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“Which is…”
Gantry stared at him. “You really don’t know? Hootchie mama, call girl, whatever you want to call it. She’s in and out of here all the time, mostly later but sometimes this early. We’d love to lose her but she pays for her own drinks and food and like I said, she’s quiet. But it’s obvious what she’s up to. She sits and waits and pretends to readElleor one of those stupid throwaways. But she’s always ready to make eye contact. And sometimes—you know—it works.”
“She picks up a guy.”
“But never the same guy twice.Exceptfor him. That’s why Irememberhim. Just from what I saw, she nailed him at least…three times. Maybe four. And that’s just me, other bartenders could probably tell you more.”
Sean glanced at the other person working the bar. Young Black guy, arranging bottles precisely.
Katy Gantry said, “Uh-uh, Jamal just started here.”
Sean tapped Gio Aggiunta’s photo. “So he was a regular.”
“Not like some, the ones who are here all the time. More like once in a while. Great tipper. Very polite.”
“When’s the last time you saw him and that lady together?”
“Lady.” Gantry smirked and began wiping down a section of spotless bar-top. “Maybe…I don’t know, a while? A month? Honestly, I don’t know. But I did see them go off together three times at least. That’s why when you showed me—oh, geez,isshe dangerous?”
“No,” said Sean. “Just a person of interest. Do you know her name?”
“I know what’s on her credit card,” said Gantry. “Hold on.” She worked an iPad hooked up to the register. “Rhonda Mae Montel, Amex Platinum. Like I said, she pays her own way.”
Sean copied the info into his pad, thanked her, sat down nursing his Sprite, and did his own research, benefiting from the less-than-usual name.
Rhonda Montel, three months past her fiftieth birthday—from here, he had to say, she looked younger—had two active warrants, both for failure to appear. No soliciting arrests, no one prosecuted that anymore. A pair of long-standing traffic fines.
Good enough.
He walked up, waited until she put down her cocktail. She smiled up at him so sweetly he almost felt guilty. Showing his badge, he told her she was under arrest and asked her to stand. Please.
False lashes fluttered. A little-girl voice said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Wish I was, ma’am.”
Her voice lowered to a sibilant, alto whisper. “This is fucking stupid and you know it, Junior.”
Sean smiled.
Rhonda Montel said, “Oh, don’t dothat.Don’t make fun of me. Littleboy.”
—
An hour and a half later, processed but released back to Sean, she sat in the room where Claudio Aggiunta had been interviewed, crossing and recrossing her legs, each movement raising the hem of her dress.
If that was for Sean’s benefit, she was wasting her time. He’d positioned himself across the room and was working his phone.
When Milo and I came in, Rhonda Montel checked us both out, began to favor me with a smile then changed her mind and swung blue lids over to Milo.
A nose for authority.
Milo introduced us.
Montel said, “Call me Rikki, Tall Stuff. Maybe you can tell the kid here he’s barking up the wrong tree.”
Sean smiled.
She said, “Traffic bullshit? With all the crimes you don’t solve, you hassle me on that?”
