By the time he pulled into the parking lot at Divinity’s dorm at the University of New Orleans, his cheek and ear were still throbbing, although not quite as much. Sharp to the touch. Another look in the rearview showed him in bad shape. He needed recovery time. Only the first day of the case and he already had death threats, beatings, and jailbait on his plate. He adjusted his crotch, his dick trying to shrink the more he willed it to grow.
The student workers at the desk knew him on sight and buzzed him in, told him Divinity was waiting for him, doing an imitation of a gentleman’s club hostess. He headed for the elevator and heard the usual whispered chat among the girls in the lobby:
“Such a nerd, but what a man”, “I’d do him. Can you believe how good he
smells
?”, and “D’s told me how good he is. In her all-time top three.”
Not number one?
Hopper thought.
Her floor. Her door. He knocked, heard the girlish, “Come in! Come on!”
He pushed it open, closed it, and saw his tiny smiling secretary laid out on her bed in a satin nightie, barelegged and barefoot, but her smile vanished and she hopped up, fingertips gingerly brushing his cheek.
“Who did this? What the hell?”
“It’s been a bad day.”
“The case? Your sister? Angry boyfriend?”
Her fingertips were nice but the nails stung, so he eased her hand down, sat on her bed. She paced in front of him. Hopper said, “Somebody knows we’ve been hired. I’ve got some black belt punk warning me off.”
“You let him do this?”
He glared, said, “I thought you believed in me more than that. Think I cracked his kneecap.”
That got the smile back. “Good going. Fuck him up.”
“He brought his lawyer with him. We’re talking serious money behind the scenes. They had great cars.”
Divinity waited for him to say more. It hurt to talk, so Hopper shrugged. He wanted her to offer a washcloth, some hydrogen peroxide, something to take the sting away.
Instead, “Too hurt to, you know?”
He kept his head low. “It’s been a tough day in other ways as well.”
That took some of the good feeling from the air.
“Can you get a washcloth, please? Warm water?”
She went to the bathroom, a shared one between two of the rooms. Hopper always felt too big and too bad for this room. Divinity was totally
alternachick
, with the posters for bands Hopper had never heard of—Rilo Kiley? The Cramps? Death Cab for Cutie?—and her prized original movie poster from
Rocky Horror Picture Show
, signed by Richard “Riff Raff” O’Brien. He’d accompanied her to at least a dozen showings.
Hopper had never met the roommate, but her side leaned conservative. A couple of kitten posters, a very orderly bookshelf with science texts and sci-fi novels. A collection of DVDs including box sets of
The
Lord of the Rings
and
Star Trek: Voyager
. Hopper imagined a thin girl with glasses who dressed in sweaters and khakis, pageboy hair, round glasses. For someone as open as Divinity, Hopper wondered why she had not introduced him to “Emily.” A little jealousy? Maybe she could live with him taking on the faceless girls on the job, but not with the person sharing her space day and night. It would knock her down a peg. She needed her sex goddess mystique intact—big fish, small pond.
That caused him to grin, shooting an ache through his nerve endings. Divinity was back, inches in front of him, a warm wet cloth across her palm. Her toes lapped over his shoetips. A glance at her nightie gave her away—she’d taken off her panties while getting the washcloth.
He took the cloth and slid it over his face. “Thanks sweetie.”
“It’s not free, you know.”
Hopper ignored that for a second while he gently washed the dried blood from his ear, a surprising pain letting him know for certain there was a splinter there. Divinity reached out, brushed her hand through his hair. Trying to work her magic. Acid bubbled in Hopper’s stomach.
He spread his legs and told her, “Sit on my lap.”
She
hmphed
and shook her head, crossed her arms, but she sat down. Hopper rested a hand on her hip, the other on her thigh, a nice gentle motion with his fingers.
“I need you to look up some stuff online. I’ve got a phrase that I think might be some internet thing, a nickname or club.” A light raking of fingers on her skin, static electricity without the shock.
She sneaked her arm around his back, leaned her head to his shoulder. He felt her breath when she spoke. “No problem. What is it?”
“One of the girls said Yasmin was a ‘Hottie Mommy.’ I don’t get it.”
Divinity groaned. “You’re not that naïve, c’mon.”
He laid his palm flat on her leg. No more touchy-touchy unless she behaved. “What do you mean?”
Her voice went baby-doll. “I mean, really, it sounds like a porn thing. Like pregnant porn or something.”
“They do that?”
“There’s porn for everything. Preggie, food fetish, lezzie, gay, creampies, BDSM, hairy, girls with glasses, bi, gangbangs. Jesus, if your life weren’t already a fuck flick, maybe you’d have time to look some up.”
“You know about all that?”
“You kidding?” She took in a sharp breath as his fingers inched closer to her pussy. She’d shaved up there. It was stubbly. “But why watch when it’s much more fun to
do
? I’ve seen enough to know it’s more funny than it is sexy. Kinda sad, really.”
“So there’s a good chance Yasmin was into this?”
“We can make a bet if you want. Dancing at Live Bait Café?”
“I wouldn’t bet against you.”
She brushed her lips against his neck, her words going a little more distracted. She was grinding. “Take me…dancing…anyway.”
His fingers had reached her. She was soaked. She’d been waiting for him all day. He rubbed her clit, circles, moved his pinky inside her, then out again.
“And after that—”
“More, two fingers. Give it.”
“—let’s see what you can get on an attorney named Alex Michel. Client list will help. Need something on Ernie Depp, too, but I doubt you’ll find it.”
She giggled like a drunk. “Depp. Hair gel.”
“Related to Johnny. Distant.”
“These are the two who went after you, so let’s find who hired them. Got it. Shit, Hopper, I want you to fuck me so bad.”
“This is all I can give today.”
“Any idea—” another sharp inhale, “—Mmmmm. Who they’re with anyway? The kid who knocked her up?”
“Yep. But how would they know unless they followed Kristen or have some inside track on Kristen’s family? I’m going to see what I can pry out of them after we’re done here.”
“Getting lawyer info might take a while, might have to use…to use…the cover story. Wait, right there. Faster, more,
harder
, ohgod. To…call…no
web
…Yes!” She covered his hand with hers and guided him through to the end, ground her tailbone into his thigh, tightened, then grunted like a sexy bear.
“What would I do without you?” He had to nearly shout it. She wasn’t listening. She was riding his hand hard now, her legs wide and one foot propped on his knee. He knew she had come when she aimed her lips at his neck and sucked hard, nearly bit him. Fingernails digging into his shoulder. He held her tighter, protectively.
When she was done, she eased his hand away from her, closed her legs and drew her other foot to his thigh. She curled against him, arms holding on for dear life.
“Fuck, Hopper.”
“Hey, you,” he whispered. “Love you.”
A moan that felt like acceptance. “I know you do.”
“I don’t tell the others that.”
“You’d better not! They mean nothing to you.”
“You don’t say it to anyone else, do you?”
He felt her grin. “I don’t say it to anyone period. Not yet.”
That was good enough. He peeked over Divinity’s head at her alarm clock. Plenty of time to give the rich kid a going over before the guidance counselor. The way things were going, he thought maybe canceling the dinner was a good idea. He had enough good leads already and didn’t think listening to this crone bitch about kids these days while talking up poor, poor Yasmin would help.
“You got to go?” Divinity asked.
“Soon, yeah. Call as soon as you get something.”
“Not yet. One more thing first.”
“What?”
She scooted off his lap onto the bed, lifted her knees, and gave him the look. “Go down on me. Now.”
He did it, not even thinking to say no. His eyes on her pussy, her smell as powerful as tequila and irresistible. He sank to his knees and wrapped his hands around her legs, pulled her to his mouth. Divinity laced her fingers with his and said, “I’m your everything, you whipped little puppy.” She laughed.
He couldn’t disagree.
In the car on his way to the babydaddy’s place, Hopper’s cell rang. Divinity working fast? He looked at the ID. Nope. It was his sister. He’d never given her his wireless number.
Divinity told her?
He answered. “What?”
“I wanted to tell you, when you come tonight, could you bring some Cokes and ice? I’m nearly out.”
He waited a few beats. “Can’t you go do that yourself? It’s not even six o’clock.”
She whined, a sweetly annoying noise. “You know how it is when Colin leaves. I can’t move. I can’t get out of bed. I want to.”
No, you don’t.
Hopper said, “I didn’t know you had my cell number.”
“Makes you sound like you didn’t want me to have it.”
“It’s just that I use it for business—”
“Oh, one little call. I’ve had it for a month and never used it. Told your secretary it was a family emergency. Surprised she didn’t mention it to you.”
“I can’t talk.”
“Your job isn’t nine to five. You can do what you like when you like. Bring me some Cokes and come see me.”
He cleared his throat, imagined Sister in her nightgown, in bed, hair unwashed and greasy, probably a plate of cheddar cheese slices on her nightstand. All the lights out except a fruity-scented candle the size of a bucket. Frowning. Whatever DVD she’d watched hundreds of times before to comfort her paused in the middle of some weepy scene that pissed her off enough to make this call.
“I have appointments. People are expecting me.”
He held the phone away, Sister’s turn-to-stone laugh rattling the cell’s frame. “You say that like your job matters. Hopper, Hopper, could’ve been so much more. What happened to you?”
You happened
. He kept the thought to himself.
It’s all your goddamn fault.
He mumbled a goodbye and imagined her dead again, hopefully from natural causes, as he’d been doing way too often lately.
The drive took Hopper to the Gentilly neighborhood surrounding Dillard University. It was a collage of style and types—sixties and seventies suburban with dirty facades, bad sidewalks, broken roads. Nice palm trees, though. Always a good sign. Off the main drags were older homes either rotting or being restored. The DIY craze had the millennial yuppies buying them up and slamming the new against the old, the classic against “I saw this on
Trading Spaces
and it’s cheap but cool.”
Hopper found the house and drove past. His car was a disadvantage talking to the upper classes. In the carport and driveway of the ranch style retread was an Infiniti SUV, a Mercedes coupe, and—Hopper guessed this was the boy’s—an Escalade with reflective-tint windows.
“Pimped indeed,” Hopper said aloud.
The thing about talking to frat boys was the attitude. Superior, never thinking for one moment they owed someone other than their parents respect. But as far as the way they partied and fucked all those women, Hopper could understand that. Back in college, he didn’t try to join any fraternities really because it was a hassle—initiations and meetings and mandatory partying. He wasn’t an outcast, either. He’d been invited to their blowouts, actually went to a few, always left with a sour girl who clearly despised sorority life but liked being hated. The problem was more a lack of anything to talk about with those guys beyond that. He hoped this kid would be a little more helpful than he expected.
The family name: Sanchez. That didn’t tell Hopper anything about their race, though—the family names were a jumble in this town, as was everything else. So maybe an old Spanish trader settled here in pirate days, had babies with creoles and ex-slaves and French aristocrats. Skip ahead two centuries and the family trees were tangled both at the roots and the branches. The dad was a bigwig at an upstart coffee company. New Orleans was already a big coffee manufacturer, the port a natural magnet for the boats hauling the beans. Sanchez’s outfit was competing nicely with the giants, on its way to gigantism itself. He married his supervisor’s middle daughter a couple of promotions earlier, but hadn’t achieved the rank or wealth it would take to skip town, buy a plantation on Bayou Road, and perform most of the duties from home with conference calls and internet meetings.
Hopper checked his notes while walking three blocks. The mother’s name was Regina, maiden name Farragut. The son was Keith. Junior at Tulane. Probably angry that his parents didn’t sink more money into his education and ship him off to Notre Dame or UCLA. Not that Tulane wasn’t frighteningly expensive. It sure as hell was.
He noticed nothing elaborate as he turned onto the block, sidewalk shaded by palms, the wooden fence dirty but rustic, a bit out of place anywhere else besides New Orleans. He wove through the fancy cars, didn’t notice any security cameras or guards. Really no need. Just a normal, decently wealthy family. The type who hires a thug to beat up someone peering into their private life?
Appearances are deceiving
, the mentors would tell him.
Always take a baseball bat.
As usual, Hopper had left his bat in the car. He rang the doorbell.
In the kitchen on a barstool pulled up to the center island, Mr. Sanchez poured them both water from a filter-pitcher. Hopper thanked him. He was surprised to find the guy so welcoming. Not friendly, really, but willing to bring him in and talk casually. Hopper thought Sanchez felt sorry for him, the swelling face and bruises.
“I don’t feel comfortable, you showing up unannounced.”
“Sometimes, it’s the best way. No offense. I’ve got my job to do.”
Sanchez shook his head. “A silly job. We have police to do this. Private eyes are good for cheating wives.”
“And husbands.”
That got him a
hmph
. Sanchez was one of those George Hamilton types, older but refusing to let go of his rugged good looks and build in spite of nature pushing hard. He stood, hands on his hips in what came across as a cartoonish boardroom pose. “Missing girls? You’re good at it?”
Hopper shrugged. “My magnetic personality draws them right to me.” He tasted the water. The cold hurt his teeth. He wondered if water could taste
too
clean.
“Keith spent hours with the cops already. He won’t want to repeat it all again, but I won’t mind letting you try a few questions once my attorney shows up.” He glanced at his watch, glittering and silver. Hopper tried to remember the last watch he had. Thirty bucks, ten years ago, and after the first battery ran out, he stopped bothering with one.
“He’s here today? Not at the frat house, right?”
Sanchez nodded. “Out by the pool. Most of the time he’s not, but with summer and all. Poor girl…” He was fighting to get the right words. Sanchez seemed truly unhappy about all this. Hopper had expected the stonewall, but instead got the extended version, having to wait for the
lawyer
to tell the kid not to answer any questions. Bill two hundred bucks. Common sense. He couldn’t wait to get a shot at Alex Michel again, wished he would hurry up and arrive. Not that anyone here would admit to what happened earlier. Or they’d be all sneaky and send a different lawyer.
Michel who? What?
Or, the idea seeming to ring true the more he spoke with Sanchez, those guys didn’t come from the babydaddy’s family at all.
“How long will it take for the lawyer to show up?” Hopper asked.
“A few minutes, no more.”
“You going to tell Keith I’m here?”
“Let’s leave him be for now. Don’t want to get him wound up.”
Hopper nodded, let an awkward thirty seconds ride by. Then, “Heard from Ernie Depp since this afternoon?”
Sanchez gave him a truly blank look. “Sorry?”
“Ernie? Beefy kid in a nice suit? You know who I’m talking about.”
A shrug. “No, I don’t. I think you’re mistaken.”
The doorbell echoed deeply and Sanchez said, “There’s our attorney, should be. I’ll introduce you and he can lay down the ground rules.”
He turned to walk away. Hopper spoke to his back. “Wait a sec. You never asked me about my face. Why’s that?”
Sanchez didn’t turn around. “I assumed it was none of my business. You either have a tough job or an angry lover.”
When Sanchez was gone, Hopper said to his water glass, “Amen.”
The ground rules were pretty vague, of course, to give the lawyer—short, fit, and bald before forty—an excuse to stop the questions for pretty much any reason. Hopper felt silly. He should have done more research and ambushed the kid outside of the house. This is what he was stuck with, so be it. A controlled interview with daddy and attorney hovering. Great.
Sanchez slid back the glass door to the backyard and led them out to the pool. Not all that large, but nice enough. Some patio furniture scattered alongside, a round table with a umbrella that would give shade to an elephant. Keith was lounging, sunglasses, cell phone pressed to his ear and earphones for an iPod on his lap. Spread out, ankles crossed, flip flops and ripped swim trunks (probably bought them like that) and a muscle-T with “FBI” in thick blue letters against white. His hair, some sort of half-assed Mohawk—military short on the sides with this obvious longer stripe up top, nowhere close to punk or Mr. T, but an ocean away from Abercrombie prep.
Sanchez stood over his son, hands in pocket. Behind blacker-than-black shades, Keith either ignored his dad or had his eyes closed as he kept yammering—“Dude, I know. Don’t sweat it. Tell her it was an old friend, hometown crush. Didn’t mean anything. She only caught a hug anyway, right? No? Tongue?”
“Son.”
A quiver of a nod. “Just a minute, Pops. What? My dad.”
“Don’t think we can wait for this one. It won’t take long, promise.”
The kid’s head swiveled to take in Hopper and the bee-buzzing lawyer. In person, attorneys and private eyes looked nothing like TV. Keith mumbled, “Gotta go. Lawyer stuff.” Flipped the phone shut and said, “What can I help you gentlemen with? I do something?”
Sanchez clapped a hand on Hopper’s back. “Mr. Garland is a private investigator and wants to ask you a few questions about Yasmin. You’re not being accused of anything. This is only to help him in the search. We all want to bring her home, right?”
Hopper heard the inflections, setting the kid up. A quiet threat under the decent surface. The kid got away with a lot, but when the father finally took notice, there was hell to pay. The sorts of punishments only rich repressed dads could dream up. Hopper had once known a guy whose dad, some sort of oil company bigwig, made him dig his own grave after a drunk driving charge. In July. In Austin.
Keith heard the subtle undertones, too. “Glad to help. I’m not sure what I can add but you never know what’ll work.”
The lawyer said, “Make sure you wait a beat before answering. I’ll nod if it’s okay.”
Hopper turned to the lawyer. “I didn’t think you needed to say it out loud.”
“Cross your ‘T’s.”
Hopper sat on the empty pool lounger by Keith, who gave a full body yawn and tucked his hands behind his head. “Fire away.”
Start strong
. The mentors told him that. Fuck psychology and go on their immediate reaction instead.
“Where’s the body?”
He hadn’t finished when the lawyer stepped over. “Enough!”
Keith’s face, though. Rock hard. Could mean two things—he didn’t give a shit and knew how to lie his way out of trouble, or he didn’t give a shit and didn’t know.
Sanchez leaned towards Hopper’s ear and whispered, “I invited you into my house, and this is what you do?”
Hopper humped his shoulders and loosened up. Prize fighter moves. “Please, let me get through this and maybe you’ll understand, okay?”
The two older men backed off and Hopper tried again. “So you’re telling me you don’t know where she is.”
“Exactly.”
“If she were found alive, you’d be happy about it.”
“Absolutely, man, she’s a sweet girl.”
“And I’m sure you’re only saying that now because daddy’s taken care of the situation for you, right? Financially, legally, no one’s ever going to be able to connect you to Yasmin’s baby once it’s born.”
That one got an eye flick towards Sanchez first, then the lawyer. Keith swallowed and kept on. “Better than if I ended up a deadbeat, right? The money is more than she could hope for from some nigger off the street—”
“
Keith!
Jesus…” Sanchez sighed and the lawyer conferred with him.
“—or that little boy she reeled in to help her out. Preacher’s kid or something, help out her image.”
“She needed an image boost? Most people think
you
were the mistake in an otherwise squeaky clean life.”
Keith grinned. “Girl knew what she was doing. She wasn’t like a porn star, but she knew what she wanted, told me how to do it. Most girls that age—”