The Long Good Boy (19 page)

On the other hand, they often made mistakes like that, making people older or younger, spelling names wrong, or simply reporting the wrong name. You could read the corrections every day in the paper, if you really cared, too little and too late. Whatever the impact of the original article, that's what was remembered, not the Oops, we're sorry, we goofed again.

Forty-one. A cop. Was he there because of the carting industry? I wondered if the old manager would have anything to tell me. Or if the new one, McCoy, was also a cop, continuing whatever it was Patrick had been working on. Was that why they'd passed over Vinnie?

“We're running out of time,” she said, looking at the tiny watch on her wrist, a gift from Patrick perhaps, years ago when they were young. “Do they want you back this afternoon as well?”

“Yes. I have to learn how to use the cash register, and there are two lectures about how we're supposed to behave toward customers.”

“Ah, yes, I remember those. And when do you start on the floor?”

“Tuesday. Two to six. And Thursday, but not this one, because of Thanksgiving.”

Frances looked sad.

“Holidays alone,” I said. “That's one of the worst parts. I'm dreading …”

Manipulative, my sister had also said, the last time we spoke. Then she'd added, At least you have an appropriate outlet for it now, referring to my work, work she deemed highly inappropriate for a member of her family.

“Perhaps you could come? It'll only be me and Sarah, the neighbor I mentioned. I'm making a turkey anyway. There'll be plenty to eat. If you're concerned about traveling, don't be. Sarah and I decided to do it like Sunday dinner, so you'll be able to get home before dark. It's only Rego Park. It's not far at all. Where do you live, Rachel?”

“The Village,” I told her. I watched her eyes flicker as she took that in, that I lived in the neighborhood where her husband had been killed.

“Well, then,” she said, pulling out a clean handkerchief and blowing her nose.

I thought of the pillow man again and what I'd be doing after dark until I found out what happened to Rosalinda, and probably, even if it had no bearing on my own case, what had happened to Frances's husband as well, wondering now if the two deaths were connected after all. If Mulrooney was a cop, working undercover, maybe his death was exactly what it appeared to be, phony alibis aside. And maybe, in the frenzy of the Halloween parade, Rosalinda had flirted with the wrong man, nothing more.

“Sure. I'd love that,” I told her. And on the way back to Saks, I even asked her what I could bring. My mother would have been proud. But only for a moment. Because as soon as we'd decided that I would bring a nice bottle of wine, I began to wonder what I'd wear a few hours later when I joined my clients for the stroll. I didn't think I could wear that same green skirt, the same boa, the same platform shoes every night until the case was over. I wondered if there was anything I could pick up at Saks, now that I had an employee discount, to freshen up my outfit, and while I was still thinking about that, we were back at the side door. Frances Ann leaned toward me and gave me a kiss on my cheek before opening the door and becoming all business.

24

Hop In, He Told Me

Wearing a black miniskirt with the waist rolled up so that it was obscenely short, a black workout bra, my signature red platform high heels, a little purse—the outfit I had on, there was no place to carry a tissue—and Rosalinda's lucky boa, I showed up only an hour later than the night before, a sure sign I was not anxious to get to the stroll. I found LaDonna where I'd last seen her the night before and told her I'd made a decision.

“Wha's that?”

“I'm working alone tonight,” I told her.

“You doing
what?
” A hand on a hip, a cold stare.

“You heard me.”

“You lost your mind, woman? First, you go, No, no, no, not me, I'm not going out with you bitches sucking on no guy's cock to solve this case for you, even though you laid a huge bunch of money on me, even though it's my job to get the answer you need no matter what I have to do to get it.” All done falsetto, of course. “And now you don't want my protection? You want to do the johns yourself? What you on, girlfriend?”

“That's not it. I tried it last night, and—”

“So I heard. And speaking of which, you with me, I pays Devon. You on your own, you on your own.” She held out her hand. I dropped a twenty into it. She glanced down and snorted. “You want me to give
this
to Devon, tell him it's your night's earnings?”

“That's his percent.”

“His what?”

“His percent, you know, ten percent, like any other kind of agent.”

“He ain't your agent, honey. He your lifeline. He don't like your line, you don't have a life. Simple as that. What was your take last night, Miss Thing?”

“That.”

“This?” She held it up by one corner, the way I'd hold it if the pillow man had touched it.

“I'm new at this. What'd you expect?”

“You don't want me telling him
that
either, not after the story we laid out for him. How old are you, anyway?” Sticking her face in mine, so close I could feel her breath on my skin.

“Thirty-eight. Almost thirty-nine.”

“A late bloomer?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“That's what I should tell Devon, that you're a late bloomer? You almost thirty-nine, one foot in the fucking grave, and you still a beginner?”

I shrugged.

LaDonna sighed. “I been out here since I'm sixteen.”

“Sixteen?”

“You got hearing problems, you so old? Sixteen. Full-time. Had to, after I left home.”

I nodded, as if I understood. But of course, I didn't.

“Why I use a pimp,” she said. “You don't want to be on your own at sixteen, God knows what's going to happen to you without no one to watch your back.”

“You've been with Devon since you were—”

“Hell, no. My first pimp, he got hisself killed. Big mouth,” she said, as if that explained everything. “The second one, he disappear. One night he here, the next night, he gone. Permanent. Never heard another word about him.”

“He never showed up again?”

“That was my meaning. Devon, he the third. Been with him two years.”

“You give him everything? Every dime?”

“If I wants to live, I do.”

She still had the money in her hand. “Well, that's it. That's everything. He was real lonely, the guy who picked me up, and we started to talk.”

“You did
what?
” Her face screwed up, about the same way mine must have looked when I learned how the girls tuck and tape their equipment, then hide the works under a satin gaff.

“He started to talk. Well, he didn't just start. Truth is, I started first. And before you know it, two hours had gone by, we're parked on Bethune Street, gabbing away. So then I said, Look, I gotta go, I'm going to be in real trouble spending so much time with you. And that's when he handed me the twenty. I said, Time is time. Don't matter what we did or didn't do, you owe me fifty.”

“And what'd he say?”

“He said, ‘Fifty? For just talking? Fuck that noise.' So that's all I got. He'd been so nice up until then, so candid and forthcoming. He's got two kids in college. A boy and a girl. He plays the violin, his son. And the daughter—”

LaDonna put a finger to her lips, then shoved the twenty into her bra. “Some nights are like that. You can't make money nohow. Devon understand, long as you don't make a habit out of it. So, you wants to go alone again?”

“I do,” I told her, “because last night, with this lonely guy, I thought maybe if I get these johns talking, I can learn something. No one's going to talk with you doing them, that's for sure.” And that's when a car pulled up, a tan SUV, a really tall guy behind the wheel, white, uptight, wearing a tie, for goodness' sake. What was
he
doing here?

I leaned my elbows on the frame of the open window, my butt sticking out behind me, my flesh covered in goose pimples, even those few places where it was covered by skimpy clothes, my raisin-colored lips trembling. (Revlon, six-forty-two after my discount.) I didn't know how much was from the cold and how much was from naked fear. What was
I
doing here?

“How about a real treat?” I asked him. “Like nothing you ever experienced.”

“How much?” he asked, his voice breaking.

“Not nearly as much as you'd think,” I said. Then Dashiell put his paws up next to mine, his butt sticking out behind him, his tail wagging.

“Whoa. What the hell is that? He with you?”

“He just sits in the back. He's a pussycat.”

“Oh, I don't know about that. I never heard about anything like this.” He reached toward the button that would close the window.

“You owe it to yourself,” I told him. “Tell you what, you don't like the way I treat you, you don't have to pay me a dime.”

“You're kidding. Nothing?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Hop in,” he told me.

I let Dashiell in first. My john blinked, but before he could react further, Dashiell had hopped into the backseat, and I was sliding onto the front one. “Home, James,” I told him.

He sputtered.

“Just a little joke,” I said. “How about swinging around onto Horatio Street, parking under a tree?”

He pulled away. I wiggled my fingers at LaDonna. I waited until the car was parked on Horatio Street, the engine off, before commencing with my plan. In fact, I gave him enough time to pull his zipper halfway down.

“Undercover cop,” I said.

His hand stopped moving. “Jesus.”

“Either you leave the area the minute I get out of this vehicle and never show your skinny white ass in this neighborhood again—not even to get a beer at the White Horse Tavern or check out the beautiful new park along the river, got that?—or else your name and your likeness go up on the Internet. Have you seen the Arrested Johns site yet?”

He shook his head. “What do you mean, my likeness?”

“Now's as good a time as any, in case you're in a big rush next time I see you here.” I opened the little purse and took out my Minox, preserving the startled look on his pale face once, then once again, trying for a mug shot duo but getting two identical pictures because he seemed frozen, his mouth hanging open, his breathing raspy and loud, as if he were about to have a heart attack. “Second one's for good luck,” I told him, “mine, not yours.”

“Hey,” he said. “This isn't fair. You said—”

I shrugged. “Better safe than sorry. And I'd be one sorry-assed cop if next time I see you, you see me and drive away before I can capture your likeness. Am I correct?”

“I've never … this is the first time, and nothing …”

“Save it for the judge, buddy. We're offering a week of grace. But the bad news is, the clock's been ticking, and it's half over. I find you here again after Tuesday, your name goes up. This goes up.” I lifted the camera. “The mayor's thinking of releasing the list to the
Times
, too. Me, I think it's excessive. Hey, guys will be guys, you know? But I'm not the mayor, and he likes to see evidence of how he's making the city safer in the
Times.
”

Which is where I got this idea. I'd picked up a copy someone left in the coffee room when I was on my afternoon break at Saks and read an article that said that women responded to stress by social contact rather than by fight or flight.

“You read the
Times?
” I asked my john. “Anyone you know read it, your boss perhaps? The wife?”

I didn't get an answer. No surprise. “Before I go, I was wondering if you'd like to contribute to the Policeman's Benevolent Fund, me being a policeman, in a manner of speaking, and being benevolent enough to let you off with just a warning.”

“How much?”

“Oh, sir, that's entirely up to you. Shall we say fifty?”

He began to lean across me, to open my door, but I pushed his arm away. Hell, I was a cop, I could open my own damn door. It was stuck, I could shoot it open.

I stared at him for a moment, then opened the door, whistled for Dashiell, and watched my very first trick drive away, figuring yesterday didn't really count because no money had changed hands. Now all I had to do was walk slowly back to the stroll and do it again. It wasn't that I thought I could clean up the meat district single-handed. It was that I needed the other hookers to think I was legit. I needed to seem to be working, and this was the least painful way to accomplish that. And this time I wouldn't have to pay Devon out of my own pocket.

It had to do with a hormonal difference between the sexes, the article had said. It said that women often attempted to “tend and befriend.” Well, hadn't I just done that? I thought, heading back to work.

But what would that mean for my clients and their colleagues? They dressed like women. They referred to themselves as women. And some of them were saving up for the surgery that would make them appear more like women. But were they women? When push came to shove, would they fight like hell or try to charm their way out of trouble? That is, I thought, picturing what Rosalinda might have looked like in her bloodstained gown, the wand still in her hand, if they saw the trouble coming in the first place.

25

What About the Money? She Asked

Perhaps the success of my own war on prostitution the night before had gone to my head. Or maybe it was the research I'd done on-line that left some nagging questions needing answers. It could even have been the secondhand smoke from Chi Chi's joint. Who knows? Nevertheless, there I was with her, presenting my startling request.

“Jus' a little something to tide me over,” she said. She held it out to me. I shook my head.