The Long Good Boy (5 page)

“I am.”

“You injure their pride, some of them, it makes them mad enough to kill. You understand what I'm saying? It's a guy thing,” she said, reminding me she knew whereof she spoke. “Look, we gotta go. I promised Vinnie.”

“Vinnie? That's your idea of a Polish name?”

“Whatever.”

I watched the ten float down to the sidewalk. Chi Chi didn't seem to notice.

“The only thing he cares about is I jus' gotta make sure none of them sees me when they come on.”

“The other butchers?”

I pointed to the bill, and Dashiell picked it up. I took it from him, held it up to show her, and put it in the pocket of Clint's jacket.

“Right. They would, you know, never let up on him, he did it with someone like me. He couldn't stay working there. The truckers, well, that's a whole other story. They get what they want, and that's the end of it. No one knows but the two consenting adults involved. You get my meaning?”

I nodded. “The payer and the payee.”

“Yeah.”

“You're saying it's a cash transaction with no repercussions.”

She nodded.

“Hey, the guy's been driving since fucking Iowa or some other godforsaken dump with dead pigs in the back. He's got needs. He's human, right? So for twenty, thirty bucks, he feels like a million. Not a bad return on his money. End of story. No one from the pee hole where he lives is gonna give him a hard time, because no one from there knows nothing. They never left there in their miserable lives, and if they did, this is the last place on earth they'd show up. Sometimes that's what I think it is, Rachel.”

She stumbled, and I caught her elbow.

“The last place on earth?” I asked.

Chi Chi sighed. “I want this trick, I gotta be prompt arriving and get out prompt, he says. That's all. And one other thing.”

“What's that?”

“We maintain the illusion. He don't wanna find a dick in his hand unless it's his own.”

“Got it. So this is the pig man you didn't want to talk about?”

She nodded. “Look, we gotta talk somewhere else. I can't stay here. It's getting to be time.”

“For them to open?”

“Yeah. For the rest of them to come. And the truckers. I might do some of them down the block, but they see me here, it's a whore of another color. They could run me over soon as look at me. Get it?”

“I do,” I told her. And I did.

“Far as they're concerned, we're all—” She moved the air with her hand.

“Interchangeable?”

“Trash.”

Walking back toward Washington Street, I remembered seeing an article in the Horatio Street newsletter the winter before saying some of the tranny hookers were living at the Gansevoort pier, burrowing into the piles of salt used to melt the ice after a storm or getting into the trucks, sleeping there, nowhere else to do it, just trying like hell to survive however they could.

The first of the delivery trucks was parked around the corner, hacked up perpendicular to the sidewalk. There was a patrol car just turning off Fourteenth Street, heading our way, doing a slow crawl. Chi Chi saw it, too. She grabbed my arm and pulled me across the street, pushing me back under the sidewalk bridge. Then she turned to face west, pulling up her collar, like that was going to fool New York's finest.

“Okay, boys. Sun's almost up,” came blasting over the loudspeaker. “Back under your rocks. NOW.”

Chi Chi's arm in mine, we walked west, into the wind off the river, my face feeling numb in no time.

“He engaged, Vinnie,” she whispered as we passed Keller's. “And she's like very religious, his fiancée.”

I nodded.

“She's a virgin.”

“What?”

“Means she never done it.”

I whistled. “No shit?”

She shrugged, her shoulder rubbing against mine. Aside from the hair, we were the same height, at least with those heels she was wearing.

“Anyways, that's what he says she says. Him and me, it's jus' until they get married and he gets to do her.”

Under cover of darkness I rolled my eyes. “Touching.”

“No, really.” She laughed. “I give him a month. No, two weeks. Then he's on my cell, bobbing and weaving, telling me a tall one, why he's gotta see me.”

“First Rosalinda, now you? A long engagement.”

“She wants a June wedding, a long white gown, six bridesmaids, he said, the whole package.”

“So how did this happen, Rosalinda was killed and you started doing Vinnie?”

She opened her mouth, but I stopped her.

“The truth this time, since obviously you do kiss and tell. At least, you tell. Otherwise, how would you have known how and where to contact Vinnie the pig man after Rosalinda—”

“She was my roommate, Rosalinda. She did, you know, tell me some stuff. Mos' of it you don't want to talk about. You don't want to think about it. It's jus' a living, what you have to do to pay the rent and eat, pay for what else you need.”

“But this was different?”

“Right. Because you could clean up, go to the bathroom, like a person. 'Cause you knew, no matter how slow the night was, younger hookers on the stroll, taking your work away from you like candy from a baby, whatever, at least you'd get your fifty.”

“So how did the transition occur?”

“What do you mean?”

We turned onto West Street, holding each other tighter against the wind.

“Come on,” I said, heading for the corner. “Let's get something to eat. Let's get out of the wind.”

“What did you mean?”

“The transition? How did you start”—I stopped, fishing for a euphemism, changing my mind—“after Rosalinda was killed?”

“I'd done him before, once when she was sick. She had a bad reaction to some hormones. The doctors, they never ask what else you taking. They didn't say, don't take this, you on that. She was feeling bad, up all day throwin' up. She tol' me to go. She didn't want to lose it to crazy Ebony or Alice. Alice, she'd steal your eyeballs out of your head, you don't pay attention. She's got car phones, gloves, cigarettes, even the change from the ashtray, anything she sees in a car's not nailed down, she takes it.”

“Alice?”

“Mmm. Yeah. So Rosalinda, she says, You go do him. Tell him I sent you.”

“And you did?”

“Right.”

“When was that?”

Chi Chi shrugged, pulled out a cigarette, lit it, cupping the match in one big hand.

“And what about the night she was killed? Had you done him that night?”

She shook her head. “No way. Only when she tol' me to. And after.”

“After she'd died?”

“Yeah. After that.”

For normal people, people who were asleep, it was still Friday night. But technically it was Saturday, so Florent would be open. They closed at five
A
.
M
. during the week, but on weekends they didn't close at all. You wanted rillettes at four in the morning, salad Niçoise at five, you knew where to go. We took a table in the front corner, sent the dogs under it, and ordered soup, holding our hands around the bowls when they came.

When the waiter began to back away, Chi Chi grabbed his sleeve.

“Now I need a burger, honey.”

His skin was a light reddish brown, his long dreadlocks pulled back in a ponytail.

“Rare. With fries.”

He nodded, his face saying, What the fuck do I care what she orders. Burger, fries. He heard it a hundred times on every shift. How enthusiastic could he be, a New York waiter? Especially since none of them were actually waiters. They were all supporting their art, waiting on tables while they waited for a big break, star opposite Julia, get a long run on
The Sopranos
, go from nowhere straight to the top.

“And don't be stingy,” Chi Chi said, “you hear? I'm starved.”

He turned to leave.

Chi Chi grabbed his sleeve again.

“And a rum and Coke,” she said. “Soon as you get a chance.” She watched him walk away.

“Cute butt,” she told me, one hand over her mouth.

Despite her flirtatiousness with the waiter, in the harsh light of the little bistro, Chi Chi looked defeated. Or sour. Maybe both. I could see how rough her skin was under the thick pancake makeup, but I couldn't see the shadow of a beard. Apparently one of the things she'd used all that money on was hair removal, a pretty normal business expense for transvestite hookers.

“So what's the rest of his name, this Vinnie person?”

Chi Chi shrugged. Then she excused herself to go to the bathroom. I ate some soup and looked around. When she came around the corner from the john, way in the back of the long, narrow room, I could tell immediately that something was different. She bounced toward me, stopping at three other tables to chat, bending over and whispering at one, tossing her head way back and laughing at another, sitting on an empty chair and picking up a handful of some woman's fries at the third, feeding it to her boyfriend. I was pretty sure when she landed in her own seat across from me, Chi Chi wouldn't be looking sour any longer.

“We don't use last names, and neither do they,” she said, as if I'd asked her Vinnie's last name seconds rather than minutes ago. She picked up her spoon, looked at the soup, then pushed the bowl across the small table. The rum and Coke came, and Chi Chi began to drink, holding it even when she put it back on the table, tapping her nails nervously against the sweating glass.

“I'm going to need to get in there, to see if I can find anything connecting the two murders,” I said.

“What? Into Keller's?”

I nodded.

“No problem. You can take my place tomorrow.”

I raised a hand in protest, but Chi Chi took my hand in hers with a surprising tenderness, bringing it down to the table. She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “He's not
attached,
” she said, “leastways not to me. He wouldn't care if you did him. In fact, he might like a change, s'long as you promise to—”

“Get in and out on time.”

She nodded and smiled, pleased I was such a quick study.

I shook my head. “I don't think so.”

Chi Chi shrugged. “We can split the money, if that's it.” Scowling.

“That's not it.”

“Then what? Oh, I get it. Okay, keep it all. I'll live.”

Something about her eyes scared me. I looked away for a moment, thinking how nice it would be to be home, asleep in my own bed.

“It wouldn't help, Chi Chi. I need to be in there alone, not when Vinnie's there. I need to look through files and papers. Look, you have your way of working, and I have mine. There has to be another way for me to get in there when they're closed. I need a little time to figure that out.”

“This Mulrooney, he never met Rosalinda. He never even laid eyes on her. What you think you're going to find in there?”

“I don't know, but coincidence gives me a funny taste in my mouth,” I told her, immediately regretting my choice of words. “They were both killed the same night. And she had a connection to Mulrooney's place of business. Maybe that's just what happened. Maybe those murders were two separate—”

“Word is, he was killed because he changed trash companies. He comes in, brand-new, first thing he rocks the boat.” She shook her head. “Dumb.” She pulled out a cigarette and lit it, cupping it in her hand and holding her hand down at her side, like at five in the morning someone was going to give a shit, was going to tell her not to smoke. “Rosalinda, she didn't have nothing to do with the carting industry, and like I told you, she never met Mulrooney. Vinnie had her out of there long before Mulrooney showed up for work.”

I nodded. “Still. I'm not going to tell you how to do your work, and you're not going to tell me how to do mine, deal?”

She shrugged one wide shoulder. “I was jus' saying, is all.”

“If it's nothing, no connection between them, fine. I'd be less than responsible to you and LaDonna and Jasmine if I didn't check it out.”

When the waiter brought the burger and fries and put it down in front of her, Chi Chi looked confused. Then she pushed the plate toward me, as if I'd been the one who'd ordered it. It sat there getting cold until the check came. There was a moment of awkwardness, but Chi Chi insisted on paying, picking up Clint and pulling the money out of the little pocket in his jacket, leaving a generous tip.

“They's in a cash business, too,” she said. A little too loud. Half the people in the restaurant had turned to look at her.

I got up, then sat down again.

“Chi Chi, you're going to see Vinnie again tomorrow morning?”

“Yeah. Why, you change your mind?”

“How many times a week do you see him?”

She shrugged. “Whenever he aks me to.”

“Well, on average, what is it, two times a week, three?”

“Yeah, around that. Sometimes four.”

“Where the hell does he get the money to pay you fifty bucks a pop, three, four times a week?”

“Sometimes from his pocket, sometimes from the cash box.”

“The cash box?”

She nodded, as if to say, Where else would he get the money from but from Keller's not so petty cash, what was so unusual about that? “That's what he say, You wait here, Chi Chi, I'm short today. I go get your money from the cash box.”

“But you never saw it, the cash box? It's not in the office?”

“Uh-uh.”

“He goes somewhere else to get the money?”

“Um-hmm.”

“But you don't know where?”

“Uh-uh. 'Cept one time. Usually he puts the money on the edge of the desk.” She sniffed and wiped her nose with her hand. “But this one time, he touched me. I was picking it up, and he grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the door. It was getting late, he said. I had to go. And his hand, it was ice cold.”