Out Cold by William G. Tapply

to the other and talking among themselves in low, lifeless voices. I guessed that after they’d stomped out their cigarettes, they’d all file inside for dinner.
    It was close to suppertime, so I headed for Skeeter’s. A block up the street from the Shamrock, I spotted three women talking to the driver of a dark panel truck that was pulled over to the curb puffing clouds of exhaust into the frigid air. As I got closer, I saw that the women were quite young. Late teens, early twenties at the oldest. They were wearing short skirts and high-heeled boots and fake-fur jackets and a lot of makeup.
    Streetwalkers, no doubt. Hookers. Once upon a time everybody called the Washington Street part of Boston between Tremont and Chinatown the Combat Zone. It was sprinkled with peep shows and dirty-book stores and strip joints and nudie bars, and it was populated by prostitutes and pimps, coke dealers and crackheads, muggers and scammers and runaways.
    The Zone was a good place for a suburban adventurer to get a knife in the ribs or a dose of the clap.
    In recent years the pickup bars and adult-entertainment establishments had been pretty much shut down. Those who cared about such things were trying to revive the area’s old name: The Ladder District. If you looked down at it from a helicopter, you’d see Tremont and Washington streets running parallel to each other and a dozen or so short narrow one-way streets linking them like…well, like the rungs of a ladder.
    Nobody I knew actually called it the Ladder District, and a new name would never change the area’s history or culture anyway. It was, and would forever be, the Combat Zone to all but the politically correct and those with a public-relations agenda. Besides, nobody was claiming that crime and vice had ceased to be a thriving enterprise in the area no matter what you called it.
    I approached the women and said, “Hey, ladies. Can I talk to you for a minute?”
    They turned their heads and looked at me. A blonde and two brunettes. One of the dark-haired women looked Asian. The blonde said something to the guy in the truck, and then the three of them started to walk away.
    The truck pulled away from the curb and headed up the one-way street. A logo was painted on the side panel. It looked like a stylized silhouette of a couple of bears, a big one and a little one, mother and cub, maybe, with a few pine trees in the background and scrolled lettering under it that I couldn’t read. The truck had New Hampshire license plates. Live Free or Die. Some contractor or plumber or car salesman—or lawyer or pediatrician or politician, for that matter—venturing south to the Big City from Portsmouth or Nashua or Manchester at the end of a long week, hoping to buy a Friday-night hookup.
    â€œPlease,” I called to the women. “I just want to talk to you for a minute.”
    Two of them crossed the street. The third one hesitated, then turned and came back to where I was standing.
    Up close, I saw that she was younger than she dressed. She didn’t look much older than my dead girl.
    â€œYou wanna party, mister?” she said. She was smoking a cigarette. She had black hair and pale skin. She was wearing a red beret and a fake-ermine jacket and a narrow black skirt that stopped at mid thigh. She wore bright red lipstick and a lot of makeup around her eyes and big hoopy earrings.
    â€œTempting,” I said. “But no thanks. I just want to ask you a couple questions.”
    â€œFuck you, then.” She turned and started to walk away.
    â€œPlease talk to me,” I said. “I’ll pay you.”
    She stopped. “Pay me for what?”
    â€œFor answers to some questions.”
    â€œWhat kind of questions?”
    â€œNothing personal,” I said. “About somebody you might know. I’m just looking for some information.”
    She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re not a cop. Are you some kind of