I smiled. "Well, I can feel it. It brought lots of things into focus for me. Let's go to work."

Betsey winked. "I've been here since six."

"Show-off,"I said.

I sat down at the desk I was using and started to look through the mountain of paperwork that had already accumulated. Agent Cavalierre was at the desk across from mine. I was glad to be back on the line. One or more killers were out there murdering bank tellers, managers, families. I wanted to help stop it if I could.

An hour or so later, I looked up and saw Agent Cavalierre staring my way with a blank look on her face. She'd been lost in her thoughts, I suppose.

"There's someone I need to see," I said.T should have thought of him before today. He left Washington for a while. Went to Philly, New York, Los Angeles. Now he's back. He's robbed a lot of banks, and he's violent."

Betsey nodded. "I'd love to meet him. Sounds like a swell guy."

It probably had something to do with our scarcity of solid leads that she went with me that morning. We rode in her car to a fleabag hotel on New York Avenue. The Doral was a decrepit, paint-peeling flophouse. A trio of skinny, shopworn prostitutes in miniskirts were just leaving the hotel as we arrived. A retro-looking pimp in a gold lame zoot suit leaned against a yellow Cadillac convertible, picking at his teeth.

"You take me to all the nicest places," Agent Cavalierre said as she climbed out of the car. I noticed she was wearing an ankle holster. Dressed for success.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Tony Brophy was living the vida loca up on the fourth floor of the Doral. The hotel desk clerk said he'd been staying there for a week, and that he was 'a very troubled dude, not a nice person, and a serious asshole."

"I don't think this place is connected with the Doral in Miami," Betsey said as we took the back stairs. "What a dump."

"Wait until you meet Brophy. He fits right in here."

We arrived unannounced at his room and unholstered our guns. Brophy was a legitimate suspect in the robbery-murders. He fit the profile. I rapped my knuckles on a scarred, bare wood door.

"What?"a gruff voice called from the inside. "I said what?"

"Washington PD. Open up," I called out.

I heard movement, then someone snapped a few locks on the other side. The door slowly opened and Brophy filled the narrow doorway. He was six four and close to two sixty, a lot of it bulging muscle. His dark hair was shaved with neat razor lines to the scalp.

"Asshole DC cop," he said a non filter cigarette hanging from his lips. "And who's this lovely asshole with you?"

Actually, I can talk for myself," Betsey said to Brophy.

Tony Brophy grinned down at her. He apparently liked to get a response to his rudeness. "Okay. Speak. Woof."