"I do not. "
"Yes, you do. "
"Yes, I do," Charlie said, defeated. "But I have to go. Are you okay to watch Sophie?"
"Sure, I'm going to take her to my place. I have an obnoxious neighbor up the street that I'd like to introduce to the puppies. Will they poop on command?"
"They will if Sophie tells them. "
"Perfect. We'll see you tonight. Promise me you'll ask someone out. Or at least look for someone to ask out. "
"I promise. "
"Good. Did you get that new blue pinstripe tailored yet?"
"Stay out of my closet. "
"Don't you need to get going?"
Ray figured that it had probably started when Charlie murdered all those little animals he brought home for his daughter. Maybe buying the big black dogs was a cry for help - pets that someone would really notice being gone. According to the movies, they all started out that way - with the little animals, then before long they moved up to hitchhikers, hookers, and pretty soon they were mummifying a whole flock of counselors at some remote summer camp and posing the crusty remains around a card table in their mountain lair. The mountain lair didn't fit the profile for Charlie, since he had allergies, but that might just be an indication of his diabolical genius. (Ray had been a street cop, so it hadn't really been necessary for him to study criminal profiling, and his theories tended toward the colorful, a side effect of his Beta Male imagination and large DVD collection. )
But Charlie had asked Ray to use his contacts on the force and at the DMV a half-dozen times to locate people, all of whom ended up dead a few weeks later. But not murders. And while a lot of items belonging to the recently deceased had turned up in the shop in the last few years (Ray had found antitheft numbers etched on a dozen items and called them in to a friend on the force who identified the owners), none of them had been murdered either. There were a few accidents, but mostly it was natural causes. Either Charlie was devious to an extraordinary degree, or Ray was out of his mind, a possibility that he didn't discount completely, if for no other reason than he had three ex-wives who would testify to it. Thus, he'd devised the workout ruse to draw Charlie out. Then again, Charlie had always treated him really well, and if it turned out he didn't have a mountain lair full of mummified camp counselors, Ray knew he'd feel bad about tricking him.
What if there was nothing wrong with Charlie except that he needed to get laid?
Ray was chatting with Eduardo, his new girlfriend at when Charlie came down the back steps.
"Ray, I need you to find someone for me. "
"Hang on a second, I have to sign off. Charlie, check out my new squeeze. " Ray pulled up a photo on the screen of a heavily made-up but attractive Asian woman.
"She's pretty, Ray. I can't give you any time off right now to go to the Philippines, though. Not until we hire someone to take Lily's shifts. " Charlie leaned into the screen. "Dude, her name is Eduardo. "
"I know. It's a Filipino thing, like Edwina. "
"She has a five-o'clock shadow. "
"You're just being a racist. Some races have more facial hair than others. I don't care about that, I just want someone who is honest and caring and attractive. "
"She has an Adam's apple. "
Ray squinted at the screen, then quickly clicked off the monitor and spun around on the stool. "So who do you need me to find?"
"It's okay, Ray," Charlie said. "An Adam's apple doesn't preclude someone from being honest, caring, and attractive, it just makes it less likely. "
"Right. It was just bad lighting, I think. Anyway, who do you need to find?"
"All I have is the name Madison McKerny. I know he or she lives in the city, but that's all I know. "
"It's a she. "
"Pardon me?"
"Madison, it's a stripper's name. "
Charlie shook his head. "You know this woman?"
"I don't know her, although the name seems familiar. But Madison is a new-generation stripper name. Like Reagan and Morgan. "