Drawing Dead by Pete Hautman Page B

what looked like Catfish’s Porsche parked in front of one of the rooms. The car was empty. Crow circled the block and drove past again, checking the license plate. It was hers. He parked on the street and entered the motel lobby. An old man wearing a Minnesota Twins baseball cap was sitting in a swivel chair behind the counter. He lowered his newspaper and raised his eyebrows.
    Crow decided to use the direct approach.
    â€œDid the woman driving that red Porsche just check in here?”
    The man stared back at him, black eyes buried in a whorl of wrinkles.
    â€œThat’s her car parked outside. Are you sure you didn’t see her?”
    The old man shrugged. Crow stared glumly through the lobby window at Catfish’s car. He didn’t want to sit there all night waiting for her to show up. The Porsche was parked next to a lemon-yellow Cadillac Fleetwood that needed a wash and wax. It had an Illinois license. Crow turned back to the desk clerk, who was still watching him over the top of his newspaper.
    â€œYou know whose Caddy that is?”
    The old man slowly smiled. He had nice yellow dentures—they almost looked real.
    Crow took out his wallet and put a twenty-dollar bill on the counter. It was worth a try. The old man sat up in his chair and stretched his neck to see the bill. He put it in the cash register and handed Crow ten dollars in change.
    â€œFella named Tom Aquinas in there now. Number twenty-two.” He smiled again and went back to his newspaper.
    Crow looked at the ten-dollar bill in his hand. He had never before received change on a bribe.
    â€œYou ever see the girl in the Porsche before?”
    â€œYup.”
    â€œShe usually stay in there long?”
    â€œNope.”
    Crow decided to wait around. After Catfish left, he could approach “Tom Aquinas” and make him an offer. If all went well, he would be out of Dickie Wicky’s employ by the end of the day.
    â€œThanks,” said Crow, starting toward the door.
    â€œHe’s a strange one,” the old man said.
    Crow stopped. Apparently, he hadn’t used up his ten bucks yet.
    â€œNever stops moving,” the old man continued. “Like he’s got ants in his pants.”
    Crow drove across the street to Porky’s Drive-In. In its heyday, Porky’s had been a full-service drive-in, complete with carhops, multicolored neon lights, and a fistfight every other Friday night. Their burgers had been the juiciest, their fries the crispest, and their malts the thickest. Somehow it had survived the onslaught of McDonald’s and Burger King and was still serving its high-fat delights, although the carhops were ancient history. You could eat at one of the umbrella tables set out on the fenced-off patio area, or you could use the drive-up window and eat in your car. Crow ordered a bag of french fries and a Coke. He set the bag on his passenger seat and drove around to the end of the hundred-foot-long corrugated-metal awning, parking where he could see across the street to room 22 of the Twin Town. The underside of Porky’s awning was decorated with colored neon bulbs. Crow picked a limp french fry out of its red- and-white-checkered paper tray. Contemporary reality could not compete with memories. Or maybe he had lost his tolerance for saturated fat. He squeezed the foil packet of catsup over the fries.
    Twenty minutes later, he was looking at the last catsup-soaked french fry, daring himself to eat it, when Catfish Wicky stepped out of room 22. She was followed by a compact, dark-haired man in a bright-orange polo shirt. They walked between the yellow Cadillac and the Porsche and crossed the street on foot, heading directly toward him. Had she seen him following her? It was possible—he hadn’t made much of an effort to remain unnoticed, and the Jag did not exactly blend in with the traffic—but they weren’t looking at him. Every few steps, the man reached up with his right hand