Sleep of the Innocent by Medora Sale Page B

they’re not hard to find. Besides, you might even know some of them,” he added with good-humoured contempt. “They sell classical stuff, too.” Lucas’s reputation for having peculiar tastes was well established.
    â€œWould you believe I also listen to country and western? No, you wouldn’t. Thanks. You’re a pal.” And he reached for the phone to track down their sketch artist and plead for an instant drawing of X.
    Two hours later he was heading for Vice, armed with a pile of copies of a sketch of X. On the whole, he thought it had come out a reasonable representation of her, although maybe it made her look a bit too pleasantly respectable. Vice did not greet him with enthusiasm. “Jesus, Lucas, do you know how many hookers there are in the city? What do you think we are?” said someone resentfully, tossing the picture back at him.
    A sleepy-eyed detective in plain clothes picked up the sketch. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. She looks vaguely familiar. But that doesn’t mean a thing. You want to sit here and go through mug shots of every hooker we’ve booked in the past couple of years, be my guest. I don’t think you’ll find her, though. I haven’t noticed her working downtown. How old is she?”
    â€œEarly twenties?”
    â€œNaw. I thought maybe she was one of those kids who come through for a couple of weeks and then get whisked off home again or somewhere by some social worker. There are so many of them, I can’t tell them apart. No can do. Sorry.” That was it. And off Lucas went in search of record stores.
    Every store seemed to have at least one clerk with an amazing knowledge of the local scene. They all knew Sex Kitten—a group Lucas had never heard of before this week—and that gave him a certain confidence in their opinions. He started with the two largest stores. In the first he drew a complete blank. In the second, the clerk stared at the picture and then called to someone poring over a stack of computer printout in the office. She stared at it, too, and frowned. “I can’t place her,” she said. “But she looks familiar.”
    â€œCould you have run into her at a party?” suggested Lucas. “She’s about your age.”
    The girl shook her head. “Not familiar that way. Familiar, like I saw her on a record jacket or something. Can I keep the sketch?” Lucas nodded. “Give me your name, and if it comes to me, I’ll call you.” She wrote his name down on the back of the picture and whisked off again.
    He turned an inquiring eye back to the clerk. “Sorry. She looked, like, vaguely familiar, that’s all. That’s why I called Betsy over. But if Betsy can’t come up with the name, no one can. She has a phenomenal memory. Still, if Betsy remembers her, like on a record jacket, the kid is probably a singer or something. Somewhere, for somebody.”
    â€œBetsy wouldn’t have seen her hanging around on the street outside, or in the store looking at records, and remember her from that? Get the girl confused with someone else?”
    â€œDefinitely not. Betsy remembers faces, like, in context, you know? If a hundred people she’d seen before walked into this room, she could say, those ninety are customers, I saw those two on television once, that’s a waitress somewhere, that’s a politician, that’s a hooker who works the street out there—she’s good.”
    â€œThanks. Betsy should join the police force.” And he left the store feeling elated. Somewhere in this city someone had to know who X was.
    Nineteen record stores later, his faith in the phenomenal Betsy began to fade. Nineteen clerks stared at the picture, consulted their friends, shook their heads, said they knew every singer in town, and she wasn’t one of them. He walked into the twentieth tired, hungry, thirsty, and discouraged. The more