Family Honor
Page 8
“No.”
“Why not.”
“I can’t say.”
“Because you don’t know or because she might hear you?”
“The latter.”
“Is she angry and hostile.”
“Yes.”
“Hates her parents?”
“You bet.”
“And every other adult.”
“I’d guess so.”
“Including you?”
“More or less, though I think there’s some puzzlement.”
“Because you don’t give her the adult party line?”
“Something like that.”
Julie laughed.
“You’ve never bought the adult party line yourself, Sunny.”
“And my mother certainly has tried to sell it to me.”
“So maybe you and, what’s her name, Millicent, are a good match.”
“I’ve got to be better than Pharaoh Fox,” I said.
“Who?”
“The gentleman who represented her,” I said.
“Her pimp.”
“Yes.”
“You know, there’s one thing you ought to remember,” Julie said. Her voice dropped a little as she shifted into her professional mode. “Some women rather like being whores, if the circumstances are not too degrading. They like the physical sensation, they like the easy money, they like the semblance of male attention.”
“What’s not to like?” I said.
“A lot, as you well know. But in many cases, these women are able to distance themselves from the actuality of their situation.”
“And,” I said, “in some cases they’re lesbians.”
“The ultimate manipulation of men,” Julie said. “Do you think Millicent is a lesbian?”
“I have no way to know,” I said.
“It would explain some things,” Julie said.
“Can’t work that way,” I said. “Find the explanation and fit the circumstances to it. It’s got to be the other way around.”
“Well, you can keep the possibility in mind.”
At the other end of the loft, Millicent, still in her shorts and tank top, dragged herself out of bed and went into the bathroom.
“I better hang up now,” I said. “My guest will be wanting breakfast.”
“Breakfast? It’s twenty of one in the afternoon.”
“She’s been working nights,” I said.
CHAPTER 16
“You got some coffee?” Millicent said.
“Cups in the cupboard,” I said. “Coffee in the green canisters. The one with the dot on the top is decaf.”
Millicent looked at the coffeemaker and the canisters and me.
“I don’t know how to make coffee,” she said, the way you’d explain to an idiot that you were unable to fly.
“I’ll show you,” I said.
“Whyn’t you just make it for me,” she said. “You’re the one who brought me here.”
“It’s better if you don’t have to depend on someone to make your coffee,” I said. “See, the filter goes in here, then the coffee, and the water here.”
She watched me, radiant with contempt, as I made the coffee.
“Next time you can make it,” I said.
“Sure,” she said.
While the coffee brewed, she sat on a stool at my kitchen counter and stared at nothing.
“Do you want the paper?” I said.
She shook her head.
“Would you like something to eat?” I said.
She made a face. When the coffee had brewed I poured some in a cup and handed it to her.
“You got cream and sugar?” she said.
“The sugar’s right there in the bowl, the spoons are in the drawer right below where you’re sitting,” I said. “Milk’s in the refrigerator.”
She didn’t move. I didn’t move. Finally she got up and went to the refrigerator and got some milk. I went back to reading a book by Vincent Scully. The loft was quiet. Rosie got up from where she had been lying on my feet and went over and looked up at Millicent in case she might be going to eat something.
“Is that a dog?” Millicent said.
“That’s Rosie,” I said. “Rosie is a miniature bull terrier.”
“Does he bite.”
“She does not,” I said.
“I hate dogs,” Millicent said.
“How endearing,” I said.
“Huh?”
“It’s fun sharing,” I said.
She looked at me a little suspiciously.
“Well, I do. They don’t do anything. They just hang around and eat and poop all over the place.”
“Actually,” I said, “that’s not true. Dogs are naturally rather careful where they poop. It’s why you can housebreak them.”
“Well, I don’t like them anyway,” she said.
“Because they don’t do anything useful?” I said.
“I don’t know, why are you always asking me stuff? I say something and you want to talk all about it.”
“And you don’t,” I said.
“No.”
“Then why do you say it?”
“Say what?”
“Stuff you don’t want to talk about?”
“I don’t know.”
We were quiet. She got up and went and got more coffee and brought it back and added milk and sugar and sat back on the stool. Rosie never moved from the position she had assumed at the bottom, her nose pointed straight up at Millicent, her squat body motionless. She looked like a small black-and-white pyramid.
“Isn’t she cute?” I said.
“Who?”
“Rosie.”
Millicent shrugged.
“What good is she?”
“I love her,” I said. “She gives me something to care about.”
Millicent stared at me for a while.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she said, “loving something that doesn’t do anything for you.”
“It certainly doesn’t,” I said. “What size are you? Four?”
“I guess so. My mother always bought all my clothes.”
“Well, I think some of my stuff will fit you. Go take a shower and then we’ll pick out something.”
“Why have I got to shower?” she said.
“Clean is good,” I said. “Especially if you’re going to be wearing my clothes.”
“I don’t want to take a shower.”
I nodded.
“Of course you don’t,” I said. “And up to a point I care about what you want. But we’re past the point. Either take a shower or I’ll drag you in there and hold you under.”
She stared at me. I stared back. Finally she shrugged and got up and walked into the bathroom.
“Shampoo your hair,” I said.
The door closed. I cleaned up her coffee cup and the coffeemaker and gave Rosie a dog biscuit. Then I went and laid out several pairs of jeans and several tee shirts on my bed, so Millicent would feel like she had a choice. She came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her. Her hair was straight and glistening. Her nails were clean. She didn’t look anywhere near fifteen. I gestured at the clothes.
“Pick something,” I said.
She took the first pair of jeans on the bed and the nearest tee shirt.
“You have any underwear?” I said.
“No.”
“Of course not,” I said. “Why would you.”
“I won’t wear yours,” she said.
“That’s right,” I said. “We’ll get you some next time we’re out.”
CHAPTER 17
We came back from the Ches
tnut Hill Mall with clothes for Millicent. Rosie was in the backseat looking out the window and gargling at other dogs when she saw them. Millicent was up front with me.
“So where you get the money to buy these clothes?” Millicent said. “Alimony?”
“I don’t get alimony.”
“How come?”
“I don’t want it. There’s no reason he should support me the rest of my life.”
“So how come you can afford to buy me clothes.”
“I do detective work,” I said. “People pay me. Like your parents did.”
“My mother says a woman alone’s got no chance.”
“No more than a fish does,” I said. “Without a bicycle.”
“Huh?”
“Just me amusing myself,” I said.
“Well, I’d take the alimony,” Millicent said.
“Alimony destroys any kind of relationship people might have,” I said.
“Well, you’re divorced, aren’t you?”
“It doesn’t mean we hate each other,” I said. “If there were alimony, eventually we would.”
“So how come you got a divorce if you don’t hate each other?”
“We’re still working on that one,” I said.
When we pulled up in front of my loft we found a long silver Mercedes Benz parked on the curb. Junior and Ty-Bop were outside, Junior leaning on the fender, Ty-Bop fidgeting on the sidewalk by my front door.
“Who are those colored guys?” Millicent said.
“The big one’s name is Junior,” I said. “The little one is Ty-Bop. The man in the car will be Tony Marcus.”
“Who’s he?”
“Runs the prostitution around here,” I said. “He used to be your boss.”
“What do they want?”
Millicent was very much less bellicose than she had been. She seemed to be getting smaller as she looked at Junior and Ty-Bop. Her shoulders hunched.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“They want me?”
“Tony helped me find you,” I said.
“Let’s drive away.”
“Tony wants to talk, he’ll talk,” I said. “Now or later. May as well be now.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
“You don’t have to,” I said. “You stay here with Rosie. I’ll see what he wants.”
“I don’t want you to go,” Millicent said.
I smiled at her.
“I’ll talk with Tony. We don’t want Junior to come over and bite one of the doors off.”
I got out and closed the door and walked over to the Mercedes. The back door opened and Tony Marcus stepped out, looking elegant in a pinstripe suit and a pin collar shirt. His neck was a little soft, as if he’d become so successful he didn’t need to be muscular anymore.
“We need to talk, Sunny Randall,” Tony said.
“Sure,” I said.
Tony looked at my car.
“Got the little hooker, I see,” Tony said.
“Yes.”
“What’s that thing in there with her?” Tony said.
“My dog, Rosie.”
“That’s a dog?”
“Yes.”
Tony offered his arm.
“Walk along with me a little, Sunny Randall.”
I took his arm and we walked slowly east in front of my building. Junior and Ty-Bop followed us.
“I wondered how quick you’d find her,” Tony said.
“I know.”
“And I wondered how you’d deal with my man Pharaoh, when you did find her.”
“I know.”
“Got to say this for you, Sunny Randall,” Tony said. “You done pretty good.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Like to have seen it,” Tony said. “You sticking a gun up Pharaoh’s nose and taking one of his whores away.”
Tony laughed softly. It was a surprisingly high laugh, almost a giggle.
“He told you about it?” I said.
“Hell no,” Tony said. “Some of the other girls saw it. I keep track of shit.”
We walked a few steps further in silence. At the end of my building Tony turned with my hand still on his arm, and we began to walk back. However his neck may have softened, his arm was strong. Ty-Bop and Junior let us pass and fell in behind us again.
“I got no problem with it,” Tony said. “My pimps can’t hang on to their whores, I find me somebody that can.”
“I’m just helping you with quality control,” I said.
“Sure you are, Sunny Randall. Problem is that somebody else looking for that little whore, too.”
We walked. I waited.
“You quiet for a broad, Sunny Randall.”
“And you’re not,” I said. “Who’s looking for her.”
Tony was laughing his high, soft laugh again.
“Goddamn,” he said. “‘And you’re not.’ Goddamn. Sunny Randall, you crack me up.”
“I know, sometimes I nearly overwhelm myself. Who’s looking for her?”
“Some Irish guys,” Tony said. “Came by to see Pharaoh, said they was looking for the little whore. We talking pop-u-larity, here. First you, then the two Irish guys.”
“I’m a trendsetter,” I said.
“So Pharaoh don’t want to say that some pretty little blond chick come along and took her away from him, so he say he don’t know where she is and the two Irish guys don’t believe it, so they beat up on Pharaoh till he tell them what happen.”
“And?”
“And he tole them. He maybe dress it up a little so he don’t look like a fucking doofus, which he is, and he don’t tell them your name because he say he don’t remember it. He tell them some female detective come and took his new little whore.”
“Who are these guys?”
“Don’t know.”
“You sure they want Millicent?”
“Millicent Patton, they said.”
“You know why?”
“Pharaoh didn’t ask. They didn’t say.”
I nodded. We reached the other end of my building and Tony turned again.
“Do you believe Pharaoh?” I said.
“Junior helped me talk to him,” Tony said. “Pharaoh not doing no lying to me and Junior.”
“Do you think they’ll ask you?” I said.
Tony shrugged.
“If they do you think you’ll tell them?”
“Ain’t inclined to be helpful to somebody beats up one of my pimps.”
We strolled quietly again.
“Inclined maybe to let my man Junior beat up on them, truth be known.”
“How is Pharaoh?” I said.
“Pharaoh’s dead,” he said.
“They killed him?”
Tony shook his head. I felt the truth all at once, an electric tingle in my stomach.
“You killed him,” I said.
“Can’t have one of my pimps giving whores away to every little blond cutie comes by with a gun,” Tony said.
We reached his car. He stopped. Ty-Bop opened the door. Tony got in. Junior went around and eased in behind the driver’s seat. Ty-Bop closed Tony’s door and got in the front. The car started. Tony’s rear window slid down silently. Tony smiled at me.
“Look sharp, Sunny Randall,” he said.
The car slid away from the curb and cruised almost silently away.
CHAPTER 18
Millicent was looking at one of the cityscapes I was painting. It stood on an easel in the studio, under the skylight where I got the sun until midafternoon.
“Is that supposed to be Boston?” she said.
“It’s supposed to be a painting,” I said.
“Of what?”
“How Chinatown looks to me when you approach it from around Lincoln Street.”
“I never been to Chinatown.”
“Really? You like Chinese food?”
“I never had any.”
“We’ll go,” I said.
“What if I don’t like it?”
“Chinatown?”
“Chinese food.”
“Don’t eat it,” I said.
“What if I’m hungry?”
“I don’t plan to starve you,” I said. “We’ll go eat some other kind of food.”
“Even if you’ve already paid for the Chinese stuff?”
“Yes. Sometimes six bucks doesn’t mean a thing to me.”
She looked at the painting some more. I hadn’t told her about the Irish guys. I might have to, because she might be the only one who knew what they wanted. But right now it was like training a horse. I just wanted to gentle her down.
“How come you painted this?” she said.
“I liked the way it looked, the shape of it, the colors at that time of day.”
“You mean it’s not always the same color?”
“Color is a function of light,” I said. “Light changes, the color changes.”
“Weird,” Millicent said. “You get paid for this?”
“I sell some pictures,” I said.
“Will you sell this one?”
“I don’t know.”
“So you might be wasting your time.”
“I don’t think of painting as a waste of time,” I said.
“Well, if you don’t get paid, what good is it?”
“I like it.”
“That’s all?”
“I know how to do it. I like doing it.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all,” I said.
She was quiet for a while. When we got home she had immediately gone into the bathroom and put on her new underwear. Some of which was pretty nice.
“Like the dog,” Millicent said.
“The dog?”
“Yeah. You have a dog just because you want to, no good reason.”
“Maybe that is a good reason,” I said.
“You supposed to have a reason for stuff,” Millicent said.
“Like why you ran away from home?”
“I told you, I don’t like it there.”
“Oh yeah,” I said.