see the driver clearly with the sun glaring off its windshield, but a man wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap sat behind the wheel.
She said, "You see the AMG?"
"I see it."
"That's my husband. When I left the motel, I got into his car and we found a quiet street. It was one of those little streets just above the freeway, I think by a school. We had sex. After we finished, we went for dinner in Studio City. That would have been around eleven-thirty. We eat there all the time, so the maitre d' will remember. We'll have the credit card receipt."
I watched the AMG as she said it, then looked back at her, feeling uncomfortable that she had to open herself to me and a guy like Pardy.
She shrugged.
"I don't trick for the money. He likes it when other men pay for me. He likes waiting while-"
"Is he armed? If he gets out with anything in his hands, it's going to be a problem."
"We didn't know what to expect. Stephen made threats. He said if I didn't talk to you, he would tell the police a lot more about me than the evening I spent with Faustina-"
She hesitated, to choose her words carefully.
"Stephen has pictures. We have children."
"I'll talk to Stephen. I don't care what you did with Faustina sex-wise-I want to know what he said. Did he mention what he was doing here in L.A. or what he was going to do later that night? Did he mention any names? I don't need a description of the sex."
The corner of her mouth curled again.
"Everything is sex."
"Just answer my questions."
"We prayed."
She stopped, waiting for my reaction.
"You prayed?"
"He paid me two hundred dollars to pray. So tell me, was that sex or not? We knelt and he read from the Bible. That's what he wanted."
"What did you pray about?"
"We asked God to forgive him, like, please forgive this man his sins, forgive this sinner, show him mercy, like that. I thought it would become sexual, but it didn't."
"You prayed for an hour?"
"He paid for an hour, but he got a phone call and asked me to leave. I was probably with him about forty minutes. I got there at ten, so that was about ten-forty."
The phone call could have been from the person he went to meet.
"Do you remember what he said to the phone?"
"No, I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention, and then he let me out. I know he was still on the phone when I left."
I made a mental note to recheck the calls Faustina made that night. One of his outgoing calls might have led to his getting the call she remembered. I glanced at her husband, but he was still tucked in his car. The lot attendant was busy directing traffic. Something in what she said bothered me.
"He walked you to the door, but he was still on the phone? Did you mean he was holding the phone when he brought you to the door?"
"That's right. You know how you cup it so people can't hear?"
"His phone was on the nightstand on the opposite side of the bed. It wouldn't have reached the door."
"No, no, not that phone. His cell phone. It was one of those flip phones."
A cell phone meant he could have made calls other than the calls that showed on his motel bill. A cell phone opened an untraceable world of possibilities unless I could learn his number. I made a note to ask Diaz if a cell phone had been found with his body.
Margaret Keyes said, "Are we finished?"
"Yes. You've been a big help. I appreciate it."
I glanced at her husband. She saw me looking, and smiled.
"Go introduce yourself. It would scare the shit out of him."
I opened the door, then looked back at her.
"This thing you do, you do it for him?"
She laughed, and her eyes sparkled with cold fire.
"You can't even hope to understand."
I didn't ask what she meant. I walked back to my car, then went to find the others.
18
Hot Pursuit
After Frederick had taken care of Father Wills, he was scared to return to Payne's. He wanted to; he wanted to race back and search for anything that would tell him where Payne had gone and what he intended, but it was late when he finished with the priest. Even with Payne's house hidden the way it was, Frederick was frightened that filling his house with light in the middle of the night would draw unwanted attention.