were working for Randy Whitcomb until not long ago, and we need to find him.”
    “What’s he done?” she asked.
    “Nothing. We’re trying to figure out where he might have bought some jewelry. This was back before he went to L.A.”
    “Yeah? I wasn’t with him them. I didn’t join up until after he got back.”
    “I know that,” Lucas said patiently. “But we need to find him now.”
    “I don’t know if I oughta talk to cops,” she said. “Randy’s a crazy