She spotted Virgil, took in the Zep T-shirt, and slid into the booth across from him. She said, “Give me your hand, Bob,” and Virgil put his hand on the table. She gripped it, and said, “I can do about anything you want, but I don’t allow myself to get hurt. When we go outside, you’ll see my assistant. He’s the guy who looks like an old telephone booth. And, I promise you, he could yank off your head and shove it up your ass. That’s not a threat. I’m saying he’s my protection. Do you understand?”
Virgil bobbed his head dumbly, and she went on with her price list. Virgil nodded in Capslock’s direction, who broke away from the waitress, walked over to the booth in four long strides, and slid in beside Paisley, trapping her and pushing her to the wall.
Capslock smiled, and said, “I’m Del Capslock, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. This hippie gentleman is Virgil Flowers, also an agent with the BCA. We’re cops, but this is not necessarily a bust.”
She looked from Virgil to Capslock, and then snarled, “If it’s not a bust, then what is it?”
“A good-natured search for information,” Virgil said. “I taped your offers and your price list, so you’re out of luck, Paisley. But, I have very little interest in your moneymaking activities. I need to know something from you.”
“What?”
“The name of a friend of yours who was having a sexual relationship with a university professor. Don’t lie to us—we’re investigating a murder, and if you lie to us, you’ll be an accessory to murder. That’s a whole different thing than a prostitution arrest.”
She didn’t argue but frowned at Virgil, and asked, “How’d you hear about my friend?”
Virgil said, “There’s word going around on the street. It got back to us as a tip. A bad guy got a get-out-of-jail-free card.”
Capslock was looking over Virgil’s shoulder, and said, quietly, “A very large personage just walked in.”
Virgil said to Paisley, “If that’s your brother, wave him off.”
“What happens if I don’t?” she asked.
Capslock said, “Paisley, for Christ’s sakes, we’re cops. We’ve got guns. He starts on us, and I’ll shoot him three times in the fuckin’ heart and I won’t lose ten seconds of sleep over it. Wave him the fuck off.”
Paisley raised her eyes, looked over Virgil’s shoulder, and shook her head no.
“That was a wise move for all of us,” Capslock said, settling back into the booth. “Now, what’s your friend’s name?”
“Lilith.”
Virgil said, “Lilith? I mean, does she read the Bible or something?”
“What?”
“Never mind,” Capslock said. “Lilith. You have a number for her?”
“Yes. We sometimes party together.” She looked at Virgil. “We would have partied with you, if you weren’t a fuckin’ cop. You missed the best sex of your life.”
“I’ll live with it somehow,” Virgil said. “Gimme the number. And let me make a few threats before you go. If the lunch box, or the phone booth, or whatever the fuck he is, tries to molest us in the parking lot, we’ll shoot him. If he calls Lilith, you’ll both get free five-year housing courtesy of the state government. Like I said, this is a murder case.”
She said, “Okay.”
* * *
—
They got Lilith’s real name, which was Abigail Cohen, and which led Virgil to think that perhaps she did read the Bible, or at least had heard some Jewish folktales. They said good-bye to Paisley, who didn’t exactly trot out the door. Still sitting in the booth, still working on cheeseburgers, they ran Cohen’s name through the DMV and got her birth date and an address, and then through the NCIC database, which showed three arrests, but no convictions, two for soliciting and one for a small amount of marijuana.
“Must have a good lawyer,” Capslock said.
“Or the courts just don’t give a shit about sex and weed anymore,” Virgil said.
“That could be,” Capslock said.
Virgil called Jon Duncan, his nominal supervisor at the BCA, who called another agent, who got in touch with Verizon and AT&T. An AT&T billing address confirmed the driver’s license address, and since hookers relied on cell phones at least as much as dope dealers, it was probably good. Virgil finished his third Diet Coke, then asked Capslock if he’d like to come along to Cohen’s address.
“Why not? Might as well go fuck with a criminal in the dark. It’s been a while since I got shot.”
* * *
—
Cohen lived in a newer apartment complex in Dinkytown, where Quill had been wandering the night he went missing. The building was done in clapboard and stone with rows of windows that, in the back, looked out over railroad tracks. Virgil thought it had been designed for the richer class of students. With lots of moving in and moving out, and people coming and going, it was ideal for a woman with frequent male visitors. The front door was locked, but a resident manager let them in, and asked, anxiously, “Is Abby in trouble? She seems so nice.”
“No, she’s not,” Virgil said. “Not at all. We’re running down a list of people who knew a man who died, trying to find some relatives.”
The manager might have been skeptical but shrugged, and said, “Up the stairs and to the left. Or up the elevator and to the right,” and walked away.
* * *
—
At Cohen’s apartment, Capslock said, “Watch the master and learn.” He knocked rapidly, but not loudly, on the door, and said, in an anxious whisper, “Abby! Abby! Are you in there? Abby!”
A moment later, a woman’s hushed voice: “Who is it?”
“Abby! It’s me. Jesus Christ, Abby, we got to get out of here . . .”
The door opened a crack—a chain showed across the gap—and a woman peered out, and Capslock showed his ID, and said, “Police. Open the door, Miz Cohen.”
“Fuck that,” she said, and tried to slam the door, but Capslock had his steel-toed boot in the crack.
Capslock said, “If you don’t open it, we kick it in. If you break one of my toes, I’ll charge you with aggravated assault on a police officer.”
“I’m calling my lawyer,” Cohen said.
“We’ll let you do that,” Virgil said.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“We need to know what you saw in the library the night Barth Quill got killed.”