The Girl From Nowhere (4 page)

“What did he say?”

“I’ll get you, you cunt.”

Coming from her lips, that sounded shocking.

“That was it?”

“You know the rest. When I left Jilly’s yesterday he was standing in exactly the same place, the same expression on his hideous face. He said exactly the same thing. What made it so scary is that there’s never anyone around near Jilly’s. I walked toward Chinatown because I knew there’d be lots of people there. I didn’t know for sure if he was following me, but when I crossed Canal Street I sensed there was someone behind me. I looked back, and there he was. That’s why I grabbed your hand. I figured that if he thought I had a boyfriend maybe he’d leave me alone. You know the rest.”

There was a silence as we each tried to size up the other. I wondered if she was having more luck than I was.

“So what now?” she asked.

“Good question. What would you like me to do?”

Another silence. I was playing for time here. If it hadn’t been for the episode in the delicatessen, I would have pegged Sandy Smollett for a paranoid young woman looking for some free hands-on therapy, or one whose equivocal sexuality in a city full of part-time deviants put her in need of friendly guidance. The part-time deviant in me thought it would be interesting to offer a shoulder to lean on, or cry on, since
I
certainly was not immune to that brand of equivocal sexuality. The spoilsport who lives in my frontal lobe argued that the last thing I needed was a stripper who looked like Gidget hanging around my neck.

“Here’s the thing,” said Sandy Smollett. “I’m scared to be alone. Jilly will be at Carol’s tonight.”

“You’ve got nowhere else to stay?”

“Not anywhere I would feel safe. I’m certainly not going back to the sublet.”

“Okay,” I said. “You can sleep at my place. No strings attached. I’ll crash on the couch.”

A typical part-time deviant compromise.

“I couldn’t ask you to do that,” she said.

“Okay—you crash on the couch.”

My place was a floor-through in an old West Village town house. As we left the cab, Sandy Smollet expressed her approval.

“Wow,” she said. “Did George Washington sleep here?”

“Unfortunately,” I said, “the bedbugs kept him awake.”

She giggled. That was a first. I liked it, but then I’m a sucker for giggles. I unlocked the door, turned on the lights, and ushered her in. I asked if she felt like a nightcap of some kind.

“Well, I don’t drink much,” she said.

“I remember.”

“But if you have some wine open, a glass just might help relax me.”

There was some Soave in the fridge. While I was pouring two glasses, Sandy Smollett gave a little gasp. She had spotted
Vamp
on the coffee table, and would have eviscerated me on the spot if she could have.

“I hate you,” she said.

“You and plenty other people.”

“You’re despicable,” she said.

“I know,” I told her, “but hear me out. I happen to be a pal of Yari Mendelssohn, so I was interested in seeing what he’d done for this new magazine. Danny Fraser told me about it.”

“Who?”

“The guy who made the big painting of you.”

“Oh . . .”

That had caught her off balance.

“
Vamp
is not my usual cup of tequila,” I said, “but my testosterone level is pretty normal for a guy my age, so I did force myself to browse through it. A couple of the pictures in there are quite arresting, especially the one of the extremely attractive but slightly battered young woman relaxing a shade provocatively on a leather chair in a library. Are you into reading?”

“I hate you,” she said again.

“How does it compare,” I asked, “posing for Yari Mendelssohn and posing for a bunch of art students?”

“It was just a job.”

“You certainly photograph well.”

“It was just a job.”

“I understand. How did you happen to get the gig?”

“I don’t know. Someone referred me—probably someone at the Alibi. It was good money.”

“So you didn’t know Yari Mendelssohn?”

“I’d never met him before.”

“Where was the picture taken?”

“Does that matter? Some big place on Long Island, I think. I wasn’t paying attention. I showed up where I was told to, when I was told to, and we went in a limo. The photographer set up the shot and took the pictures. That was it.”

“He just took the one picture?”

“There may have been a couple more. A few days later I got a print of that photo in the mail with a note saying it was going to be in a magazine. I didn’t like the picture. It was sick.”

“So what did you do with it?”

“It’s back in the apartment somewhere—in one of the drawers. Why?”

“I don’t know. I imagined you tearing it up.”

“No—I put it in a drawer. And I still hate you—and why are you interrogating me?”

“Because I’m a rat. Would you like me to drop you off somewhere? The Algonquin maybe?”

“That won’t be necessary. Just keep your distance. Could you pass me that glass of wine, please?”

I did as she asked, staying at arm’s length.

“But you did think I was attractive?” she said, biting her lip.

“I’ll get you sheets to put on the couch,” I told her, “and I’ll show you the bathroom. There’s a folding partition that divides this floor into two rooms, so you’ll have plenty of privacy.”

Sandy Smollett mumbled a thank you. I chose to imagine she sounded almost sorry about the partition, and recalled the thoughts that had run through my mind earlier, about the perils of being the platonic roommate of someone who gave off that vibe.

FOUR

I half-expected her
to be gone in the morning, but when
I woke at nine thirty Sandy Smollett was fast asleep on the sofa. She had been carrying a big bag when she arrived, and when I went to take a shower I found the bathroom littered with items of feminine toiletry. I could understand a stripper needing all the help she could get, but it seemed out of character for the Sandy Smollett I thought I knew. To my admittedly untrained eye, she wore virtually no makeup. By the time I got out of the shower, she was up and about in my spare bathrobe, brewing coffee and looking tastier than fried eggs and Irish bacon.

“Thanks again,” she said. “That was the best night’s sleep I’ve had in a while—the first time I’ve felt completely safe.”

I wasn’t sure that I bought any of that, but I pretended to, and asked her plans.

She shrugged.

“What about you?”

“I’ve got to go to work,” I told her.

“Can I stay here for a while?” she asked.

I asked her what time she started at the club.

“It’s my day off.”

“Don’t you need a change of clothes?”

“I’ll call Jilly and ask her to send something over in a taxi.”

I had mixed feelings about Sandy Smollett hanging around my apartment, but decided to play a hunch. Hunches begin life as tiny airborne viruses that take root in the cerebral cortex and spread through the body like the Hong Kong flu. They’re not to be trusted because when they’re at their most virulent every extremity, from the tip of your tongue to your Achilles’ heel, assures you that you have a supernatural ability to pick the Derby winner, or to name the dandified dude with a knighthood up his ass who
really
wrote
Hamlet
. I was beginning to succumb to one of these nasty-and-occasionally-lethal contagions—or at least I felt a bit on the feverish side. One thing the condition was telling me, in whispered asides, was that it would be useful to keep tabs on Sandy Smollet for the next couple of days. So I told her she was welcome to stay.

“Watch out for my ex,” I warned her. “She sometimes drops by without calling. Her name’s Janice. Reddish-blonde hair and acts like she still owns me.”

Sandy Smollett thanked me profusely and went to take a shower. She emerged smelling like new-mown clover. I reluctantly said I was going to the office.

“Best not to tell anyone but Jilly you’re here,” I warned her.

“Who would I tell?”

“I don’t know—friends, people you work with.”

“I don’t have any friends to call.”

Who
was
this girl?

“I’ll be calling to check on you,” I said, “but be careful what you say to anyone else who calls.”

“I’ll say I’m your girlfriend.”

“Or better still, say nothing at all. But whatever you do don’t give your name.”

“Why?”

“Just in case—you know, these guys who’ve been stalking you.”

“But how would anyone know I’m here?”

I had no answer to that, just an uneasy feeling about the way things were evolving.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll be careful.”

“There’s eggs and stuff in the fridge,” I told her. “And some goulash Janice made in the freezer if you get really hungry. Her mom’s from Budapest. Don’t hesitate to try me at the office, though I don’t know how long I’ll be there.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Don’t worry about me—I’ll be fine.”

Sometimes, I told her, I didn’t make it home till late. But then I added—I don’t know why—that I’d try to be back in time to have dinner with her.

I took my usual route to the office, crosstown on 14th Street, past the Salvation Army, past the storefronts crammed with communion dresses and transistor radios. In Union Square it was business as usual. Two cops outside the Mays department store were busting a guy with big hair in a dashiki printed with peace symbols. Across the way from there, a dozen Hare Krishnas were beating the shit out of their tambourines. Under the trees near the Lafayette statue, a kid in a stroller was pointing a toy pistol at dog walkers and other passers-by. I think it was a toy. Not far away, an elderly black man in shoes made from old tires was screaming “Don’t you ‘brother’ me, man—I ain’t your brother,” to no one in particular.

I picked up coffee and an egg-and-bacon sandwich from the coffee shop on the corner of 16th Street and made my way to the Heartland Credit Union Building. Freddie the doorman told me that the office that had once belonged to my friend Olga the Swedish masseuse had finally been rented—to a discount dentist. All the place needed was another discount dentist. I made my way up to my office and ate my sandwich. Then I lit a joint, cracking the window open to let out the smoke just in case a client popped in, not that I had any reason to suppose one would. I sat there for a while and savored the joint and bullied some thoughts that couldn’t fight back. Who was Sandy Smollett? Put another way: which was the real Sandy Smollett, and what the hell was she doing in my apartment? Come to think of it: which was the real Sandy Smollett and what the hell was she doing in my
head
? Who would want to hurt a girl like that, and why? Why had Yari told me she was forbidden fruit? I could come up with any number of plausible answers to all of those questions, and none of them was very helpful.

After a few minutes of this, I decided I’d better check my messages. There was just one, from an attorney named J.H. Lucking, asking me to give him a tinkle. To tell the truth, it wasn’t from J.H. himself, but from an assistant of some kind with a voice that suggested her hobby was chewing barbed wire. I called the number she had left and she picked up. She told me that Mr. Lucking would like to meet with me as soon as was convenient. I asked if she meant convenient for me or convenient for him? She gave me an address on East 73rd Street and told me to be there at one thirty precisely. I asked what this was about. She told me Mr. Lucking would instruct me when I got there.

I’m all for instruction if the price is right, so a little after one I took a Lexington Avenue train uptown and made my way to the address I’d been given. It was a handsome Empire-style row house and the entire building appeared to be occupied by the law firm of Lucking, Thorpe, & Lucking. I should have worn my clean shirt. Watched by a closed-circuit TV camera, I rang the bell and somebody buzzed me in. I found myself in a spacious, circular lobby at the foot of an imposing spiral staircase. After a few seconds, an efficient-looking woman in a black pantsuit trotted into view.

“Mr. Novalis?”

The charmer I had spoken to on the phone. She told me that Mr. Lucking was waiting for me in the conference room, one flight up and straight ahead. Evidently she had tipped off her boss to my arrival since J.H. was there waiting for me when I reached the landing. He was one of those tall, tanned attorneys who look as if they earned their law degree by ship-to-shore cablegram while crewing on large sailboats in the Caribbean. Perfectly groomed, he had the kind of dirty-blond hair that has the texture of steel wool, and he was dressed for litigation in a serious gray-flannel suit that said, “You can keep those pinched-in-at-the-waist pin-stripe limey fag numbers, and those shiny wop butt freezers—I’m proud to have an American flag stuck up my ass and you’d better not forget it.”

He crushed my hand and led the way into the conference room, which filled the entire frontage of the second floor. Three large windows looked out at the consulate of some newly minted country. It boasted a flag that resembled the Paramount Pictures logo. The conference table was as large and as shiny as one of those portable dance floors they roll out on lawns for weddings in Fairfield County. J.H. seated himself at one end, beneath a rather good landscape by some minor Hudson River School painter, and assigned me to a neighboring chair. He removed a yellow legal pad from an attaché case and scanned some handwritten notes.

“I understand,” he began, “that you have a Miss Sandy Smollett staying with you.”

That blew me away.

“How would you know that?” I asked.

“I’m not at liberty to reveal that,” he said, without looking up from the pad.

My mind was working overtime. Had someone followed us when we left the diner? I tried to hold speculation in check until I heard what was coming next, but it was hard to avoid the estranged-husband scenario.

“Can I take it,” asked J.H., “that this information is correct?”

“First tell me who wants to know.”

“I’m not at liberty to do so.”

“Then what
are
you at liberty to tell me?”

“Very little, I’m afraid, but you’d be well advised to listen carefully, Mr. Novalis. A certain party—a client of this firm—has a keen interest in Miss Smollett . . .”

“What sort of a keen interest?”

“Knowledge of that is not part of my brief. What I have to pass on to you is that this party is concerned for her well-being.”

“As am I.”

“That’s good to hear, because this party has reason to believe that Miss Smollett is in some kind of danger.”

“From me?”

“I don’t believe that that’s the implication.”

He paused, as if expecting me to say something. I didn’t oblige.

“I understand,” he continued, “that you are some kind of a private investigator?”

“Some kind,” I said. “I specialize in art fraud and related areas.”

“Interesting,” he said without much conviction. “In fact, one of our own investigators has looked into your background and assures us that, although not always entirely trustworthy in certain regards, you can probably be relied upon where the matter at hand is concerned.”

Certain regards? One measly conviction for possession of cannabis?

“What the party I represent in this instance has in mind,” J.H. continued, “is somewhat different from your usual run of employment. Said party feels that Miss Smollett is in need of protection.”

Said party? I wasn’t even going to learn the gender of said party?

“It seems,” he said, “that you may be the person best positioned to provide that protection.”

“Let’s cool it a second—I only met the young lady yesterday.”

He seemed mildly surprised by this, but shrugged it off.

“Be that as it may, the job is yours for the taking. My client is prepared to pay well for your cooperation.”

With that J.H. reached into his attaché case again and produced an unsealed envelope containing hundred-dollar bills. That was a big surprise. Outfits like Lucking, Thorpe, & Lucking didn’t do the cash-and-carry thing—not unless the client was someone they really didn’t want to lose, like Howard Hughes or the shah of Persia. I couldn’t see exactly how many bills were in that envelope, but it was enough for me to fantasize about paying off a few debts and living comfortably for a year or two—so long as I didn’t develop a taste for beluga caviar or for flying first-class to St. Tropez.

“There will be no need for a formal contract,” said J.H.

That’s when my mind went into reverse. The deal wasn’t kosher. I would be crazy to take cash. The bills would almost certainly be marked. That suggested a set-up. Then there was the big question—who was this anonymous party pulling the strings? Stromboli? Or maybe the Blue Fairy was getting in on the act. Whoever it was, I didn’t like him. Or her. I especially didn’t like the implication that this person somehow owned Sandy Smollett. Sandy Smollett was mine. I was the knight in shining armor who had rescued her. Admittedly, with those hundred-dollar bills I could take my suit of thrift-store armor down to the body shop to get the dents knocked out and have it replated. But then, you have to leave it there for days and I hate to be without it for that long.

I told J.H. I wasn’t interested.

If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. He told me I was being foolish. I informed him that his client could stuff his or her C-notes up the kazoo because I was going to take care of Sandy Smollett anyway. J.H. put up a bit of an argument, but when I got up to leave he didn’t try to stop me. He did, however, offer a warning.

“There’s one thing I must tell you about Miss Smollett,” he said. “I understand she’s a very attractive young woman, but if you have thoughts of . . .”