Chapter Thirty-Eight

Joe stretched his feet out under the table and looked Veronica steadily in the eye. “Okay, so you think we’re fools. That’s fine. Just tell us where Elise went and we’ll leave you alone.”

“I told you I have pretty strong feelings about that. She doesn’t want you, she doesn’t need you...if I knew anything, why would I betray her confidence?”

“The fact that we love her makes no difference to you?” Brent demanded, leaning forward so suddenly he startled her. “Don’t tell me you’ve worked in places like this so long you don’t have any faith in love.”

Veronica leaned forward too, displaying a mound of surgically enhanced cleavage. “What makes you think I don’t love Elise myself?”

Brent’s mouth fell open as if this was a possibility he had never considered.

Joe recovered more quickly. “She obviously doesn't love you, or she'd still be at your place. If she doesn’t want you any more than she wants us, why not tell us where she went? We’ll let you go back to whatever you were doing, and that will be the end of it.”

Veronica idly twirled a lock of hair while pretending to consider this. “I thought there was something you were going to give me if I talked. You don’t think I’d betray a friend for nothing, do you?”

“I can pay you the same way I paid to get you to this table.”

“How much?”

“I’ve got two more.”

Veronica frowned into her drink. “The last thing I want is for Elise to hate me. I lost track of her for years. We used to be roommates, danced together, hung out together. We dated some of the same guys back when I still dated guys. And even though she stayed straight and I didn't, I kept hoping one of those jerks would be the last and she'd see who her real friends were. When she started acting like she wanted to settle down, I thought I didn’t stand a chance. Then all of a sudden she looks me up and needs a favor—a place to stay and for me to keep my mouth shut. Two simple things. It just doesn’t seem right to tattle over a little blow.”

“What else do you want?” Brent asked.

“What makes you so sure my information has a price?”

“All information has a price.”

“Not necessarily,” Veronica said, finishing her drink and indicating to the waitress that they wanted another round. “Just because I work in a place like this doesn’t mean I don’t have standards.”

“No one said you didn’t,” Joe told her. “But you’re not ratting on Elise. She’s scared and needs our help.”

Veronica shook her head. “She may be scared, but if you think she needs help from you, you don’t know her very well. Besides, you can't keep pace with her. She’s probably not even in the country any more. You guys are wasting your time.”

Joe pushed his empty beer bottle aside. “Where is she going?”

“She told me she didn’t feel safe here. She was worried you’d find her, even after she changed her name and bleached her hair.”

“She colored her hair, too?” Brent asked.

“You didn’t know? She makes a delicious blonde.”

“Fine, whatever,” Joe said. “So where was she talking about going? Did she already have her plane tickets? What about a visa?”

"I don't know. She got a passport from that guy she bought her new name from, but I got the feeling that it made her a little nervous. I think if she goes through with her plan to leave the country, she may do it under her own name."

"Where was she thinking about going? And how was she going to get there?"

"I really don't know," Veronica admitted. "She said something about wanting to catch a flight to the Virgin Islands or someplace like that, and then go from there to some larger country where it's not too hard to get a work permit. I told her that was stupid and she should catch one of those Mexican express buses to Veracruz and relocate from there under her phony name. There's lots of shady characters in Mexico who could help her out, and their prices are cheaper than dirt."

"So what did she decide?"

"I said I don't know." Veronica looked around for the waitress. "Where's that other round I ordered?"

"You sure you should be drinking so much?" Brent asked, toying with a napkin from under his empty martini glass.

"Who are you, my mother? At least I'm not driving."

Brent opened his mouth to say something, but Joe flashed him a silencing look, and at that moment the waitress arrived with a tray full of drinks. "It's about time," Veronica told her. "What took you so long?"

The waitress ignored Veronica's nagging and began setting drinks in front of them. "Some of your other customers are wondering when you're going to go see them."

Veronica craned her neck and a group of men in electrician's uniforms waved at her. She turned back to Joe. "If we're going to do business, we need to cut the bullshit and get down to it. I've got some regulars waiting to see me, and they're my bread and butter."

Joe reached for his fresh beer. "I'm just waiting on you. I made you an offer: two more of what I gave you earlier if you tell me who Elise was going to see after she left you."

"Is that the best you can do?"

"It's a pretty good offer, I think," Joe said. "What else do you want?"

Veronica considered. "How about the phone number of the person you got this stuff from? That's better shit than what my contact I have now is getting me."

"We got it from Sylvia Lobo," Brent said. "You remember her."

Veronica smiled. "I sure as hell remember Sylvia. Man, I haven't talked to her in forever. I had no idea she was still in the business." She drained half her Jack and coke, then darted a look at her table of electricians and indicated she would only be a minute more. "How can I get in touch with her?"

Brent had pulled out his wallet by this point and was copying the phone number onto a cocktail napkin from the blue post-it they had found in Elise's office a few days before. "Don't mention us, okay?"

Veronica folded the napkin and slipped it into a pocket of her jacket. Then she turned to Joe. "Well?"

Joe searched his jacket pockets, removed a few pieces of paper, then took the jacket off and slipped it around her shoulders. "Left inside pocket."

Veronica fumbled a bit, then shrugged off Joe's jacket and handed it back. "Ursula Docet."

"What?"

"Ursula Docet. That's who Elise went to stay with. She's one of the women from the ballet. We did a lot of our training with her."

"Do you have a phone number or an address for her?" Joe asked.

"Sorry."

"Is she still with the ballet?"

"I have no idea."

"That's okay," Brent said. "If she's not at the ballet, there will be some kind of record at the academy or on the internet. Ballet is pretty incestuous. We ought to be able to track her down."

"Well that's good," Joe said. "Otherwise that would've been a pretty high price just for a name."

Veronica drained the last of her drink and got to her feet, "That's all you asked for, remember?" She tossed her heavy hair over her shoulder and straightened her jacket. "Just remember, if you find her, you didn't get anything out of me."

"Of course not."

"You won't find her, though."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."