K Is for Killer

that from Lorna, too. Take my word for it. Your job is dangerous the same as mine, with only half the pay. You ought to switch, in my opinion. Not that I'm promoting my line of work. I'm just telling you what I think."
    "I appreciate your concern. If I decide to change careers, I'll come to you for job counseling."
    She smiled, amused at the sarcasm or what she assumed was sarcasm. "I'll tell you something else she taught me. Keep your big mouth shut. You do a guy, you don't talk about it afterward. Especially in the crowd she's running in. She slipped up once and swore she'd never do it again. Some of those guys... whoo! You're better off forgetting you ever knew 'em."
    "Do you travel in those circles? The real high-class stuff?"
    "Well, not all the time. Not now. When she was alive, I did now and then. Like once in a while, she'd dress me up fancy and take me with her on a big one. Me and this other girl named Rita. What a hoot. Some guys like 'em young. You shave your pubes and act like you're about ten years old. Like this one night? I made over fifteen hundred dollars. Don't ask me doing what. That's something else you don't talk about. Lester would have killed me if he found out."
    "What happened to all her money when she died?" I asked.
    "Beats the hell out of me. You'd have to ask her folks about that. I bet she didn't have a will. I mean, what'd she need a will for? She was young. Well, twenty-five, which is not that old. I bet she thought she had years, and it turned out she had nothing."
    "How old are you?"
    "Twenty-three."
    "You are not."
    "I am too."
    "Danielle, you're not."
    She smiled slightly. "Okay, I'm nineteen, but I'm mature for my age."
    I said, "Seventeen is probably closer, but we'll let that pass."
    "You better ask more about Lorna. You're wasting your money when you ask about me."
    "What was Lorna doing out at the water treatment plant? That doesn't sound like it was worth even the part-time pay."
    "She had to do something. She couldn't tell her parents how she was earning her bread. They were real conservative; least her dad was. I met her mom at the funeral, and she seemed nice enough. Her old man was a butt, all the time on her case, checkin' up on her. Lorna was a wild one, and she didn't like to be controlled."
    "I talked to her father earlier today, and he said Lorna didn't have many friends."
    Danielle dismissed that with a toss of her head. "What does he know? Just because he never met any. Lorna liked night people. Everybody she knew came out of hiding when the sun went down. Like spiders and all those what-do-you-call-'em... nocturnal creatures. Owls and bats. You want to meet her friends, you better get used to staying out all night. What else? This is fun. I didn't realize I was so smart."
    "What about the porno film? Why'd she do that?"
    "Oh, same old, same old. You know how it is. Some guy came down from San Francisco. She met him one night in at the Edgewater and got to talking about that stuff. He thought she'd be dynamite, and I guess she was. At first she didn't want to do it, but then she figured, Hey, why not? She didn't get paid much, but she said she had a ball. What'd you hear about that?"
    "I didn't hear about it. I saw it."
    "You did not. You saw that?"
    "Sure, I have a copy."
    "Well, that's weird. That video was never released."
    Now it was my turn to express skepticism. "Really? It never went into distribution? I don't believe it." We sounded like a couple of talking birds.
    "That's what she said. She was pissed off about it, too. She thought it could be her big break, but there was nothing she could do."
    "The cassette I saw was edited, packaged, the whole bit. They must have had a lot of money tied up in it. What's the story?"
    "I just know what she said. Maybe the venture was undercapitalized, whatever the term is. How'd you get a copy?"
    "Someone sent it to her mother."
    Danielle barked out a laugh. "You're kidding. That's gross. What kind of jerk would do a thing like that?"
    "I don't know yet. I'm hoping to find out. What else can you tell me?"
    "No, no. You ask and I'll answer. I can't think of anything off the top of my head."
    "Who's Lester?"
    "Lester had nothing to do with Lorna."
    "But who is he?"
    She gave me a look. "What's it to you?"
    "You're afraid of him, and I want to know why."
    "Get off it. You're wasting your money."
    "Maybe I can afford it."
    "Oh, right. On what you make? That's bullshit."
    "Actually, I don't even know what you're