Undone (44 page)

Anna was getting better. She would be out of the hospital soon. The baby was fine. There was no reason on earth for Will to ever see Sara Linton again unless he happened to be at Grady Hospital when she was on shift.

He supposed he could hope he got shot. He’d thought Amanda was going to do exactly that when she’d taken him into the stairwell this afternoon. Instead, she had merely said, “I’ve waited a long time for your short hairs to grow in.” Not exactly the words you expect from your superior after you’ve beaten a man nearly senseless. Everyone was making excuses for him, everyone was covering for him, and Will was the only one who seemed to think that what he had done was wrong.

He pulled away from the light, heading into one of the seedier parts of town. He was running out of places to check for Lola, a revelation which troubled him, and not just because Amanda had told him not to bother coming in to work tomorrow unless he tracked the whore down. Lola had to have known about the baby. She had certainly known about the drugs and what was going on in Anna Lindsey’s penthouse apartment. Maybe she had seen something else — something she wasn’t willing to trade because it might put her life in danger. Or maybe she was just one of those cold, unfeeling people who didn’t care if a child was slowly dying. Word must have gotten around by now that Will was the kind of cop who beat people. Maybe Lola was afraid of him. Hell, there had been a moment in that hallway when Will was afraid of himself.

He had felt numb when he got to Sara’s apartment, like his heart wasn’t even beating in his chest. He was thinking of all the men who had raised their fists to him when he was a child. All the violence he had seen. All the pain he had endured. And he was just as bad as the rest of them for beating that doorman into the ground.

Part of him had told Sara Linton about the incident because he had wanted to see the disappointment in her eyes, to know with just one look that she would never approve of him. What he got instead was… understanding. She acknowledged that he had made a mistake, but she hadn’t assumed that it defined his character. What kind of person did that? Not the kind of person Will had ever met. Not the kind of woman Will could ever understand.

Sara was right about how it was easier to do something bad the second time. Will saw it all the time at work: repeat offenders who had gotten away with it once and decided they might as well roll the dice and try it again. Maybe it was human nature to push those boundaries. A third of all DUI offenders ended up being arrested for drunk driving a second time. Over half of all the violent felons captured were already released convicts. Rapists had one of the highest recidivist rates in the prison system.

Will had learned a long time ago that the only thing he could control in any given situation was himself. He wasn’t a victim. He wasn’t prisoner to his temper. He could choose to be a good person. Sara had said as much. She had made it seem so easy.

And then he had forced that weird moment when they were together on the couch, staring at her like he was an ax murderer.

“Idiot.” He rubbed his eyes, wishing he could rub away the memory. There was no use thinking about Sara Linton. In the end, it would lead to nothing.

Will saw a group of women loitering on the sidewalk ahead. They were all dressed in various shades of fantasy: schoolgirls, strippers, a transsexual who looked a lot like the mother from
Leave It to Beaver
. Will rolled down his window and they all did a silent negotiation, deciding who to send over. He drove a Porsche 911 he had rebuilt from the ground up. The car had taken him almost a decade to restore. It seemed to take a decade for the prostitutes to decide who to send.

Finally, one of the schoolgirls sauntered over. She leaned into the car, then backed out just as quickly. “Nuh-uh,” she said. “No way. I ain’t fuckin’ no dog.”

Will held out a twenty-dollar bill. “I’m looking for Lola.”

Her lip twisted, and she snatched away the cash so quickly Will felt the paper burn his fingertips. “Yeah, that bitch’ll fuck your dog. She on Eighteenth. Strolling by the old post office.”

“Thank you.”

The girl was already sashaying back to her group.

Will rolled up the window and took a U-turn. He saw the girls in his rearview mirror. The schoolgirl had passed the twenty on to her minder, who would in turn pass it on to the pimp. Will knew from Angie that the girls seldom got to keep any cash. The pimps took care of their living quarters, their food, their clothes. All the girls had to do was risk their lives and health every night by tricking whatever john pulled up with the right amount of cash. It was modern slavery, which was ironic, considering most if not all of the pimps were black.

Will turned onto Eighteenth Street and slowed the car to a crawl, coming up on a parked sedan under a streetlight. The driver was behind the wheel, his head back. Will gave it a few minutes and a head popped up from the man’s lap. The door opened and the woman tried to get out, but the man reached over and grabbed her by the hair.

“Crap,” Will mumbled, jumping out of his car. He locked the door with the remote on his keys as he jogged toward the sedan and yanked open the door.

“What the fuck?” the man yelled, still holding the woman by the hair.

“Hey, baby,” Lola said, reaching her hand out to Will. He grabbed it without thinking, and she got out of the car, her wig staying in the man’s hand. He cursed and threw it onto the street, pulling away from the curb so fast that the car door slammed shut.

Will told Lola, “We need to talk.”

She bent over to get her wig, and courtesy of the streetlight, he saw straight up to her tonsils. “I’m running a business here.”

Will tried, “Next time you need help—”

“Angie helped me, not you.” She tugged at her skirt. “You watch the news? Cops found enough coke in that penthouse to teach the world to sing. I’m a fucking hero.”

“Balthazar’s going to be okay. The baby.”

“Baltha — what?” She wrinkled her face. “Christ, kid barely had a chance.”

“You took care of him. He meant something to you.”

“Yeah, well.” She put the wig on her head, trying to get it straight. “I got two kids, you know? Had them while I was locked up. Got to spend some time with them before the state took them away.” Her arms were bone-thin, and Will was again reminded of the thinspo videos they had found on Pauline’s computer. Those girls were starving themselves because they wanted to be thin. Lola was starving because she couldn’t afford food.

“Here,” he said, tugging the wig straight for her.

“Thanks.” She started walking down the street back toward her group. There was the usual mixture of schoolgirls and tramps, but they were older, harder women. The streets usually got tougher the higher the numbers. Pretty soon, Lola and her gang would be on Twenty-first, a street so hopeless that dispatch at the local police station routinely sent out ambulances to pick up women who had died during the night.

He tried, “I could arrest you for obstructing a crime.”

She kept walking. “Might be nice in jail. Getting kind of cold out here tonight.”

“Did Angie know about the baby?”

She stopped.

“Just tell me, Lola.”

Slowly, she turned around. Her eyes searched his, not looking for the right answer, but looking for the answer that he wanted to hear. “No.”

“You’re lying.”

Her face remained emotionless. “He really okay? The baby, I mean.”

“He’s with his mom now. I think he’ll be okay.”

She dug around in her purse, finding a pack of cigarettes and some matches. He waited for her to light up, take a drag. “I was at a party. This guy I know, he said there was this pad in some fancy apartment building. The doorman’s easy. Lets people in and out. Mostly, it was high-class stuff. You know, people who needed a nice place for a couple of hours, no questions asked. They come in and party, the maid comes the next day. The rich people who own the different apartments get back from Palm Beach or wherever and have no idea.” She picked a stray piece of tobacco off her tongue. “Something happened this time, though. Simkov, the doorman, pissed off somebody in the building. They gave him a two-week notice. He started letting in the lower clientele.”

“Like you?”

She lifted her chin.

“What’d he charge?”

“Have to talk to the boys about that. I just show up and fuck.”

“What boys?”

She exhaled a long plume of smoke.

Will let it go, knowing not to push her too hard. “Did you know the woman whose apartment you were in?”

“Never met her, never seen her, never heard of her.”

“So, you get there, Simkov lets you up, and then what?”

“At first it’s nice. Usually, we’ve been in one of the lower apartments. This was the penthouse. Lots of your better consumers. Good stash. Coke, some H. The crack showed up a couple of days later. Then the meth. Went downhill from there.”

Will remembered the trashed state of the apartment. “That happened fast.”

“Yeah, well. Drug addicts aren’t exactly known for their restraint.” She chuckled at a memory. “Couple of fights broke out. Some bitches got into it. Then the trannies went to town and—” She shrugged, like
What do you expect?

“What about the baby?”

“Kid was in the nursery first time I got there. You got kids?”

He shook his head.

“Smart choice. Angie’s not exactly the mothering type.”

Will didn’t bother to agree with her, because they both knew that was the God’s honest truth. He asked, “What did you do when you found the baby?”

“The apartment wasn’t a good place for him. I could see what was coming. The wrong kind of people were showing up. Simkov was letting anybody in. I moved the kid down the hall.”

“To the trash room.”

She grinned. “Ain’t nobody worried about throwing away the trash at that party.”

“Did you feed him?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I fed him what was in the cabinets, changed his diaper. I did that with my own kids, you know? Like I said, they let you keep them for a while before they’re turned over. I learned all about feeding and that kind of shit. I took pretty good care of him.”

“Why did you leave him?” Will asked. “You were arrested on the street.”

“My pimp didn’t know about this — I was off the books, just having a good time. He tracked me down and told me to get back to work, so I did.”

“How did you get back upstairs to take care of the baby?”

She jerked her hand up and down. “I tossed off Simkov. He’s all right.”

“Why didn’t you tell me when you called that first night that there was a baby involved?”

“I figured I’d take care of him when I got out,” she admitted. “I was doing a good job, right? I mean, I was doing good by him, keeping him fed and changing his little diapers. He’s a sweet little boy. You seen him, right? You know he’s sweet.”

That sweet little boy was dehydrated and hours from dying when Will had seen him. “How did you know Simkov?”

She shrugged. “Otik’s a longtime customer, you know?” She gestured toward the street. “Met him here on Millionaire’s Row.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call him a stand-up guy.”

“He did me a favor letting me go up there. I made some good cash. I kept the kid safe. What else you want from me?”

“Did Angie know about the baby?”

She coughed, the sound coming from deep in her chest. When she spit onto the sidewalk, Will felt his stomach roll. “You’re gonna have to ask her about that.”

Lola swung her purse over her shoulder and headed back toward her group.

Will took out his cell phone as he walked toward his car. The thing was on its last legs, but it still managed to make the call.

“Hello?” Faith said.

Will didn’t want to talk about what had happened this afternoon, so he didn’t give her an opening. “I talked to Lola.” He ran down what the prostitute had told him. “Simkov called her in to help her make some extra cash. I’m sure he took his share off the top.”

“Maybe that’s something we can use,” Faith answered. “Amanda wants me to talk to Simkov tomorrow. We’ll see if his story matches up.”

“What did you find on him?”

“Not much. He lives in the apartment building on the bottom floor. He’s supposed to be on the desk from eight until six, but there’s been problems with that lately.”

“I guess that’s why they gave him his two-week notice.”

“His criminal report came up clean. His bank account’s all right, considering he gets free rent.” Faith paused, and he could hear her turning the pages in her notebook. “We found some porn in his apartment, but nothing young or kinky. His phone’s clean.”

“Sounded to me like he’d let anybody into the building for the right amount of cash. Did Anna Lindsey give you anything?”

She told him about her fruitless conversation with the woman. “I don’t know why she won’t talk. Maybe she’s scared.”

“Maybe she thinks if she puts it out of her mind, doesn’t talk about it, then it’ll go away.”

“I suppose that works if you’ve got the emotional maturity of a six-year-old.”

Will tried not to take her words personally.

Faith told him, “We looked at the front-door logs from the apartment building. There was a cable guy and a couple of delivery people. I talked to all of them as well as the building maintenance guy. They’re checking out. Clean records, solid alibis.”

Will got into his car. “What about neighbors?”

“No one seems to know anything, and these people are too rich to talk to the police.”

Will had met the type before. They didn’t want to get involved and they didn’t want their names in the papers. “Did any of them know Anna?”

“Same as with the others — anyone who knew her didn’t like her.”

“What about forensics?”

“Should be back in the morning.”

“What about the computers?”

“Nothing, and the warrants aren’t in for the bank yet, so we don’t have access to Olivia Tanner’s cell phone, BlackBerry, or her computer at work.”

“Our bad guy is smarter at this than we are.”

“I know,” she admitted. “Everything is starting to feel like a dead end.”