Free When Elephants Forget (Trace 3) by Warren Murphy Page A

What’s her story?”
    “She moved in last year only. Jennie. She’s going to be a headshrink.”
    “You romancing her?” Trace asked.
    “Not me.” His nose wrinkled slightly as if he thought the idea altogether in bad taste.
    “What about Tony?”
    “What about him? He’s dead,” LaPeter said.
    “I know he’s dead. But he wasn’t always dead, was he? Were he and Jennie getting it on?”
    “I don’t know I ought to tell you anything like that. All you got is this card, no badge. Do I have to tell anything like that to somebody, no badge?”
    “No, you don’t have to. The problem, though, is that after me will be a lot of guys and they’ll have badges and you’ll have to tell them all over again, over and over. You tell me and maybe I’ll get this all straightened up and you won’t have to tell anybody again.”
    “I don’t know if I trust you.”
    “I’m hurt,” Trace said, “really hurt. In all my life, you’re the first person who didn’t trust me. Except my ex-wife. And my mother. But she doesn’t trust anybody.”
    “Hey, don’t be hurt,” LaPeter said. “It’s just that, well, it’s hard, sometimes, man, it’s hard, real hard.”
    Trace had no idea what the young man meant, but he said, “I can attest to that.” He wondered if he should do his Richard Nixon impersonation and repeat the line. It was the perfect Richard Nixon—imitation line. He decided to do it.
    “I can attest to that,” he said again. He twisted his head awkwardly off to one side, lowered his brows, and rolled his eyes up into his head. As he spoke, he nodded as if to himself and held his mouth open as if the words would be followed by a dribble of spit.
    LaPeter applauded and laughed. “I love it,” he said. “W. C. Fields. All his movies I see. Do it again.”
    “I don’t want to spoil it. Everybody loves my W. C. Fields,” Trace said. “So was Tony banging Jennie or not?”
    “Last year,” LaPeter said. “That was why she first moved in. They got hooked up last summer and then she was here, we were all juniors, but it didn’t last long and she stayed on anyway ’cause she pays her piece of the rent, but romances are bullshit.”
    Trace tried again. “I can attest to that,” he said, and waved his arms over his head, his fingers in two V’s, again imitating Nixon.
    “Love it. That’s the best W. C. Fields ever. Again?”
    “No. It’d only spoil the fragile beauty of the moment,” Trace said, miffed. “How long did their romance last?”
    “Like I said, not long, month or two maybe.”
    “And no nookying afterward?” Trace said. “I can’t believe that anything breaks up clean that way.”
    “Well, maybe once in a while, but they weren’t regular together, sleeping together anymore. That’s why my room looks like shit moved in to stay. That used to be my studio, where work was. Tony had one bedroom and I had one, then we got Jennie in here and she got my bedroom and I had to move into the studio with all my stuff, and everything it fucked up.”
    “Women are always doing it,” Trace agreed. “So where were you when Tony got iced?”
    “Iced. Good word,” LaPeter said.
    Trace did not know if he should be complimented or insulted by having his vocabulary praised by one who talked like this.
    “One of my very favorites,” he said. “So where were you during the ice job?”
    “Like that one too. Ice job. I was at a concert in the Poconos. Megan’s Friends. You ever hear of them?”
    “Of course. And I’ve heard of the Beatles and the Stones and Janis and Pegasus.”
    “I never heard of Pegasus,” LaPeter said.
    “I just made it up to see if you were still listening,” Trace said. “Where in the Poconos?”
    “At the theater in Stroudsburg they were. A friend of mine works for them down there, with the sound system, so I wanted to see how it all works. I’m into sound systems, I guess you figured out.”
    “You’re joking. Really?”
    “Yeah. That’s why I got all