Hundred-Dollar Baby

by Robert B. Parker

  “She’d had a bad time,” I said.

  “Many people do,” Patricia Utley said. “Especially in the whore business. We try to be the exception.”

  “We all try,” I said. “You succeeded.”

  “Is that your imitation of Humphrey Bogart?”

  “How good is it if you have to ask?” I said.

  “Think about it,” Patricia Utley said. “Eventually, we got April back on her feet and she became one of my most successful girls.”

  “So what about this business you set her up in?” I said.

  “It’s not a wonderful business. But it gives her a chance to run her own show and make a decent living. I did it mainly for April.”

  “You take back a royalty?”

  “Yes. Ten percent.”

  “Of the gross?” I said.

  “Of the net,” she said.

  “You are doing this,” I said, “for April.”

  “Yes, my take is little more than seven thousand five hundred dollars a year.”

  “So the business is worth about seventy-five thousand dollars to April.”

  “Roughly,” Patricia Utley said. “There is a lot of overhead.”

  “The house, the furnishings, the working girls, the office staff,” I said.

  “And the bar and dining room, and bribes to law enforcement, payment to Mr. Marcus, cleaning services, quite a large laundry bill, physical exams for the girls, clothing allowances.”

  “Pay the girls’ salaries?” I said.

  “The whores? They get an advance against earnings. If, in a relatively short time, they don’t earn out, they are out-placed.”

  “How’s it compare with your operation in New York,” I said.

  “For profit?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pocket change,” she said. “There’s too little volume, too much overhead. I may never get my investment back.”

  “Has it got an upside down the road?”

  “No,” Patricia Utley said. “I doubt it. I have not hovered over this project, but it seems that it has as large a share of the market as it is likely to get.”

  Pearl got off the couch suddenly and walked swiftly around my office until she found a dirty and badly tattered stuffed toy animal of indeterminate species. She picked it up and chewed on it so it squeaked and brought it to me.

  “What on earth is that noise?” Patricia Utley said.

  “Squeaky toy,” I said.

  Pearl squeaked it at me some more until I took it and tossed it across the room.

  “Have you ever worried that maybe you are alone too much,” Patricia Utley said.

  “Susan and I have a dog,” I said, “and she’s come to work today with Daddy.”

  “My God,” Patricia Utley said.

  Pearl picked up her squeaky toy and shook it and looked at me, and made a decision, and jumped up on the couch with her squeaky toy and lay down with it underneath her.

  “Are you going to tell me why you called,” Patricia Utley said.

  “Someone’s trying to shake April down.”

  “And she came to you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know who it is?”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  “Do you have any help?” she said.

  “Two men.”

  “So there will be some cost,” she said.

  “Some.”

  “Has April paid you?”

  “No.”

  “She probably can’t really afford to,” Patricia Utley said.

  “When it’s done, if you’ll submit me a bill, perhaps I will pay you.”

  “Let’s revisit the question when it’s done,” I said.

  “Do you need any other help?” Patricia Utley said. “Stephen is gone. But I have resources.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Sorry to hear about Stephen.”

  “We were together a long time,” she said.

  “Not long enough,” I said.

  “It’s never long enough,” she said. “Is it.”

  14

  It was an ironclad rule at Susan’s house that Pearl did not eat supper before five p.m.

  “If you give in to her,” Susan always said, “we’ll be feeding her supper at noon.”

  This was perfectly true, and the rule made a great deal of sense. So after Pearl and I walked the four blocks back to my place in the late afternoon, I ignored her insistent stare unshakably, and didn’t feed her until 4:11.

  Pearl was an efficient and focused eater. By 4:13 her dish was empty and she was topping it off with a long lap at her water dish. Then, having fulfilled her responsibilities for the day, she got up on the couch and curled up and looked at me. Susan was at a conference in Albany and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. I was in for the night. I went to my kitchen counter and made myself a drink and brought it to the couch and sat down beside Pearl. It was a tall drink, scotch with soda and a lot of ice. It had a nice, clean look to it. I drank some. It tasted like it looked. I patted Pearl.

  The room was so familiar that I barely saw it. I’d been here a long time. I had first had sex with Susan in this room, on a couch not unlike this one. I would have hung on to it for sentimental reasons, maybe with a plaque. But Susan is very big on out with the old and in with the new, and it had been replaced. I got something out of it, though. We’d had sex on this couch, too. If Pearl knew that, she wasn’t impressed by it. She was asleep and snoring very faintly. I sipped my drink. Pacing is important. I was never happy when Susan was away. I didn’t need to see her every day. We were careful about that. Neither of us wished to be an obligation. But I liked it better when she was nearby and if I wanted to see her, I could. Even if I didn’t.

  I looked across the living room at the darkness outside my front window. It was the beginning of February. Football was almost over. Baseball hadn’t started. Basketball was boring until the last two minutes. And the snow remained deep, dirty, and unmelting. Seven weeks to spring equinox. My drink was gone. I got up carefully, not to disturb Pearl, and made myself a fresh one. I took it back to the couch, sat back down carefully, put my feet on the coffee table, and took a swallow. Winter would pass. Pearl shifted a little in her sleep, and I shifted a little to accommodate her…. There was something really wrong with April’s story.

  From the start, I had felt vaguely uncomfortable. I didn’t know what I was uncomfortable about. And, suddenly, I did. The mansion-class prostitution business she was running wasn’t worth the energy someone was expending to get a cut of it. If Patricia Utley was right—and if she wasn’t, who would be?—the business was labor-intensive, difficult to run, and generated a modest profit. Was the business worth getting involved with Ollie DeMars? Was it worth inviting trouble with Tony Marcus? Or, for that matter, me and Hawk? And who was it that they dispatched to dating bars to pick up women and recruit them? Wouldn’t that have to be a guy? What guy? Of course Patricia Utley could be lying. But why would she be?

  “Moreover,” I said to Pearl, “since the tactics of the anonymous takeover seem aimed at putting April out of business, what will the takeover guy have if his tactics work?”

  Pearl appeared disinterested.

  I felt bad about April. She was lying, and that made helping her a lot harder. Plus, what could be so bad that she wouldn’t tell me?

  “And,” I said to Pearl, “the ugly truth of the matter is, my feelings are hurt.”

  Pearl opened her eyes for a moment and stared at me. I took another swallow of scotch and looked back at her.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll get over it.”

  Pearl closed her eyes.

  15

  In the morning Pearl and I took a short run along the river. The footing was bad, and the wind off the river was irksome. But we got in a half-hour of running plus some loitering while Pearl performed her morning ablutions and I, responsible dog owner, cleaned up after her. It is hard to look graceful while being a responsible dog owner. But I felt I managed with considerable aplomb. W
e went back to my place through the back basement door of my building. I fed Pearl and got some coffee and went and stood and looked down at Marlboro Street while I drank it. I always stood at the window while I had my coffee. I liked to watch the people going to work. A gray Ford Crown Victoria with tinted windows pulled onto Marlboro Street from Arlington and slid into a space by a hydrant across the street from my building. No one got out. The car was idling; I could see the exhaust plume drifting up behind the car. I drank some more coffee and stayed at the window. No one got out of the car. A man walking a small Jack Russell terrier went by. A woman in a short faux-fur coat and tight slacks went by. The Crown Vic did not have LV plates, so it probably wasn’t a limo waiting to take someone to Logan Airport. I watched it some more. It sat. I drank coffee. My cup was empty. I got another cup. The Crown Vic still sat there, still idling. So they could run the heater. While I watched the Crown Vic, the window on the passenger side slid down and somebody tossed a foam coffee cup and a couple of napkins onto Marlboro Street. I could see that he had long hair. I recognized him. He had been in Ollie DeMars’s office when I had gone to visit.

  “By God,” I said to Pearl, “a clue!”

  Pearl raised her head from the couch and looked at me closely to make sure I hadn’t said, “Do you want something to eat.” When she established that I hadn’t, she put her head back down. I continued on my coffee. The Crown Vic continued to sit. I got my cordless phone and brought it to the window and dialed the mansion and talked with Tedy Sapp.

  “I’m looking out the front window of my apartment,” I said. “There is a gray Crown Vic parked across the street and in it are several guys who bear me ill will.”

  “You must see that a lot,” Sapp said. “Given how charming you are.”

  “Hawk needs to stay with April,” I said. “But he will tell you how to get here.”

  “Okay.”

  “Here’s what I want you to do,” I said.

  Tedy listened while I told him. He didn’t interrupt me. He didn’t ask any questions.

  When I got through, he said, “How long a walk?”

  “Fifteen minutes,” I said.

  “See you there,” he said and hung up.

  I was still in running shoes and sweats. I went to the front hall closet where I kept my guns, and unlocked it. I put my short .38 up on the shelf and took down my Browning 9mm. I didn’t know how many people were in the car. I might want more than five rounds. The magazine was already in the Browning. I jacked a shell up into the chamber, and eased the hammer back down and locked the closet. Then I got my official 2004 Red Sox World Series Championship hat. I put it on and a sheepskin coat. I put the Browning on my hip. Then I checked the time, gave Pearl a kiss on her nose, and went out. I stood on my front steps for a time, savoring the morning. I saw Tedy Sapp walking down Marlboro from the other end. I smiled to myself. He was wearing a peacoat and no hat and his ridiculous blond hair shone in the winter sun. He moved so easily, it was easy not to notice how big he was.

  16

  When Tedy got close enough so that the timing would be right, I went down the stairs and started up Marlboro toward Berkeley. I had my hands in my coat pockets. I was whistling happily. Looking for love and feeling groovy. When I was far enough from my building so that I couldn’t dash back inside, four guys got out of the Crown Vic and walked across the street toward me. One of them was Long Hair; beside him was the guy with the comb-over. With them was a blocky guy in a Patriots jacket, and a guy with a shaved head and tattoos on his neck. I stopped when they got to me.

  “White guys look like shit with their heads shaved,” I said to the group in general.

  The guy with the shaved head said, “You talking about me, pal?”

  “Just a general observation,” I said.

  “Never mind that crap,” Comb-over said. “Got a message to deliver from Ollie DeMars.”

  “Wow,” I said, “a message.”

  Long Hair and Comb-over were in front of me. The other two had moved behind me. One of them, it was the guy with the Patriots jacket, tried to put his arms around me and pin my arms. I turned sideways before he could get me pinned and hit him on the side of the face with my elbow. He let go and staggered backward as Tedy Sapp arrived behind Long Hair and Comb-over. Sapp hit Long Hair across the back of the head with his forearm. It knocked Long Hair face forward into the salt slush of the sidewalk. I hit Baldy four times as fast as I could punch. Straight left, left hook, left hook, right cross. He went down. I turned to look for the guy in the Patriots jacket. He was backing away. I looked at Comb-over. He was trying to get a gun out from inside his coat. When it was out, Tedy Sapp chopped it from his hand, almost contemptuously. Comb-over backed up a step with his hands raised in front of him. Sapp kicked him in the groin hard enough to lift him from the ground. Comb-over yelped and fell forward, doubled over in pain, and lay in the slush. Sapp and I both looked at the guy in the Patriots jacket. He backed up another couple of steps and then turned and ran. We watched him until he turned right on Arlington and disappeared.

  I looked at the three men on the ground. Comb-over would take a while to recover. Baldy was on his hands and knees with his head hanging. Long Hair was sitting up. We did a fast shakedown to make sure there were no other weapons. There weren’t.

  “I love the pat-down part,” Sapp said.

  “Pervert,” I said.

  “Your point?” Sapp said.

  I grinned.

  “Since they had four guys and one gun,” I said, “I’d guess they weren’t going to pop me.”

  Sapp nodded.

  “What was the message?” I said to Long Hair.

  He looked at the sidewalk and shook his head.

  “Now that’s dumb,” I said. “You just got your ass handed to you by a couple of guys who could spend the week doing it again if they had reason. What did Ollie want you to tell me?”

  Sapp poked Long Hair in the ribs gently with the toe of his work boot. Long Hair looked at him, and then at me.

  “Ollie says to tell you to stay away from the whores.”

  “And?”

  “And give you a good beatin’,” Long Hair said.

  “Well,” I said. “You did your best.”

  We were quiet. No sirens wailed in the distance. No patrol cars pulled around the corner from Arlington Street. If anyone had seen the fight, they hadn’t thought enough about it to call the cops. I looked at Long Hair. He didn’t know anything. None of them did. They were street labor. Asking them stuff was a waste of time.

  “Tell Ollie,” I said, “that if he keeps annoying me, I will stop by and tie a knot in his pecker.”

  Long Hair nodded.

  “Beat it,” I said.

  Long Hair and Baldy got slowly to their feet. They got Comb-over up, still bent over in pain, and got him into the backseat of the Crown Vic. Tedy Sapp bent over and picked up Comb-over’s gun and looked at it and nodded to himself and slipped it into the pocket of his peacoat. The Crown Vic started up and pulled away. At Berkeley Street it turned right, heading for Storrow Drive, and we didn’t see it anymore.

  “You know the part about tying a knot in somebody’s pecker,” Sapp said.

  “I was trying for a colorful metaphor,” I said.

  “Sure,” Sapp said. “But if it happens, can I be the one does it?”

  “God,” I said. “I gotta find me some straight help.”

  Sapp grinned.

  17

  April had an apartment on the fourth floor of the mansion. We were up there eating oatmeal cookies and drinking coffee. The apartment was nice in the unengaging way that good hotel rooms are nice. There were some paintings on the walls that went just right with the room. There were no photographs of anyone anywhere that I could see.

  “Two of the girls quit today,” April said. “Bev and another girl.”

  “Bev’s the one that got beat up,” I said.

  April nodded.

  “Are you making any progress?�
� she said. “I’m going to lose more girls, I know I am. And the clients who were here when those two apes rampaged through here…”

  “Before Hawk and I joined the operation?” I said.

  These oatmeal cookies had no raisins in them. I was pleased. I always thought raisins ruined oatmeal cookies.

  “Yes,” she said. “Those clients will never be back.”

  I nodded. April looked very nice today. Very pretty. Very pulled together. Very grown-up. She was wearing tan pants and a simple cobalt-colored top unbuttoned at the throat. They were expensive clothes and they fit her well.

  “You need to do something,” she said.

  She was sitting on the couch, and when she spoke she put her cup down on the coffee table and leaned forward toward me.

  “He’s going to destroy me,” she said.

  “You mean he’ll destroy your business.”

  “For me that’s the same thing,” April said. “This business is my life, the first time I’ve ever had something that was mine, that I could build and nurture.”

  “So why would he destroy that?” I said.

  “What?”

  “Why would he destroy your business. What would he get if he does?”

  “Because he’s crazy,” she said. “Because he’s cruel. Because he’s a wretched pig of a man. I don’t know. How do I know why he does what he does?”

  “And you don’t know who he is,” I said.

  “Of course not,” April said.

  Her face had flushed a little bit.

  “If I knew who he was,” she said, “why wouldn’t I tell you so you could stop him?”

  “And there’s nothing you know that I don’t know,” I said.

  “Oh my God, you don’t believe me?”

  “Just asking,” I said.

  She put her face in her hands and began to cry. I waited. I took the occasion while I was waiting to eat another raisin-free oatmeal cookie. She continued to cry. I went and sat on the couch beside her and put my arms around her.