Ladykiller Read Free Page B

Billy Ray did five years hard time in
the Florida penal system before convincing the local yahoos that he
was a reformed man. After that, he was chief suspect in a series of
rapes. One had resulted in a woman’s death: from a .45 to the head.
Unfortunately, the Florida cops were too busy sucking on oranges or
skinning gators or whatever they did.They could pin nothing on him.
And now, Billy Ray Battle had shifted his horizons.
Dave saw two uniforms walking ahead, a man and a woman.They
were giving each face they passed a hard look.
One of them, a pale kid with the nametag “Blitzer,” nodded to
Dillon. “Green or blue windbreaker, right?” he asked.
“You got it,” Dave said.The all-points bulletin had gone out quickly.
“I hear he’s dangerous,” Blitzer said. “Carries a .45.”
“Yeah. Be careful.” Dave glanced at his nametag again, then at his
face. “You’re Zoltan Blitzer’s younger brother.Vic, isn’t it? I heard you
were out of the Academy.Welcome to hell.”
Blitzer grinned sheepishly. Veteran cops usually weren’t friendly
to rookies. “Sir.”
“How’s Zoltan? I haven’t been to see him in a month or two.”
“He’s okay. Working on weights in the basement a lot, y’know.
Builds up his upper-body strength.”
“Tell him I said hello,” Dave said. “And give my best to Cathy and
the kids.”
“He talks about you all the time,”Vic Blitzer said.
Dave interrupted him by clapping him on the shoulder. “Let’s get
back to work.” He nodded at the kid’s partner, a tough female cop
who sported an admirable arrest record and a reputation for street
smarts. “Keep an eye on this guy, Martino.”
The Foxy Lady was exactly what high-minded city planners
meant by cleaning up the Deuce. They talked of bringing in Disney,
But if Donald Duck set one webbed foot in the Foxy Lady, he’d end
up rolled and sodomized. Actually, 42nd Street had no more hope of
being cleaned up than a plutonium dump site.
The Foxy Lady was so sleazy that Dave, after a visit, felt like taking a shower. Major slimeballs hung out here. Billy Ray Battle would
naturally gravitate to it.
You couldn’t avoid knowing about the place. On each street corner for blocks around, skeevy types passed out handbills promising:
“Hot girls and more at the Foxy Lady.” The street-corner touts
snapped the handbills like a lash, catching attention. The “more” that
they promised had provided numerous arrests when Dave was working the street. Still did.
The Foxy Lady had a life-sized neon sign, the red silhouette of a
woman that flashed back and forth as if she were dancing. Loud 1970s
rock tunes blared out the door. As usual, Tony Topnut, the owner,
stood guard at the front door, repeating, “Check it out, check it out,
check it out,” into the auto exhaust of the traffic heading for the
Lincoln Tunnel.
“You back?”Tony Topnut exclaimed. “They let you back?”
“They do a lot of things without consulting you,” Dave said dryly.
“Busy tonight?”
“Not bad.” Despite the cool temperature, Topnut wore a garish
short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt that covered his ample gut.The hula girls
on the shirt were lifting their grass skirts to expose themselves. His
short goatee failed to give the desired Satanic effect due to his bulging
triple chin.
“Seen a big white guy in a blue or green windbreaker? Southern
accent.”
“You know my memory’s shitty, Dillon.”
“Sort of like your taste in clothing. I’ll just have a look inside.”
Dave shouldered his way into the bar.A dancer, clad in a G-string
and tiny bra, undulated on the small stage. Her body was nice for the
Foxy Lady: a tight, snaky torso moving with the music. But her downcast face would have been more at home at a funeral.The major stripping action was a while off. This act was just to keep the clientele’s
blood moving.
Every physically and mentally misshapen boulevardier of the
Deuce seemed to have found his way into the Foxy Lady tonight.
Horny, pimply