Collar Robber by Hillary Bell Locke Page A

quaint sound in a public place these days. At the top I ignored lederhosen-chick for the second time that night and joined Nesselrode at the doorway to a room maybe ten feet down the hall seconds after the bartender got the door open.
    That’s as far as we got, because the bartender had stopped cold, blocking the doorway. He was nothing like tall enough to keep me from looking into the room over his shoulder, though.
    I saw a man sitting on a bed that a barracks-rat would have spit on. Back braced against the wall at the pillow-end of the bed. Trousers and underpants bunched down around his ankles. Fair-sized laptop PC resting on hairy thighs and hiding what was between them. Eyes bulging, mouth gaping, tongue peeking from the corner of his mouth, head lolling onto his right shoulder. The braided rope around his neck explained a lot.
    I made the rope for well over two yards long, doubled and tied so that it had a loop at one end and two loose ends at the other. A neat, elegant knot secured the looped end in a choking circle around the man’s lifeless neck. From the knot the doubled strand went slackly around the bedpost and back toward the body, with the two free ends lying close to the body’s hip.
    My eyes drifted toward his feet: gleaming black Nike Air Jordan Six-Rings. I recognized his face from the close look I’d gotten of it just before he clocked me with Proxy’s attaché case. Nesselrode shook his head in weary disgust.
    â€œNo society in history has ever experienced a shortage of whores.”

Chapter Sixteen
    Jay Davidovich
    Nesselrode twitched reflexively toward the stairs. I moved my head maybe an inch back and forth. Unnecessary. He stifled the impulse on his own. We’d done the same instant analysis and reached the same conclusion: Stay or go? Stay .
    Fraulein Lederhosen was the first one to do anything constructive. Scooching in between Nesselrode and the bartender, she nudged her way into the room and headed unflinchingly for the body. She snapped something at the bartender on her way. I don’t know, maybe “snapped” is too strong. Maybe everything in German sounds like an order to me. I’m guessing that she’d told him to call the police, because the bartender responded by digging a phone from under his apron. Punched one button on the phone, raised it to his ear. Has the local heat on speed-dial. Figures.
    The hooker felt the body’s neck and wrists. Didn’t take her long. She looked back at the three of us.
    â€œ Tod .” Dead. Even I knew that one. No surprise, but she was right: someone had to check.
    The bartender was jabbering away on the phone by now. The hooker stalked back out of the room and crossed the hallway to the john she’d brought in from the street. That drew my eyes to him for the first time since I’d seen the body: pasty face, wide eyes, rapid, shallow breaths, lips puckered in a little “o.” Shock? Don’t think so . Then it came to me. Sonofabitch! The guy is turned on!
    Reaching under the left lapels of the john’s overcoat, suit coat, and vest, the blonde fished a pack of Dunhills and a lighter from his shirt pocket. She pulled a cigarette out of the pack with her lips, then offered the john one of his own smokes. He accepted with touching gratitude. Cigarette still dangling unlit from her lips, she punched the bartender on the bicep to get his attention. When he turned impatiently toward her, she held the pack out to him. He took one too. Then she offered one to Nesselrode and me. About time to conform to an American stereotype .
    â€œ Nein, danke .” I got that out without too much trouble. Nesselrode picked up the hint and said the same thing.
    â€œTell them we’ll wait outside until the police come,” I instructed Nesselrode as the blonde lit her cigarette and passed the lighter around.
    I assume that’s what Nesselrode said, because none of them batted an eye when we headed