[center][b]Part II
No-Tell Motel [/b]

[i]“There are things that have to be forgotten if you want to go on living.” [/i]
-- Jim Thompson[/center]


[b]Skid Row[/b]

Slam sat in his heap and cruised a booze brainwave. Hell loomed outside. Skid Row: The bottom of the barrel in Gotham. Considering this city, that was saying a whole hell of a lot. This was his beat back during his days in patrol. It was hard work, lots of scraping and fighting. One time he knocked a rape-o shitbird's teeth out with a nightstick when he tried to fight back. It was good work and he went home at the end of his shift feeling like he actually accomplished something. But that was a lifetime ago. Budget cuts and targeted policing meant no cop cars prowled consistently. They were too busy protecting the fine, upstanding citizens of the city who actually paid taxes. 

Here homeless families squatted side by side with homeless drunks. Meth head hookers walked the streets with scabbed faces and reeking of desperation. Slam saw hookers with the Bug prowling for work, not giving a fuck if they killed the men they screwed. Slaw saw junkies shooting up on the steps of a Catholic church. Slam saw a little girl who had to have the Bug. His jaw got tight and he gulped his gin. He watched the lowest of the low sauntering around like they owned the place. Maybe they did? Maybe it was better to rule in hell here than to serve in the Burbs. Some social welfare people and nuns came by, tossing out clean needles and rubbers. Everyone whooped. A drunk slapped a volunteer's ass and asked if they had a pint of Ripple they could give them. Beleaguered nuns did sign of the cross. Winos did the watusi. Smokehounds did the shimmy shake. Junkies did Irish jigs. Slam figured two years. At least two years until Slam was right there on Skid row cutting a rug with the whores and junkies and drunks, five at the most.

He finished off the flask of hooch and got out the heap. He was fresh meat to them. Panhandlers panhandled, junkies made vague threats for money, hookers pawed and promised carnal delights of the sort he'd never had. He stopped in the street and lit up a smoke. He cocked a finger towards a rooftop and got wide eyed.

"Oh, shit! It's the Batman! Everybody run!"

The roaches scattered in the light of vigilante justice and beaucoup beatdowns. Slam laughed and walked unmolested towards a dilapidated building. A dirty, sagging sign above the door said The Ferguson Arms. The hotel was the last known address of Bianca Doheny, twenty-six, heiress to the Doheny Oil Fortune. Fortune should come with air quotes, thought Slam. The old man's house was just as rundown as this flophouse. Slam had two G's in his jacket pocket for the job. Good enough for him, but chickenshit pay for one of the big PI agencies in town. 

Slam flashed his PI license at the clerk fast enough that he may think it was an actual badge. The fat man looked up from his stroke book (XXX Girls of Gotham 69) and squinted through thick, crust stained eyeglasses at Slam. He showed a photo of the girl from a few years back when she graduated at GCU. Gramps said it was current enough.

"Seen her?" 

He slid the clerk a C-note to get the wheels greasing. He squinted harder at the pic before nodding.

"I think that's her. Jesus, that's what she used to look like? "She's checked into 2C. Long-term tenant. Haven't seen her in a few days. 

"Seen her with a guy?"

"Lots of 'em, mister," he snickered. "Day and night they come in and out for her. I might be one of those lucky few thanks to you. Tell you what, you give me another Ben Franklin and I give you the key to her room."

Slam resisted the urge to turn his face into bloody pulp and instead blew smoke before he shelled out fifty bucks and passed it across the counter.

"Ben's out for the day, but maybe you can do business with the Jackson Twins and Alexander Hamilton?"

He grabbed the cash and produced a key. Slam palmed it and headed up rickety stairs. He padded down carpets stained with blood, puke, and cum. Old Man Doheny said she got a solid three grand allowance from her trust fund. Why the flop when she at least had enough money to clock a HoJo's? 

2C was a dump like the rest of the hotel, like the rest of the whole goddamn neighborhood. Dirty sheets, old pizza boxes, a makeup bag with garish eyeshadows and bright lipsticks, a medicine bag with junkie works, unopened rubbers with used ones, sex toys, a mirror with traces of coke lines. Slam suddenly knew why she sprung for the cheap and rundown no-tell motel. He found something scribbled on a pizza box. VIKKI - PLASIADES DELIGHT, and then a phone number. He wrote it down in a notebook and rummaged through the filth.

The only thing Slam couldn't find was definitive proof of a guy shacked up with her. The geezer said she bolted with a boy. The clerk said she had lots of men coming in and out. Bianca was hooking? Why? Had her drug habit gotten bad enough that three grand a month couldn't support it? Or was it just part of the aesthetic of the neighborhood? A rich girl slumming and playing street walker. Buy a room in a flop, sell your body, and shoot up morning til night. Très Slum Chic. All the kids were doing it.

Slam pulled the photo of her out of his jacket. Young, big smile and lots of pretty white teeth. Dark hair and a cut little nose. Full of promise with just a glint in one of those eyes Slam knew all too well was hope.

The Clerk: Christ Almighty, that's what she used to look like?

If she'd changed at all, Slam knew that glint in her eyes was long gone. Somewhere between GCU and the Ferguson Arms it had been snuffed out and ground to powder in that cruel and inglorious way only life is capable of.

His cell phone buzzed. He didn't recognize the number but answered it anyway.

[i]"Mr. Bradley, it' s James Doheny. A note just arrived at the house. It seems to be a ransom note. I need you here as soon as possible, sir."[/i]