Detective

her other tricks.
    In the hotel, for which the word “cheap” had been invented, I discovered the price of the evening’s entertainment had escalated. I had to pay for the room. I registered as John Smith, a clever alias thought of by only half of the establishment’s clientele.
    Rosa led me upstairs to a small room furnished only by a bed, a dresser, and a chair.
    Rosa locked the door, and turned to me. “First the money,” she said, holding out her hand.
    I took out one of Albrect’s hundreds and gave it to her. She inspected it carefully, folded it up, and stuck it in her purse. She put the purse on the bed, straightened up, smiled, put her hands on her hips, and began undulating slowly.
    I could have stopped the show there and then, but I figured I should let it go a little further to make sure I had her really hooked good. Besides, I’m only human. I’d been thinking about those tits for days. I contented myself with smiling self-consciously.
    Rosa hooked her thumbs under the edge of her pullover and slowly pulled it up over her head. Peace and plenty. Large, firm, protruding breasts, large pink nipples just a half a caress away from being erect. Jesus Christ, remember what you’re there for.
    It killed me but I did. As she swayed over to me and began to unbutton my shirt, I reached into my hip pocket and whipped out the pair of handcuffs, another joke present, and with what I hoped would pass for practiced skill, clapped them on her wrists, at the same time beginning the Miranda drone, now a staple of TV cop shows, “You’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. If you give up the right to remain silent—”
    Rosa gave up the right to remain silent. “Son of a bitch!” she shrieked, twisting away from me with the fury of a trapped tigress. “Fucking asshole son of a bitch! Shit! Fuck! Cunt! I knew you were a cop! Goddamnit to fucking shit hell!”
    I was beginning to regret passing up my evening with this girl. It might have been interesting. Hell, I bet she might have even talked dirty in bed.
    “Take it easy,” I told her.
    “Fuck you, asshole pig!”
    I smiled at her. “That’s better.”
    She started a furious retort. Stopped. Thought better of it. Changed her tack to pleading and ingratiating. “Come on, man,” she said. “You don’t want to arrest me.”
    “You’re right. I don’t.”
    She stared at me. “What?”
    “I don’t want to arrest you.”
    “Then what the fuck you doing, man?”
    “Let’s you and me have a little talk. If it goes all right, I let you go.”
    “You kidding?”
    “No.”
    “What the hell you want?”
    “First of all, I want my hundred dollars back.”
    She looked as if I’d just told her there was no Santa Claus. “Oh, shit,” she said. She pouted, swung her head back and forth, and shuffled her feet. Then she turned, fumbled in her purse, and took out the folded hundred. Reluctantly, she held it out toward me, begrudging every inch. I took it and shoved it in my pocket.
    “All right,” I said. “Put your shirt on.”
    She looked at her shirt on the bed. “I can’t do that with these handcuffs on.”
    She was right. She couldn’t. Serendipity.
    Still, this was business, and I had to concentrate. I took out my key and unlocked the handcuffs. She rubbed her wrists, which I guess is a reflex action, since the handcuffs hadn’t been tight. Then she got her shirt from the bed and put it on. Easy come, easy go.
    “O.K.,” she said. “What do you want?”
    “Guillermo Gutierrez.”
    Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t that. She looked as if she’d been slapped.
    “What about him?”
    “He’s your boyfriend,” I said. It was not a question, and she recognized it as such.
    “So what?”
    “He’s dead,” I told her.
    Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped open. She sank down on the bed. Her hands went to her face.
    “Oh, no!” she said.
    It was no good. She was acting, and she wasn’t good at all. Her shock at his name had been genuine, but this sucked.
    She knew he was dead, and the way I figured it, that could mean only one thing.
    “Don’t give me that shit,” I told her. “You know he’s dead. You went up to his place and found him there. You panicked and split. You kept waiting to see what would happen, but nothing happened. Finally, you couldn’t stand it any more. You went back there. The body was gone.”
    She was just staring at me. “How do you know this?”
    “That’s my job.”
    She just