Arc D'X by Steve Erickson

silly.
    "You've done fine," Wade said to the rookie.

    "You won't tell Mallory that I—" the rookie started, but Wade was already walking away through headquarters, narrowly missing its low ceilings and brass pipes that coiled from the walls. If Mallory worked fast enough, he could have sold the TV on the black market last night at the Arboretum, assuming he was there to check out the Fleurs d'X business and there weren't a lot of other cops around. For a few minutes Wade was feeling pleased that he had something on Mallory, to balance out whatever Mallory had on him, but the maze of paranoia through which his mind wandered led to another possibility, that Central let Mallory work his black-market scam as a reward for being an informant. Of course, if Mallory was caught red-handed, Central would deny any knowledge of it and Mallory would be on his own. When Mallory walked by his desk Wade, studying the file on the hotel murder, said casually, "Heard you found a dish," to which someone with a little imagination or humor might have answered something cute along the lines of, You mean the little dark one with the huge tits or the blonde with the long legs and funny accent? Instead Mallory sput-STEVE ER I CK S ON

    67

    tered just long enough for Wade to change the subject and wave the file at him. "So what do you have?"

    "Have?" Mallory said, flummoxed.

    Wade leaned back in his chair. "From the hotel yesterday," he said. "What did you think I meant?"

    "Nothing."

    "What?"

    "We didn't find anything."

    "What did the concierge say?"

    "About what?" Mallory nearly shouted.

    "The murder, Mallory," Wade answered slowly, "there was a body, remember? Blood everywhere?"

    Mallory read from a note pad he took from his pocket. He was rattled, the way Wade had brought up the TV and then dropped it.
    "Concierge says Mrs. Hurley checked into the hotel two nights before."

    "Under what name?"

    "Sally Hemings."

    "What was she doing checking into a hotel in the middle of the night?"

    "I didn't say it was the middle of the night."

    "All right. What was she doing checking into—"

    "Domestic dispute. Told her husband she was leaving. Or, actually, the husband says she just left."

    "What's the husband do?"

    "He's an actor in the Arboretum."

    "Did he say what the argument was about?"

    "No."

    "Did you ask him?"

    "Sure I asked him," Mallory answered.

    "She was upset enough to check into a hotel for two days."

    Mallory said, as though it explained something, "They're broke."

    "They're not living off anything he's doing in the Arboretum, that's for sure."

    "She makes jewelry and sells it. Necklaces and earrings and shit."

    Wade looked at the file. "She ever clear this jewelry with Central?"

    "I doubt it."

    A ft C D'X • 68

    "You search their place?

    "I thought we were investigating a murder."

    "They live off the sale of this jewelry?"

    "A couple years ago she inherited some money. One of those things that happens out of the blue, a dead relative she never knew existed." Mallory checked the note pad again. "Madison Hemings.
    Anyway, that money's gone now."

    "Where was Hurley the night before last?"

    "Arboretum, he says."

    "Was anyone with Miss Hemings when she checked into the hotel?"

    "The concierge didn't see anybody. She was up there alone the whole time he knew of. She went out the day before yesterday and came back and told the concierge she'd be leaving. Yesterday he goes up to her room to see if she's checking out and the door's open. He takes one look inside and sees everything and calls us."

    "And he never saw anyone else coming or going?"

    "He sleeps behind the front desk at night."

    When he's not watching his felonious TV, Wade thought.
    "There's still no ID on the body," he said, opening the file again.
    "Did you dust?"

    "Of course we dusted. She left prints on the door knob and the knife, about what you'd expect."

    "No prints from the dead man."

    "No."

    "And you checked out the premises entirely, the