“Jesus,” Smitty said under his breath. “He’s a good customer, all right?”
“Does he favor one club over another?”
“Tickled Pink.”
“How often is he there?”
“Three, four nights a week.”
“Does he go to see a particular girl?”
“No. Swear,” he added, when Crawford registered doubt. “He rarely even watches the show. He sits in one of the big booths and just meets with people.”
“What people?”
“I don’t know. People.” He shot Crawford a querulous look as he decided on that second gin after all and sloshed some into the glass.
“What kind of people? Young, old, men, women? Down-and-outs? Well-heeled?”
Smitty chugged the gin and belched noxious fumes. “Men. All kinds.”
“What do all these kinds of men talk to Otterman about?”
“How the hell should I know? The weather.” Under Crawford’s baleful stare, he squirmed in his squeaky chair. “Look, I don’t meddle, okay? Or eavesdrop. Otterman buys name-brand booze and lots of it. My interest in him stops there.”
“Heavy drinker?”
“No. He buys the hooch for his guests. Never seen him any way except cold stone sober.”
“Fights?”
Smitty hesitated, then said no.
“Fights?”
The club owner rolled his eyes, then, at a look from Crawford, gave it up. “I’ve never seen him engaged in one, but he’s…let’s say…respected.”
“Feared.”
“I didn’t say that. You can never quote me as saying that.”
“But nobody crosses him.”
“Not more than once, anyway. Draw your own conclusion.”
It wasn’t a conclusion, but it was a good guess that Otterman wasn’t above knocking heads together, or having henchmen to do it for him. “Does he carry?”
“Wouldn’t know. Haven’t looked.”
Smitty was probably lying about that, but Crawford let it pass. If Otterman had a CHL, it was to be assumed he was armed. “What else?”
“That’s it. He tips twenty percent, doesn’t cause me any trouble, and I don’t cause him any, and that’s the way I want to keep it. So if that’s all…” He looked at Crawford hopefully.
“You know a guy named Jorge Rodriguez?”
He shook his head. “Don’t get many greasers in my clubs.”
“Why’s that?”
Smitty raised a shoulder. “Maybe it has to do with the Virgin Mary.”
“The Virgin Mary?”
“You know, beans are into all that.”
Crawford didn’t pursue that illogical train of thought. “I want to know who these men are that Otterman meets with.”
Smitty made a strangling sound of righteous indignation. “You want me to spy on one of my best customers?”
His act didn’t impress or deter Crawford. He’d seen it before and knew it was all for show. He stood up and headed for the door. “Same as always, I need the info yesterday, and I’ll pay based on how good it is.”
“I’m no snitch.”
“Smitty, if the price was right, you’d sell your mother as a sex slave to a gang of vandals.”
“Already did,” he called to Crawford as he went out. “They brought the sorry bitch back.”
Chapter 18
It was late afternoon by the time Crawford returned to police headquarters. He found Neal at his desk. When he saw Crawford, he said, “Long lunch.”
“I’m a slow eater. Got anything on Otterman?”
Neal related the basic information that Crawford had already obtained. He sat down at Nugent’s vacant desk and swiveled the chair from side to side. “Strike you as funny that he doesn’t stay with any one outfit for very long?”
“Not particularly.”
“Hmm. Did you check the video from the entrance security camera?”
“He came into the courthouse by the main entrance just shy of one forty. ADA Alicia Owens confirmed that they had an appointment at one forty-five. He was five minutes early. She was twenty minutes late. During the course of their meeting, they were alerted to the situation on the fourth floor and evacuated along with everybody else. We see him being herded through the west side exit on the ground floor.”
“You find the cop who let him leave?”
He told Crawford his name, but Crawford didn’t know him. “He’s earnest, but green,” Neal said. “Understandably, Otterman intimidated him. He’s being dealt with by his superior.”
“How harshly?”
“That’s another department. Not my business.”
Crawford wanted to jerk him up by his necktie and ask what his business was if not finding Chet’s murderer. “Otterman ever been in any of our district courts?”
“No.”
“As a witness?”
“Not as a witness, not as a juror. No association whatsoever,” Neal said. “We checked all. Double-checked Judges Waters and Spencer. No record of him at her former firm. Nil. Zilch. Nada. Zero. Told you so.”
“You want me to back off him.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth.”