Free Gladyss of the Hunt by Arthur Nersesian Page B

detective he’d been talking on the phone with. After establishing the vic’s identity, Annie and Alex had called escort houses until they located the one our victim had worked for. Annie had just given him the address, so Bernie and I drove to a luxury high rise in Gramercy Park to break the news.
    The madam was a big-breasted Southern magnolia with a head of stiff dyed red hair. When Bernie showed his badge at the door, she gasped.
    â€œRelax,” Bernie said, “We’re homicide. We’ve found Nelly Linquist.” He showed the sketch of her face.
    â€œDamn! Nelly was such a special gal, you know?” she eulogized. “A lot of fellas will really miss her.”
    Using a rolled-up Kleenex, she dabbed her tears before they could erode the dried layers of mascara. It looked as if they had been plastered on her face one over the other for years.
    Bernie cut to the chase.” Who was Nelly’s last customer?”
    The poinsettia-haired office manager went to a little card catalog box, rummaged in it, and exclaimed, “Oh, yes! I remember now. This guy couldn’t spell his own gosh darn name—Dhaka.”
    â€œCouldn’t spell his own name?” Bernie echoed, glaring at her.
    â€œYeah, he had to do it a couple times till it came out right for the credit card.”
    â€œYou’re a fucking moron,” Bernie spat ferociously. “I should arrest you as an accomplice.”
    She gave him a sour look.
    â€œI don’t care that you run a whorehouse, but at very least you should protect your girls! Which means if a guy calls up and can’t spell his own fucking name, I’d expect you to be a little suspicious.”I could see the madam looking puzzled.
    â€œHow would this guy have found out about your place?” I asked softly, since Bernie had immediately alienated her.
    â€œWe advertise on cable TV, and in the back pages of newspapers. We’re trying to run a business.”
    â€œWhy did you send Nelly?” Bernie asked.
    â€œHe asked for a big blonde.”
    Bernie reached into his pocket and located a photo of the crime scene, something he hadn’t shown to anyone else because it was so disturbing and handed it to her. “First he strangled her slowly, then he cut her up like a piece of meat.”
    â€œI don’t see her . . . face.”
    â€œThat’s because he chopped her head off,” Bernie said bluntly. Pointing within the photo, he added, “See! That’s where he stuck it.”
    She covered her mouth in horror then started weeping painfully. Bernie snatched the photo back.
    â€œThere’s no possibility he saw any of your other girls?” I asked.
    â€œI don’t know. I don’t know who he was,” she said as she staggered into a seat.
    â€œDo you recognize that?” Bernie asked, handing her a close-up photograph of Nelly’s wrist that showed her blood splattered bracelet.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œNo, it’s not hers? Or no, you don’t recognize it?” he pushed.
    â€œI don’t recognize it. It could be hers. I just don’t know.”
    â€œAnd you didn’t recognize the client’s voice?”
    â€œNo, I don’t remember anything unusual about it.”
    â€œDid he sound educated, foreign? Regional?” Bernie asked.
    Looking grim, she stiffly nodded no.
    Bernie handed her his business card, and said she should call him if anything relevant came to mind.
    As we headed back to the car, Bernie called Annie who contacted VISA headquarters and tracked down one Mr. Ahmed Dhaka. Though he had used his credit card about a dozen times in the past week, the only place he’d used it recently, prior to paying for the vic, was at a porn arcade across from Penn Station. It turned out Mr. Dhaka worked for an investment firm on Times Square, Dunleavy Money Management. Bernie got the address: 3 Times Square. Hethought it would be a good idea to pop in