“Fancy.”
“You ever seen her before?”
“I’d remember if I had.” Oh, he remembered all right. He remembered well the first time he’d seen that face, that smile.
“Any idea where Bobby Garrett might be?” Carver asked, tucking both photos back into his pocket, along with his badge.
“Who?” Venom asked, just to make the man work for it.
“Bobby Garrett.” Carver’s expression said he wasn’t fooled for a minute. “I think you guys call him Bulldog. I went by his residence, but his wife—”
“She’s ain’t his wife,” Crutch said, laying the poor grammar on thick. It never paid to act as cunning as you really were. A lesson they’d learned during their first tour in Iraq. “She’s his old lady.”
“Fine.” The detective couldn’t have looked any more bored if he’d tried. “His old lady said she hadn’t seen him in a few days.”
“Maybe he decided to go out on a run.” Venom’s smile was forced. “That’s the thing about us bikers. You never know when the open road is gonna call our names, and off we go.”
“He was in the city as late as last night,” Carver said. “We have an eyewitness putting him at Red Delilah’s a little before nine p.m. As well as POD footage of him outside the establishment not too long after that.”
Venom hated the police observation devices spread throughout the city. Luckily, he didn’t have to worry about Big Brother looking in on his neighborhood. Between the Basilisks and the Black Apostles, within twenty-four hours of a camera going up, someone made sure it came down again. And then, surprise, surprise, that same someone smashed it into a million pieces. Venom hoped it wouldn’t be long before budgetary restrictions and apathy made the CPD give up trying to install the damn things.
“So you’re telling me those nifty cameras of yours got footage of a biker at a biker bar.” He widened his eyes. “Imagine that.”
“He seemed to have ill intentions toward Samantha Tate. He went after her with a knife.”
“She the one who’s dead?” Venom played the ignorant card. “You said you were here to ask us questions about a murder.”
“No.” Carver shook his head. “She’s alive and well. It’s the other one, Marcel Monroe, who’s dead.”
Venom shrugged. “Gangbanging is a dangerous job. So what’s a dead dope dealer got to do with Bulldog and this reporter chick?”
“How about you let me worry about that?” Carver said smugly. The prick. “And since we’re back on the topic of that murder, mind telling me where you two were between the hours of three p.m. and five p.m. yesterday?”
“That when the Monroe kid was killed?”
“Answer the question.”
Venom’s fingernails cut into the palms of his hands, his fingers curled around the urge to punch the paunchy detective right in the middle of his stupid pig face. But assaulting an officer of the law, while fun, was also a straight shot to an eight-by-ten. “We were here until seven thirty. We got the footage to prove it.” He pointed to the ceiling where the bright-red eye of a surveillance camera blinked.
“Mind getting me the tapes?”
Tapes? Venom snorted. “What year do you think this is? Nineteen ninety-five? The footage is saved straight onto the hard drive of my computer.” He waved a hand over his shoulder, indicating the direction of his office.
Carver pulled out a business card and slid it across the countertop toward Venom with one finger. When the detective leaned close, Venom could smell coffee and jelly-filled doughnut on his breath. “Then mind emailing me the file?” Carver asked, his tone more demand than request.
Venom glanced at the card, wanting to tell the detective to go fuck himself and come back when he had a warrant. But he figured playing nice served him better in this instance. “Sure.”
“And if you see Bobby…uh…Bulldog,” Carver continued, pulling back, “tell him to give me a call. I have some questions about why he was chasing Samantha Tate with a knife.”
“Maybe she wanted him to chase her with a knife. Ever think of that? Some chicks go in for that kinda thing. Rape fantasies, I think they’re called.”
“She didn’t want him to chase her with a knife,” Carver gritted between his teeth. “I can assure you of that.”
“Well, of course she wouldn’t admit it to you, but—”
“I think that’s all for now.” The detective cut him off, his audacity making Venom’s blood boil. “I look forward to reviewing that video. And don’t forget to send Bulldog my way when he shows up.”
Venom’s jaw sawed back and forth as he watched the detective take his time sauntering toward the front door. Before he pushed outside, Carver turned back. “One more thing.”
