Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes

someone to walk her while you rot in jail?”
    “I thought you were going to help me,” he said, his face as wet and crushed as a used tissue. It was about as appealing, too.
    “I thought you liked me,” he whined.
    “Keys,” I said.
    He mustered an ounce of backbone. I could see it coming, right between the panic and the rage.
    “I don’t have to listen to you. Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?”
    “You might want to think that over.”
    “Why? Why should I?”
    “Watch him,” I said.
    Not getting it, he turned around. There was no one behind him, just the closed door to the precinct.
    When he turned back toward me, he still didn’t get it. I pointed to my dog. He was facing Samuel, looking alert.
    Okay, not alert. Menacing.
    “Keys,” I repeated.
    Samuel looked like a balloon with a leak. He reached into his pocket and handed me his keys.
    We went inside. After explaining my visit to the desk sergeant, I waited while he called upstairs. In no time at all, two detectives came down, thick-necked guys with Try me, asshole expressions.
    I walked off to the side with one of them—Matthew Agoudian, young guy with a big nose, dark eyes, good listening skills—told him what I knew, then stood there until they’d walked Samuel to the stairs, listening to him protesting his innocence, first to one detective, then the other. Bet they never heard that before.
    Back outside, I ran across the street, got some cash from where it was cleverly secreted in my top desk drawer under my checkbook, then headed toward Bleecker Street to catch a cab.

Chapter 34
    Venus Took My Hand

    A Hispanic woman who looked as if she ate gravel for breakfast was sitting outside the door to Venus’s room. She stood when I approached, her arm across the closed door. I showed her my ID.
    “Lourdes Rivera,” she said. “I heard a lot of good stuff about you from Frank.”
    “From Frank?Really?”
    “I know what you’re saying,” she told me. “He never told you to your face how good a job you did, am I right? But he tells everyone else, any chance he gets, ‘I had this girl Rachel working for me, walked in off the street, took to it like a golden retriever to water, college grad, too, but okay, you know what I mean? I’d be happy if you was half as good an operative as she was.’ He’s a piece of work, that Frank.” She was short and thick, big shoulders, muscular legs, a gold tooth right in front, shined at you when she smiled, and a shoulder holster with a gun, her jacket open so you could see it, stop any thoughts of messing around before they got started.
    “Go on in, Rachel. She’ll be happy to see you.”
    “Thanks. Glad you’re here.”
    “Hey, no problem.”
    I opened the door, and Venus grinned when she saw me. Then she winced.
    “I feel sooo protected,” she said.
    “Would have been nice before you got a hole in your head.”
    I stood in the doorway, both dogs behind me.
    “I’m going to be okay, Rachel. I’m on the mend.”
    “I know. I stopped at the nurses’ station. The head nurse told me. She wasn’t going to, but I told her we were sisters.“
    “We are.”
    “Don’t go all soft and mushy on me, girl. Keep your edge. You’re going to need it.”
    She nodded, then frowned. “That still hurts.”
    “Nodding?”
    “Moving.Blinking. Smiling. Talking. But I am getting better.”
    “I have a surprise for you. Might speed up the recovery process.”
    I stepped aside and patted my left thigh. The dogs got up from their sit-stays and lunged forward.
    “Whoa,” I said, as if they were horses.
    Venus squealed, and her hands shot up to her mouth. “Lady,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears.
    I touched the bed, and both dogs landed on it, one on either side of Venus.
    “Don’t you even want to know how I got two dogs up to your room?”
    “No. I want to know where you found her.”
    A nurse who looked like Olive Oyl walked in with some pills—one red, two yellow, party time—in the tiniest cup I’d ever seen.
    “Don’t tire her out,” she told me, bobbing her funny-looking head on her long, skinny neck. Then, “Oh, a matching dog. Is he her father?” she asked, pointing to Dashiell.
    I told her yes, watching Venus’s smile light up the room. She filled Venus’s plastic glass with water and waited until she had swallowed all the pills, closing the door on her way out.
    Venus had one hand on Dashiell’s head, the other around Lady, her face buried in the dog’s