Free The Man With the Iron-On Badge by Lee Goldberg Page A

hostage?”
    “They are on a rural country road where there are no cops.”
    “They didn’t have to drive on other roads first to get to the rural road?”
    “No.”
    She shrugged. “I’d rethink the whole situation, if I were you. It doesn’t sound too plausible to me.”
    “Could you please just tell me what the numbers on the sticker mean?”
    “The first three characters identify the rental location,” she said. “The remaining numbers identify the vehicle.”
    “So what, for instance, could you tell me about this car?”
    “Whose car is it?”
    “I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking you,” I replied angrily without thinking. An instant later, I realized my mistake and hurried to repair it. “I took this picture of a stranger’s car as research. I’m trying to go through the same steps my hero would.”
    “You going to jump out of a car, too?”
    “I already have.” I lifted my shirt to show her the bruises and bandaging. “As you can see, I take my research very seriously. I’d really appreciate your help.”
    She smiled now, the first genuine smile since I walked in the door.
    “The car came from our rental desk at the Universal Sheraton,” she replied. “The UC stands for Universal City.”
    There’s no real city there, just the Universal Studios Tour. The blackmailer must have decided to do a little sightseeing while he was here. Since LA has no real sights, you have to go someplace where they manufacture them.
    “What can you tell me about who rented the car?”
    “Nothing,” she said.
    “Because you don’t have the information, or because you just don’t want to tell me?”
    “Because it’s confidential.”
    “So, you have the information.”
    “Yes,” she replied.
    “So, it would be possible for my hero to get it.”
    “I don’t see how,” she said.
    “What if, for instance, he seduced the woman behind the counter?”
    “You gonna try that as research, too?” she asked.
    “Would it work?” I replied.
    “No chance in hell, John D.,” she replied.
    I smiled. “What if I told you what the D stood for?”
    I also wasn’t beyond begging.
    “Dann,” she said. “That’s with two Ns.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “That’s what the D is for,” she said. “He wrote twenty-one Travis McGee novels before his death in 1986. My dad was a big fan, though I never understood that ‘wounded bird’ crap.”
    I felt like I’d just been kicked in the ribs again.
    “If you knew I wasn’t John D. MacDonald, why did you help me?”
    “I wasn’t going to, until you lifted your shirt.”
    “Thanks,” I tossed her the book and walked out. I was almost out the door, when I paused for effect, then turned around.
    “Horatio,” I said.
    “Excuse me?”
    “That’s Doctor McCoy’s middle name.”
    And with that I smiled and walked out, feeling pretty cool.
    I knew watching all that TV would pay off someday. My good mood lasted all the way, until I got to my car.
    I still didn’t know who the blackmailer was. All I knew was that he rented his car at the Universal Sheraton. So, I figured, odds were that was where the guy was staying.
    But what the hell was I going to do now?
    I thought about it a minute. Spenser would walk the parking structure until he found the car, then he’d find a place to hide out and wait. When the blackmailer came for his car, Spenser would beat him up and make him talk.
    I was in no condition to do that now.
    I was no condition to do that before my beating.
    So, I asked myself what Jim Rockford would do.
    I stopped by Target before going to the Universal Sheraton and bought a hammer, a gym bag, and a red sweat suit.
    I visited a gas station, went into the restroom, and changed into my uniform again; then I put the red sweat suit on over it.
    I went back to the car and drove to Universal Studios, not the part in the Valley where they make movies, but the amusement park, hotels, and shopping center above it, on the hills along the Cahuenga Pass.
    I was