Free Kolchak: The Night Stalker: A Black and Evil Truth by Jeff Rice

the best damn composite you ever saw.”
    “Sure, and where’s the ten bucks going to come from?”
    I didn’t answer but thanked the waitress and took off down the hall, past the costumes, props and dressing rooms, all padlocked. I ducked through the showroom and into the kitchen. Before the checker could ask who I was, I’d made it into the coffee shop and was craning my neck for my four “girl friends” who I finally spotted, sitting on the far side in a big, yellow booth.
    “Sorry to keep you waiting, Michelle,” I panted. “The girl’s from here, all right. Confirmed. Her name is Mary Branden.”
    Michelle looked stunned. The pert redhead next to her spilled her coffee and the two others across from me, both blondes, just stiffened and looked at each other.
    “Friend of yours?” I asked.
    She looked very pale and her hand shook visibly. “Good friend. Three years. A… a nice girl. Crazy as a bedbug. But nice. Straight. She… she might have become a line captain in a year or so. Jesus H. Christ!”
    From the girls, by turns, I learned that Mary Branden was a thoroughly professional dancer. She’d studied ballet from the age of nine in Syracuse, New York, and later in New York City. Her parents were divorced. Mother in New York. Father in Miami. When she turned eighteen, she moved in for a time with her father and auditioned for the Harkness Ballet. Danced with them for a year and then joined the Jane Trobridge Dancers. When she’d turned twenty-one she had come to Vegas to try for the $225-plus weekly check that dancers were getting on the Strip and, with unusual luck, clicked the first time out. She’d been at the Deauville just over three years and was known as a very hard worker. Some comments were: “Crazy. Lots of fun. Couldn’t save a dime.” “Always buying stuffed animals and ‘frou-frou.’” “Dead serious about here dancing career. Practicing all the time.”
    “When she wasn’t subbing for the line captains in breaking in new girls on their routines,” Michelle told me, “she was off alone at odd hours working on routines of her own… sometimes with friends and sometimes alone.”
    During the past week or so, Mary Branden had been staying well past the 1:45–2:00 A.M. check-out time of her friends. She’d been working on a solo number she hoped to convince the stage manager and choreographer to put in the show’s new edition, still (then) more than seven months off.
    Mary Branden, Attractive. Warm. Friendly. Talented. And dead at twenty-four.
    The five of us sat around and looked gray. They, out of grief. I, out of a growing sickness composed of equal parts of shock and my hangover. The waitress came by and I ordered an extra-large orange juice with a raw egg beaten into it. The waitress gave me the look usually reserved for “freaks and other tourists” (the girls explained it to me later), then turned tail and headed for the kitchen.
    I excused myself and went in search of a phone. I found one in the deserted boss’ booth at the front of the coffee shop. The hotel operator got me through to Vincenzo at the office. I gave him what I had and he plugged Meyer into the line for a rewrite while I played back the tape of Miss Olive Bowman’s story. Then I got Vincenzo back on and asked him about the “extra.”
    “Boss says you’ve got it–this time. Guess four killings is too many for him. He checked with Jake and the old man is on his way down here to do a special piece in his column on the murders. Hope you’re finally satisfied,” he growled.
    “Satisfied.” Christ! I may have my odd points but I never got any particular kick in seeing innocent people used for blood banks.
    Vincenzo cut off my thought. “Also, we got some of the girls in display working up a map of Vegas -- simplified, of course–with the killings pin-pointed. This ought to play for at least three days. Might even make it through to Monday. Cairncross is planning a special full page for the early