Urge to Kill by John Lutz Page A

actor.
    “Oh, I dunno,” he said. “They’re both kind of glamorous names.”
    She smiled.
    “For a woman with a glamorous smile,” he added, leaning toward her. “I don’t mean to sound flip, or too much like I’m some lounge lizard who does this all the time. Truth is, I looked at you and something clicked.”
    “Now, that’s not very original.”
    “Well, I warned you. I’m not good at this. You know what I worry about now?”
    “What’s that?”
    “That I might work this kind of shallow chatter too hard because I don’t know how to really get through to you.” He toyed with his glass, regarding the amber liquid. “That I might lose you when I’ve just found you.”
    “Kind of like yanking too hard on a fishing pole and breaking the line?”
    “Kind of like,” he admitted. He aimed those dark and deep eyes at her, at the center darker than her own. Becoming darker the longer she looked into them. “I’m trying to be honest with you, Hettie. I’d be dishonest if I thought it would help my cause.”
    “I like a little dishonesty now and then.”
    “Sure. But only now and then.” He seemed absolutely serious.
    “The object of your game,” she said, “is for us to leave here together and go to your place or mine.”
    “Or to a hotel.” He rotated slightly on his stool so he was facing her. “Listen, Hettie, half the men in here—no, more than half—would gladly cut off any appendage but one if they could leave here with you.”
    “I’m not crazy about hotels,” she said.
    “Neither am I.”
    She was liking this guy more and more. And the way he could look deep into you…
    She had to think about this, but she was already 90 percent sure of her conclusion.
    He must not have liked the way the conversation was flagging.
    “Maybe I’ve seen you on TV or somewhere,” he said. “What have you been in?”
    She placed both elbows on the bar and leaned toward him and to the side, so their heads were almost touching and she could speak softly and directly.
    “Ever heard of Dubba the Mermaid?”
    “I might have,” he said. “Refresh my memory.”
    Hettie smiled at him.
    Maybe tomorrow when we wake up.
     
     
     

16
     
     
    “Good thing the car’s black,” Fedderman said.
    The weeks-long assault of hot weather was having its effect on the pavement. Fresh blacktop from where an early morning street crew had just patched a pothole spotted the windshield when it was thrown up from the tires of the truck ahead of Quinn’s Lincoln. Quinn used the windshield squirts and wipers and got most of it off without leaving too much of a mess on the glass.
    “They’ve got chemicals that’ll take tar off,” Quinn said. He wasn’t worried about the car right now.
    They were driving to a diner on First Avenue to talk to Vance Holstetter, a homicide detective who’d been Joe Galin’s partner until shortly before Galin retired. Pearl wasn’t in the car. She had listened to Quinn’s account of his conversations at Pizza Rio and asked if she could go take a run at the two delivery riders, especially Jorge, the one Quinn thought might know something.
    Quinn had figured there was nothing to lose, so he’d told her to take the unmarked and go. Pearl had a way with young guys sometimes, knew how they thought and how to manipulate them. He wondered if she’d grown up with brothers. He really didn’t know much about her early life. Maybe he could ask her mother.
    His cell phone chirped, and he drew it from his pocket and squinted at it cradled in his palm.
    Renz calling.
    He raised the phone to his ear. “Hello, Harley.”
    “Quinn, where are you?”
    “Driving to meet Galin’s old partner, Vance Holstetter.”
    “Something you should know: The lab’s blood pattern guys got together with the medical examiner, and they all agree about Galin.”
    “That he’s dead?”
    “Quit trying to be funny. There’s a complication. Galin wasn’t shot where the car was parked. The bullet didn’t kill