Family Honor - Robert B Parker (9 page)

"I don't want to," I said.

Storrow Drive had become Soldiers Field Road. I never
knew quite where that happened. We went past the Harvard Business School
and past the Larz Anderson Bridge. I bore left at the light, following
the curve of the river, and pulled into the park on the riverside opposite
WBZ. I parked near the water, and shut off the headlights. I left the motor
running, so I could have the heat on. It was cold at 3 A.M. in late September,
and Millicent was wearing only shorts and a tank top. I gave her my jacket.
She took it without comment and shrugged it around her shoulders.

"Why we stopping here?" she said. She was getting positively
chatty.

"It will give us a chance to talk," I said.

"Oh please," Millicent said.

I was quiet. The river was black and apparently motionless
in front of us. It didn't look like it was moving past us, flowing east
darkly, and without surcease.

"Why did you run away?" I said.

"I don't get along with my parents," Millicent said.

"Why not?"

"They're creepy," she said. I nodded.

"My mother fucks everybody," Millicent said.

She checked me from the corner of her eye to see how I
took the news.

"I bet that's hard to think about," I said.

"Don't you think that's creepy?"

"Maybe," I said. "Why do you think it's creepy?"

"For crissake, a married woman, her age?"

"How do you know this?"

"I know."

"How?"

"I see her come home sometimes. She's, like, drunk. Her
makeup is all messed up. Her clothes are, you know, like crooked."

"This is suggestive," I said. "What's your father's reaction."

Millicent laughed a little ugly humorless laugh. "He acts
like she's not doing anything."

"Maybe he's right."

Millicent shook her head. She was eager now. Nothing like
the chance to share grievances to encourage conversation. "No," she said.
"I found pictures."

"Your mother and other men?"

"Yes."

"Who took the pictures?" I said.

She was silent. I could tell she'd never thought about
that. "I think they maybe took them themselves."

"Sexual situations."

"Oh yeah," Millicent said. "How'd you find the pictures."

"I was snooping in her room."

I nodded.

"Your mother have her own room?" I said.

"Yes. That's kind of creepy, I think."

I shrugged.

"Your father know about the pictures?" I said.

"I left them where he'd find them."

"And?"

"Next time I looked they were gone. But he never said
anything."

"Maybe he said something to your mother."

"No."

"Why not?"

Millicent gave me a scornful look. The scornful look of
a fifteenyear-old girl is as scornful as it gets.

"He's scared of her."

"Why? "

"Jesus, you ask a lot of questions."

"I do, don't I. Why is he scared of her?"

"I don't know, he just is."

"Maybe he loves her and he's afraid if he makes her mad
she won't love him."

"You think he doesn't fool around?" Millicent said.

Her tone suggested that she was trying very hard to speak
clearly to an idiot.

"I'd guess he did," I said. "Does he?"
"Sure."

"It doesn't mean he doesn't love her."

"How can you love somebody and fuck a bunch of other people?"

"I don't know," I said. "But I know it's done."

"You married?"

"Divorced," I said.

"So who are you to talk?"

I wasn't talking. She was. I smiled at her. "Sonya J.
Randall," I said.

"Your first name is Sonya?"

"Yep."

"Gross," she said. "What's the J. for?"

"Joan. What made you run away when you did?"

"I told you, my parents are creepy."

"But you've found them creepy for a long time, Millicent.
Why did you run now?"

She looked away from me and shook her head.

"There must be a reason," I said.

She continued not to look at me.

"I got fed up," she said. "That was the reason."

She was lying and I knew it, and she probably knew that
I knew it, but there was no where to go. I'd already pushed her as hard
as I dared. Maybe a little harder.

"If you think of another reason," I said, "I'd be pleased
to know it."

Millicent didn't say anything. We looked at the river
for a while. Finally, without looking at me, she said, "I won't stay at
home."

"You prefer sex with strangers?" I said.

"Being high helps."

I looked at the river some more. The black water moved
effortlessly toward the harbor as it had in 1630. Except in 1630 you could
probably drink it.

"Let's compromise," I said. "You don't have sex with any
strangers for a while, and I won't drag you home." She thought about that.

"So where am I supposed to live?" she said. "With me."
 

"She's staying with you?" Julie said.

"Un huh."

"Do you have any idea what a crimp that will put in your
sex life?"

"How much crimpier can it get?" I said.

"It's already crimped?"

"Big time," I said.

"I'm crushed. I spent several minutes every day envying
you."

"Spend the time finding me a nice guy who's good-looking
and straight."

"You're after my husband?"

"Besides Michael," I said.

"Oh. I guess that's kind of hard. Have you met anyone?"

"A pimp named Pharaoh Fox," I said.

"Pimps can be fun," Julie said. "How long is she going
to stay with you?"

"At least until I find out why she left."

"You don't believe she just got fed up?"

"No. She was lying about that."

"You're sure."

"I'm a licensed investigator," I said.

"Of course. How are you going to find out?"

"I'm a licensed investigator."

"You know, some kids leave home to punish the parents."

"I know."

"So that the more degrading and shocking their circumstances,
the more horrified the parents are. And the more horrified the parents
are, the more desirable the circumstances."

"Sort of like suicides," I said. "'See what you've made
me do.' "

"Do you like her?" Julie said.

"No."

"Why not."

"I can't say."

"Because you don't know or because she might hear you?"

"The latter."

"Is she angry and hostile."

"Yes."

"Hates her parents?"

"You bet."

"And every other adult."

"I'd guess so."

"Including you?"

"More or less, though I think there's some puzzlement."

"Because you don't give her the adult party line?"

"Something like that."

Julie laughed.

"You've never bought the adult party line yourself, Sunny."

"And my mother certainly has tried to sell it to me."

"So maybe you and, what's her name, Millicent, are a good
match."

"I've got to be better than Pharaoh Fox," I said.

"Who?"

"The gentleman who represented her," I said.

"Her pimp."

"Yes."

"You know, there's one thing you ought to remember," Julie
said. Her voice dropped a little as she shifted into her professional mode.
"Some women rather like being whores, if the circumstances are not too
degrading. They like the physical sensation, they like the easy money,
they like the semblance of male attention."

"What's not to like?" I said.

"A lot, as you well know. But in many cases, these women
are able to distance themselves from the actuality of their situation."

"And," I said, "in some cases they're lesbians."

"The ultimate manipulation of men," Julie said. "Do you
think  Millicent is a lesbian?"

"I have no way to know," I said.

"It would explain some things," Julie said.

"Can't work that way," I said. "Find the explanation and
fit the circumstances to it. It's got to be the other way around."

"Well, you can keep the possibility in mind."

At the other end of the loft, Millicent, still in her
shorts and tank top, dragged herself out of bed and went into the bathroom.

"I better hang up now," I said. "My guest will be wanting
breakfast."

"Breakfast? It's twenty of one in the afternoon."

"She's been working nights," I said.
 

"Cups in the cupboard," I said. "Coffee in the green canisters.
The one with the dot on the top is decaf."

Millicent looked at the coffeemaker and the canisters
and me.

"I don't know how to make coffee," she said, the way you'd
explain to an idiot that you were unable to fly.

"I'll show you," I said.

"Whyn't you just make it for me," she said. "You're the
one who brought me here."

"It's better if you don't have to depend on someone to
make your coffee," I said. "See, the filter goes in here, then the coffee,
and the water here."

She watched me, radiant with contempt, as I made the coffee.
"Next time you can make it," I said.

"Sure," she said.

While the coffee brewed, she sat on a stool at my kitchen
counter and stared at nothing.

"Do you want the paper?" I said.

She shook her head.

"Would you like something to eat?" I said.

She made a face. When the coffee had brewed I poured some
in a cup and handed it to her.

"You got cream and sugar?" she said.

"The sugar's right there in the bowl, the spoons are in
the drawer right below where you're sitting," I said. "Milk's in the refrigerator."

She didn't move. I didn't move. Finally she got up and
went to the refrigerator and got some milk. I went back to reading a book
by Vincent Scully. The loft was quiet. Rosie got up from where she had
been lying on my feet and went over and looked up at Millicent in case
she might be going to eat something.

"Is that a dog?" Millicent said.

"That's Rosie," I said. "Rosie is a miniature bull terrier."

"Does he bite."

"She does not," I said.

"I hate dogs," Millicent said.

"How endearing," I said.

"Huh?"

"It's fun sharing," I said.

She looked at me a little suspiciously.

"Well, I do. They don't do anything. They just hang around
and eat and poop all over the place."

"Actually," I said, "that's not true. Dogs are naturally
rather careful where they poop. It's why you can housebreak them."
 
"Well, I don't like them anyway," she said.

"Because they don't do anything useful?" I said.

"I don't know, why are you always asking me stuff? I say
something and you want to talk all about it."

"And you don't," I said.

"No."

"Then why do you say it?"

"Say what?"

"Stuff you don't want to talk about?"

"I don't know."

We were quiet. She got up and went and got more coffee
and brought it back and added milk and sugar and sat back on the stool.
Rosie never moved from the position she had assumed at the bottom,
her nose pointed straight up at Millicent, her squat body motionless. She
looked like a small black-and-white pyramid.

"Isn't she cute?" I said.

"Who?"

"Rosie."

Millicent shrugged.

"What good is she?"

"I love her," I said. "She gives me something to care
about."