Tourist Trap (Rebecca Schwartz #3) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

store owners were Chinese who pretended they couldn’t speak English when asked anything other than a price; but they probably wouldn’t have known Miranda anyway—or any of their customers. The great majority were Arabs. Arabs owned corner groceries all over the city and were usually extremely solicitous. But they treated Chris and me, in our bumout suits, like warty toads. The only people who were nice to us were old people so lonely they’d pass the time of day with the likes of us—and young guys who wanted to flirt. It was one of these who finally said at 1:52 A.M., “Miranda? Sure. Comes in all the time. I know why you ain’t seen her around, too.”
    “Why?”
    “She’s with Mean-Mouth now. Treats all his girls like prisoners. I mean, live and let live, you know? But Mean-Mouth’s something else.”
    “He’s a pimp?”
    “You ain’t heard of him?”
    I shook my head.
    “Yeah. He’s a pimp. Never has more than two girls at a time; but, man, do they work.”
    “Poor Miranda.”
    “Lotta turnover. Sooner or later they all run away or he stops ’em runnin’ away—if you know what I mean. Something tells me Miranda’s going to be mighty glad to see you.”
    “Where do I find her?”
    “Right across the street.” He pointed out a run-down flophouse about on a par with the Bonaventure Arms. “But I wouldn’t go in unarmed.”
    “You wouldn’t know Mean-Mouth’s other name, would you?”
    “Nope. Nobody does. But you ain’t thinking of asking for him by name, are you? Take my advice and don’t.”
    We went outside and conferred. Clearly, we needed reinforcements. We could have called the cops then—and in retrospect, certainly should have—but we decided not to until we knew whether Rob was really in the building. Our judgment, frankly, was somewhat impaired by excess adrenaline.
    We crossed the street and went into the flophouse. There was no lobby—nothing but a filthy corridor with a lot of forbidding doors on it. We walked up and down the corridor until we saw one partly open. I knocked, Chris standing slightly out of the way to back me up. “Yeah? Come in.” A gruff voice.
    Stepping in somewhat gingerly, I saw that it belonged to an unshaven black man, probably about three hundred pounds, lying on a bed in his underwear. He was sipping a beer and poring, by the light from an unshaded bulb, over a racing form. “Are you Mean-Mouth?”
    “Look what the Good Lord’s gone and sent me. Come in, sweet thing.”
    “I’m looking for Mean-Mouth.”
    “I’ll tell you where he is if you’ll give old Ralph a little sugar.”
    “I’ll give you ten dollars.” I took out a ten-dollar bill and moved in close enough to make the offer seem serious.
    “Ten dollars and a little lovin’.”
    “Twenty dollars.” I produced another ten.
    “What you want with Mean-Mouth?”
    “I owe him some money.”
    Old Ralph guffawed. “You payin’
me
to find Mean-Mouth so
you
can pay
him?
Sweet thing, you a cop?”
    “Do I smell like a cop?”
    “Come closer and I’ll tell you.”
    “Do you want the twenty or not?”
    “Yeah. I’ll take the twenty.” He did, starting something like an earthquake in the bed just by sitting up.
    “I’ll give you another ten to tell me what he looks like.”
    “I thought you knew him.”
    I sighed. “Okay, I’m a cop.”
    “You ain’t no cop.”
    “Okay, I’m not. Another ten or not?”
    “Twenty.”
    “First tell me where he lives.”
    “Third floor, fourth door on the left. Okay?”
    I handed over another twenty.
    “Mean-Mouth looks like me.”
    “Are you related or something?”
    “Brothers, in a manner of speaking. Mean-Mouth’s the biggest, blackest, meanest dude I ever saw in my life.” We made Chris the lookout. Here was the plan: I’d go up and explore while Chris stood on the second floor. If I got in trouble, I’d whistle and she’d scream, run for help, whatever seemed appropriate. If Mean-Mouth came up the stairs, she’d whistle. Not a bad plan at all. If I got assaulted, then we’d certainly call the police. And hope they got there before Mean-Mouth turned me into fertilizer.
    I found the right door and knocked. No answer. I knocked again and heard a noise from inside. Something like: “MMmmf.” I heard it in stereo—a male “mmf” and a female one.
    I said, “Is anyone home, please?”
    The male noises got louder. I opened the door to full light—and the sight of my sweetie in a double bed with Miranda. They