Rarities Unlimited 02 - Running Scared

fifteen seconds of fame. As soon as Ian was sure he’d faded away without attracting any official attention, he sent an update to Rarities and to Shane’s voice mail. Then, just in case the cops checked, Ian worked his way through the storefronts, showing photos and asking earnest questions. No one recognized Cherelle or Socks.
    Casually Ian eased down the side street and crossed over to the continuation of the alley leading away from the pawnshop. If the cops hadn’t discovered the blood spoor back in the other alley, they would soon.
    It took a few moments to pick up the trail of brown drops again. It led him down the alley and across a different street, up two half blocks . . . and vanished.
    He thought about the back trail and the old woman at the motel. There’s some apartments a few blocks over to the north and a few old houses just beyond. That’s the direction he went when he walked.
    Ian headed north, taking alleys, looking for more blood. He didn’t find any until he was within sight of the back of one of the two old houses that huddled together against the onslaught of apartment buildings and strip malls. There were bloody handprints on the back door of 113 Oasis Lane.
    No one answered Ian’s knock on the rear door. The possible entrances were barred. Ian could have gotten through the metal, but he preferred to do it in the dark.
    He went around to the front. To one side there was a wall of run-down apartments. To the other was another bungalow. A man old enough to be God was sitting on the front porch. He was so still Ian wondered if he was alive.
    “Looking for something?” the man asked in a cracking voice.
    Ian shaded his eyes from the relentless sun and walked up to the porch. Stretched out at the man’s feet was a hound so old that it was gray from its nose to the back of its floppy ears.
    “Good afternoon, sir,” Ian said, smiling as he climbed the two low steps onto the porch. “Perhaps you can help me. I’m searching for a young lady by the name of Cherelle Faulkner. The woman in the apartment across the street and down a ways said that someone at 113 Oasis Lane might be able to help me.”
    As he spoke, Ian pulled out the pictures and presented them to the old man, who took a long time to fish half-glasses from his shirt pocket and settle them onto his nose.
    The hound didn’t stir at the interruption. Not so much as a quiver.
    Ian wondered if it was stuffed.
    “Ay-ah. She comes around a couple times of year,” the man said in a scratchy Northeast accent. “Lives with that sweet lady’s no-good son.”
    “The sweet lady next door?” Ian asked, gesturing toward 113 Oasis Lane.
    “Ay-ah. Mrs. Seton.”
    “Is this her son?” Ian asked, tapping the photo of Socks.
    The old man shook his head. “He’s the bastid that drives the fahting purple car.”
    Ian swallowed a laugh by clearing his throat. “Do you know when Mrs. Seton will be back? Cherelle’s grandmother really wants to see her granddaughter before she dies.”
    “Mrs. Seton didn’t say. Just dumped Pitty Pat on me and took off in that black limousine yesterday afternoon.”
    Ian was almost afraid to ask. “Pitty Pat?”
    “My Siamese. Cat likes the Widow Seton better, ’cause old Barks A Lot chases her, so she’s always going and hiding next door.”
    “Barks A Lot?”
    “My hound.” He nudged the big animal stretched out at his feet.
    The hound didn’t move.
    “Chases Pitty Pat,” Ian said.
    “Ay-ah.”
    “Cat must have a helluva long memory.”
    “Ay-ah.”
    “Did you see anyone with Mrs. Seton?”
    “Can’t say. Car pulled around to the back to pick her up. I know she’s gone, though.”
    “How?”
    “Pitty Pat stayed here. Soon as Mrs. Seton comes back, Pitty Pat will run off again.”
    Ian folded a twenty-dollar bill and put it into the old man’s pocket along with a business card that had Ian’s cell phone number on it. “If anybody comes back here, I’d appreciate a call.”
    “Don’t want to bring trouble down on the widow. She don’t much like that Cherelle. Heard ’em arguing more than once.” He shook his head. “Poor Mrs. Seton. Cherelle is what we used to call coarse.”
    Ian bet people still called it that.

Chapter 44
    Las Vegas
    November 4
    Midafternoon
    R isa and Shane drove by Shapiro’s business, which was located close to the failing downtown and its downscale casinos. It was an area of small businesses that aspired to middle class and didn’t quite make it.