Hundred Dollar Baby (14 page)

"Did a hell of a job," Belson said.

"Best she could," I said. "I don't know what else I could have done with her all those years ago."

"Youth services?" Belson said.

"You serious?" I said.

"No," Belson said.

"So Patricia Utley was what I had. I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now. But I still can't think of how to have done it better."

"Maybe didn't matter," Belson said. "Maybe she was fucked from the start and by the time you met her, it was way too late."

"Or maybe she's a hell of a person who just happens to be a sex worker."

"Maybe," Belson said. "What else is involved?"

"Maybe some houses in Philly and New Haven. Maybe April. There's some. kind of scheme to defraud somebody. Maybe Mrs. Utley. Maybe all of the above, defrauding each other. Everybody is telling me stories they make up on the fly. None of it makes much sense."

"And then you go back and talk to them again and point out where they were lying and they make up another story," Belson said.

"Oh," I said, "happens to you, too?"

"Every coupla hours," he said.

"Maybe I'll stop asking," I said. "Maybe I'll just nose around until I stumble over a fact or something."

"Think you'll recognize a fact?"

"If I'm confused," I said, "I'll call you."

"Misery loves company," Belson said. "I'll hold Quirk off as long as I can."

"Fair enough," I said. "You got any pictures of Ollie?"

"Sure," Belson said. "I'll send some over."

"Thank you," I said.

"You're welcome," Belson said. "You got a plan?"

"No."

I was in Darleen's room. It was a nice room. Blue. A big bed on a honey-pine frame and a turned colonial headboard. A patchwork quilt. Sea chest at the foot. A table and two chairs, a big television, a bathroom off. Drapes that hung floor to ceiling a half-tone lighter blue than the walls. It was like a room in some Cape Cod bed-and-breakfast. On the top of the bureau on the wall past the bed were some tools of Darleen's profession. I took note in case there was anything that would interest Susan. There wasn't. On the other hand, she might adjust.

I sat on the edge of the bed while Darleen carefully put her face on in the bathroom mirror.

"April says we're not supposed to talk with you except if she's there," Darleen said.

She was leaning very close to get the full light on her reflection.

"This is a murder case, Darleen. If I can't talk to you, the cops will come in and talk to all of you, and then there's no more discreet inquiry. Then everybody's name and address is established, and everybody's alibi is checked, and there it all goes, you know?"

"I know," Darleen said.

She put some sort of headband on to keep her hair away from her face, then did something with a face cream.

"I need to talk with Bev," I said.

"She's not here anymore," Darleen said.

She wiped off the cream with a tissue. Her face was still about four inches from the mirror. She began to apply eyeliner. Her movements were sure and experienced.

"I know," I said. "You need to tell me how to find her."

Darleen studied her eyes for a moment in the mirror. Then she did another touch and sat back a little and squinted. She nodded to herself.

"She lives in Burlington," Darleen said. "She's married."

She put the eyeliner away and got some sort of foundation stuff and began to apply it.

"What's her last name?"

"April . . ."

"Godammit Darleen, April me no April," I said. "You want to tell me, or you want to tell the cops?"

She stopped. Her face in the mirror looked scared.

"Prendergast," Darleen said.

"Thank you."

She resumed work on the foundation stuff. Maybe she wasn't terrified.

"I could call her," Darleen said. "Have her meet you someplace. Her husband wouldn't know. He thinks she sells Mary Kay."

"Anywhere she'd like," I said.

Darleen straightened and examined her work so far. After a moment she gave herself a small approving nod. "Okay, I'll call her when I get through," she said. "What else you need."

I took one of the Ollie DeMars pictures Belson had sent over and showed it to her.

"Jesus," she said. "Is he dead?"

"Yes."

Darleen stared at the picture.

"You know, I've never seen a dead person, I don't think."

"Recognize him?"

"God, I don't know. He just looks so ... dead."

"There's a reason for that," I said. "Squint a little. Ever see him?"

She narrowed her eyes and looked some more.

"Yeah, if you squint it sort of filters out some of the deadness," she said.

"Recognize him?" I said.

"I might have seen him around here," she said.

"Customer?"

"No, I don't think so. I think he was more like somebody visiting April."

"Know his name?" I said.

"Name? No, hell no, I wouldn't know it if you said it. I'm not even positive I've seen him. Who is he?"

"How 'bout you call Bev," I said.

I met Bev in the cafe of the Barnes & Noble bookstore near the Burlington Mall.

"No one will see us here," she said. "None of my friends read."

She wore a pink headband. One of those quilted downfilled coats was draped over the back of the chair. It was black and had a belt. In her pink warm-up suit and Nike running shoes, she looked like half of the young suburban housewives you might see at any mall during the day. She showed no sign of the beating she had sustained.

"You working anywhere else?" I said.

"The kind of work I'm willing to do," she said, "there isn't anywhere else."

"Consider another kind of work?" I said.

"Like being a bookkeeper?" she said. "Here's my resume? I don't think so. I like hooking. I'm qualified for it."

"Follow your bliss," I said.

"Bliss?"

"It's something Joseph Campbell used to say."

"Joseph Campbell?"

I shook my head and took Ollie DeMars's picture from my inside pocket and put it on the table in front of Bev. "Know him?" I said.

She did. I saw her stiffen and her expression flatten. She shook her head.

"You do," I said. "Don't you."

"No."

"He looks a little different in the picture," I said.

She shook her head.

"He's dead," I said.

She sat back and looked at me as if she didn't quite understand.

"Somebody shot him to death," I said.

"Shot him?" she said.

I nodded. "Dead."

"I . . ." She stopped.

"It's a murder, Bev. I can hold the cops off only so long. Talk to me. Talk to them."

She nodded.

"Tell me about the last time you saw him," I said.

We both had coffee. Bev looked at hers but didn't touch it. She took in some air and breathed it out.

"He beat me up," she said.

I nodded. "Ever see him before he beat you up?"

"Yes."

"When?"

Again, the big breath.

"I saw him coming out of April's apartment early one morning," she said.

I nodded.

"I had been on a call, for the night. But the client had to check out of his hotel at five thirty to fly somewhere, so I came back to the mansion around six and he was coming out."

"He say anything?"

"No. He just put his fingers to his lips, you know, like
shush,
and looked at me hard.... But that night when I was coming back from Copley Place, he grabbed me. Asked me if I'd said anything to anyone about seeing him. I said I hadn't. I'm kind of mouthy, I guess. I got a little smart with him. He smacked me and he said if I ever told anybody, he'd kill me. Then he beat me up some more, to get my attention, he said. I think he kind of liked it."

"So you quit," I said.

"Sure. I didn't know what was going on, but there was something going on with this creep and April. I wasn't interested in getting into the middle of it."

"You say anything to April?"

"No, I mean, maybe she told him to do it. I just wanted out of there."

"Don't blame you," I said. "You have any idea what he was doing with April?"

"You come out of somebody's place at six o'clock in the morning, I got a fair guess what he's doing with her."

"Besides that," I said.

"No. No idea. You think they're in cahoots."

"Cahoots," I said.

"What?"

"I haven't heard anybody say 'cahoots' in a long time."

"No? I don't know. My mother used to say it all the time.

"Good word," I said.

"Really?" Bev said. "I just thought it was a regular word."

She was happy to have used a good word. Praise for Bev was probably generally more visceral.

"So you think they are," she said, "you know, in cahoots?"

I had created a monster. I could tell she would work cahoots into her conversations for the foreseeable future. It was sad to think how many of the people she'd say it to wouldn't give a rat's ass that it was a good word.

"Yes," I said. "I think they might be in cahoots."

"What are they in cahoots about?"

"I don't know."

"You gonna find out?" Bev said.

"Yeah."

"Please," she said. "Please don't drag me into it."

"I won't if I can help it," I said. "It's all I can promise." "Oh God," she said.

"Her too," I said.

My office door opened on the last day in February and a big guy with long, dark hair came in. I recognized him. His name was Johnny and he had worked for Ollie DeMars. I opened the side drawer of my desk and sat back in my chair.

"Johnny," I said.

"You remember me."

"Who could forget you, Johnny."

"I hope that big guy does," Johnny said, "with the bleach-blond hair."

"Don't blame you," I said.

"I ain't here for trouble," he said.

"Damn," I said, "I was gearing up to say 'Trouble is my business."'

Johnny sat down in front of my desk.

"You're working on Ollie's murder," he said.

"What makes you think so?"

"My niece's husband is a cop," Johnny said.

"Must be very proud of him," I said.

Johnny shrugged.

"Everybody does what he does," he said. "I liked Ollie."

"Somebody had to," I said.

"I hate to see him get aced like that."

"Yeah. "

"He was a tough enough guy," Johnny said. "But he wasn't too bright."

"I know."

"But he was always square with me," Johnny said.

I waited.

"Ollie was a cockhound, though, that's for fucking sure. I mean, he was married, yeah. But he used to say his wife was married, he wasn't."

Johnny laughed. I felt like I was at a very small memorial service.

"I think it got him killed," Johnny said.

"How so," I said.

"Huh?"

"How'd it get him killed?" I said.

"I think he was meeting some broad the night he got it," Johnny said.

"Who?"

"I don't know."

"Why you think he was meeting a woman?" I said.

"He tole me he didn't want nobody around that evening," Johnny said. "Tole me to clear everybody out before seven, and he give me the wink, you know, like,
hey, hey, pussy's on the way."

"That
wink," I said.

"Yeah."

"Was it unusual for Ollie to clear the building?" I said.

"Yeah, sure. I mean, Ollie done some rough work in his life, you know. The crew does a lot of rough work. Ollie likes to have people around."

You didn't hang around anyplace to see what was happening?"

"Christ, no," Johnny said. "Ollie says clear the area, you clear it, you know?"

"That's not going to be an issue anymore."

"Yeah, right," Johnny said. "I forgot."

"Johnny up to anything with the whorehouse business?" I said.

"Nothing you don't know about," Johnny said. "Or if he was, I fucking don't know it, either."

"Who's going to run the crew now?" I said.

"Not me," Johnny said. "I'm outta here. I can't stand the fucking weather anymore. You know it's supposed to snow tomorrow? Fucking March first, and there's supposed to be a fucking nor'easter."

"Florida?" I said, just to be saying something.

"Shreveport, Louisiana," Johnny said. "I got a cousin down there, says there's plenty of action ... and it's warm."

"Going for good?" I said.

I didn't think he was holding anything back. But if you keep them talking, sometimes they reveal something they didn't realize they knew.

"Outta here," Johnny said.

"So who will run the crew, you think?"

"I think there ain't no crew no more. It was Ollie's crew. He's gone. It's gone. I just wanted to clean up here before I took off."

"Ollie have any steady girlfriends?" I said.

"Never happen," Johnny said. "He had a different one every day. Sometimes two."

"Hookers?" I said.

"Got me. I just know that couch in his office was a busy place."

"He didn't clear you out whenever he got laid?" I said.

"Shit no, we'd have never been there."

"So why this night, do you suppose?"

"Don't know. It's why I'm talking to you. I was with Ollie awhile. I want to do right by him."

"This woman was different," I said.

"I guess."

We sat silently.

"You find any videotapes in Ollie's office?"

"No."

"Nothing? Porn tapes, people fucking, like taken from a secret camera?"

"No."

Then Johnny said, "You got a gun in that desk drawer that's open."

"I do."

"I'm gonna take something outta my coat pocket," Johnny said. "It ain't a gun. I don't want you shooting me."

I picked up the .357 from the drawer.

"Take it out slowly," I said.

"You don't trust me?"

"Trust but verify," I said.

Johnny stood. He was wearing a brown tweed overcoat with big patch pockets. He took a videotape out of the right-hand pocket and put it on my desk.