‘Over there in the corner,’ he said. ‘With the big hair.’
He pointed out a woman sitting alone under an enormous television screen showing some commercial targeted at victims of Attention Deficit Disorder. Her pale blonde hair was spectacularly layered, coiled and stacked, so much so that it had to be a wig. The contrast between this false abundance and her odd little elfin face was enough to draw me over to her table. We got chatting. She agreed that her name was Mercy.
‘Was Mercedes, but I kept getting these comments.’
‘About expensive imports.’
‘When I’m actually a cheap domestic is what you’re saying?’
I demurred with a grin.
‘That’s Mercy as in fuck?’
Her face hardened and retracted.
‘You want to use that joke, get in line.’
She knocked back her rye. I signalled Big Emma to freshen her up.
‘Where are you from?’ I asked, as if we were on a date.
‘Who cares?’
‘That’s in Iowa, right?’
‘Listen, you want me to suck your dick, that can be arranged. Bill Gates doesn’t have enough money to make me listen to your jokes.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, that’s what I want.’
‘Fifty.’
I handed over the bills. Thanks to Darryl Bob, I had lots of cash.
Outside in the street, the lighting was dim and poor, pale bulbs hung on occasional telephone poles. A pick-up with no lights roared out of an alley towards us as we started to cross over. I grabbed Mercy’s arm protectively.
‘Not here,’ she said.
She led me along the street to a run-down motel. Our room, to which she already had a key, was on the second floor. Mercy removed her coat. Her body was on the same scale as her hair, which made her gamine features look still more out of place. She might have been aged anything from twenty to forty.
‘Hang in there, I’ll be right back,’ she said, and disappeared into the bathroom. Next to it, there was a sink with a mirror over it. At the other end of the room, a large window overlooked the courtyard of the motel, its blank surface making another mirror.
I looked at the large bed, badly remade after its last outing. I had never been with a prostitute before and now I felt panicky at the prospect. It was not a question of moral qualms or fear of disease. It was that most basic of all male complaints, performance anxiety. I wasn’t sure I could get it up.
I went over to the window and looked down at the parked cars and trucks below. Mercy had returned without my hearing her and was standing, her back to me, by the sink at the other end of the room. I watched her reflection in the window. The glass must have had a distorting effect, I thought, because her hair and her body looked both different and oddly familiar.
Then I heard the toilet flush. I swung round to confront the person I had seen reflected in the window. There was no one there.
Mercy came back into the room and laid her coat and handbag on the bed. From the bag she extracted a condom, which she proceeded to unwrap.
‘Well, let’s get going,’ she said. ‘I haven’t got all night.’
She unzipped my fly and started searching around for my cock. I removed her hand.
‘Look, I don’t think this is going to work.’
She looked at me, frowning.
‘What’s the deal?’
I wanted to say, ‘You don’t smell right.’ Which would have been true. Lucy had always smelt good, I realized suddenly. I couldn’t analyse or define how or why, but she did. And she liked the way I smelt too. Before her, I’d had lovers, keen and bright and eager to please, whose only flaw had been an alien odour. Not bad, just other. Mercy’s smell was other.
‘Come on, let me suck you.’
‘No, really, I don’t think so.’
‘Come on.’
She knelt down in front of me and started rooting around in my crotch again.
‘Don’t,’ I said, stepping back.
She looked at me for a moment, then stood up, wincing slightly as her knees straightened.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I can’t do it.’
She shrugged and turned away.
‘Okay. Back to the bar.’
I grasped her arm again.
‘No, stay here. I need you. My wife’s just died. I don’t want to be alone.’
Mercy looked at me with a look of anxiety which I assumed was on my behalf. Her next words dispelled this pleasing illusion.
‘That’s too bad, honey, but I’m a sex worker, not a grief counsellor. When the sex works, that is.’
‘Listen, just wait.’
‘Let go my arm.’
I did so.
‘Look, you can keep the fifty.’
‘Damn right I can. This is a full-service operation, but we don’t offer a money-back guarantee.’
‘How long does it take you to make the john come?’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘I mean, how long does fifty buy?’
‘Depends. The young ones I can bring off in less than a minute. Older guys like you take longer. Fifteen minutes is my max.’
I got out my wallet and peeled off five more twenties.
‘There. That buys me another half-hour, right?’
She didn’t touch the money.
‘For what?’ she demanded.
‘Like you just said, what’s it to you?’
‘But you can’t get it up. So what are we supposed to do, play Trivial Pursuit?’
‘I want something different.’
Her look of anxiety morphed into one of seen-it-all calculation.
‘Ah, I get it,’ she said, sounding almost relieved. ‘What do you have in mind? It’s going to cost more, I’ll tell you that right now. The fifty is for a blow job. Anything else on top is extra.’
‘I want you to talk to me.’
Her earlier look returned. Now it was one of alarm.
‘Talk?’
‘Yeah.’
‘About what?’
‘I don’t care. Just keep talking. Just don’t leave me here all alone. Not now. I’m frightened, you see.’
‘Frightened? Of what?’
‘Of my wife.’
‘But you just got through saying she was dead.’
‘That’s why I’m frightened. I just saw her. Well, I thought I did. Out of the corner of my eye. I mean, it must have been some weird thing that happens in the brain, you know, when the messages get mixed up. Anyway, I just want you to help me get calm. Let’s sit down, and you tell me all about yourself. How about that? Where you were born, where you grew up, where you live, how you got into this business. Do you have children? How many? What are their names? Do you have any photographs? Tell me about them. Tell me about you, about your past. Where do you live? What do you dream about? What are you frightened of, Mercy? Tell me. Tell me everything you’ve never told anyone.’
She seemed to hesitate for a moment, but it was a feint. A moment later she had snatched her handbag from the bed and produced a small aerosol canister which she held out towards me like a gun.
‘Take one step towards me and you get a faceful of this,’ she said in a voice stiff with fear and determination. ‘The spray goes over ten feet and I don’t miss. Just one step and you’ll be down on your knees pawing at your eyes and skin and wishing you’d never been born.’
I stood staring at her in utter bewilderment. Then I realized that she thought she was dealing with every whore’s worst nightmare, some sicko who will follow her around, haunting her home and lurking in the shadows.
She scooped up her coat and bag with one hand, the aerosol still aimed at me with the other.
‘I’m going to get Billy. We’ll be right back. If your sorry hide’s still here when we do, Billy’ll put you in his truck and take you out to the woods. And another thing. If you ever come here again and try and mess with me or my kids, I will personally castrate you. You understand what I’m saying?’
She backed over to the door, opened it without turning her back on me, and slipped out.
I gave her ten seconds to get clear, then left quickly and ran back to the ferry dock, where one of the vessels was loading. On board, I stayed well away from the windows, hunkering down in the food court with a hot dog and a bottle of beer. The ferry was almost empty, but I stayed put under the glare of the strip lighting until we arrived, then took a cab to my hotel.
In the lobby, a man got up from the sofa where he had been sitting and joined me in the elevator. He displayed some sort of document identifying him as a detective named Mason with the city police. I’d already fended off everyone from ambulance-chasing lawyers to television reporters looking for a human interest soundbite. It was inevitable that the police would show up sooner or later. With a weary gesture, I ushered him into my room.
Mason looked at the sofa strewn with my dirty clothes and decided to remain standing. He was in his forties, tall and gaunt, and looked tired.
‘I can guess what it’s about,’ I told him briskly. ‘As you can no doubt imagine, it’s a painful topic for me, so please be as brief as possible.’
Mason measured me with his eyes. He looked like he’d had a hard day and I was the last straw.
‘What do you think it’s about, sir?’
‘My wife, of course.’
‘Your wife?’
I realized that he had no idea what I meant.
‘She died recently. I thought it was that. But it’s not, right?’
‘No, sir.’
He used the term ‘sir’ in a distancing, passive-aggressive way, like a British tradesman calling you ‘squire’. Another thought occurred to me.
‘How did you know I was staying here?’
‘I’ll come to that in a moment.’
He got a notepad out of his pocket. Because of his height, the fact that we were both standing put me at a disadvantage. I cleared the clothes off the sofa and threw them in a corner.
‘Please, sit down.’
He nodded and did so. I remained on my feet, striding slowly back and forth between the wall and the door. I avoided the window.
‘So what’s this all about?’ I asked.
‘A man called Darryl Bob Allen.’
‘Oh, right. What about him?’
‘Did you know him?’
‘Of course. He was my wife’s husband.’
‘You say he was.’
‘That’s right. Before she married me.’
‘When did you last see Mr Allen?’
‘The day before yesterday.’
‘On Sunday.’
‘No. Today’s Monday, right?’
‘Today’s Tuesday.’
‘It is? Well, okay, I guess it was Saturday, then.’
‘And where was that?’
‘Down in Nevada, where he lived. But what’s all this regarding?’
‘Did he know you were coming to see him?’
‘Of course. You don’t think I’d go all that way just on the off-chance that the guy might be home, do you? He lived in a trailer in the middle of nowhere.’
‘So how did you contact him?’
‘I wrote a letter to his PO box address asking him to phone me.’
‘But he didn’t have a phone.’
‘My stepchildren had told me that he used the one outside the supermarket when he went into town to pick up his mail and stock up. I gave him the number here and asked him to call.’
Mason made a few notes.
‘That’s how we knew where you were staying, sir,’ he went on.
‘Allen told you?’
‘In a way. He’d written the number on a piece of paper and left it in the glove compartment pocket of his pick-up.’
‘But how come you guys were searching his truck? He lived in Nevada.’
‘All in good time, sir. Okay, so you went down to see Mr Allen. How did you travel?’
‘I flew to Reno and rented a car at the airport.’
‘And you drove straight to Mr Allen’s house?’
‘Yes.’
‘You didn’t stop anywhere or buy anything?’
‘I gassed up once, and bought some bottled water and a sandwich.’
‘Nothing else.’
‘Not that I can remember. Is this an interrogation? If so, I want a lawyer present.’
Mason doodled an elaborate border around the margin of the notepad page.
‘It’s not an interrogation as such, sir, no.’
He looked up and suddenly yawned hugely.
‘Pardon me. Well, it’s like this. A sheriff’s office in Nevada have asked us to make some enquiries with regard to an investigation they are undertaking. So instead of sitting at home eating some pizza and watching the ballgame with my kids, I get to hang around this place for over two hours reading the Entertainment section of Friday’s USA Today and waiting for you to show up.’
‘Investigation?’
‘Correct. I understand that there are no criminal charges pending at this time, but with relation to an ongoing investigation in another state we have been requested to ask you a few questions and then communicate the results to the law enforcement authorities having jurisdiction. You are of course free to refuse, but your cooperation would be appreciated.’
I could only think of one thing. ‘Investigation’. Lucy had once told me that Allen had been a small-time drug dealer at one time. He probably still was. That would explain how he financed his little hideaway in the desert and his neon sign collection. In which case, the local sheriff would have searched his trailer and seized the contents. Assuming that what Allen had told me that night was true, right now a bunch of rednecks were probably poring over nude photographs of Lucy in her twenties and watching videos of her dancing naked and being fucked silly by her first husband in our bed.
‘You want to watch it?’ Allen had asked me. The answer was yes, only I couldn’t admit that. I’d turned down the opportunity out of pride and decency, and now those same materials were being passed around some county court-house for everyone to gawk at, or maybe even take to the bathroom for a quick hand job.
Mason yawned again, this time covering his perfect teeth with the back of his hand.
‘Investigation into what?’ I demanded.
‘Look, sir, I appreciate that you want to get this over with as soon as possible. Me too, for that matter. And believe me, it’ll all go much quicker if you let me ask the questions and you look after the answers. Okay?’
I nodded.
‘Okay. You went to see Allen. Why?’
‘As I said, my wife died recently. Allen was the father of her children and I needed to know what his plans were. I’m not sure about the technicalities of the legal position, but I was advised that he could theoretically lay claim to part of the value of the house they used to live in. Seeing as he’s never paid a dime in child support, the kids and I could probably beat that. But I needed to know if he was going to try.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘That he had no such intention.’
Mason turned the page and carried on writing.
‘That’s interesting, sir, because just a few days earlier, on the thirteenth to be precise, he called a lawyer in Reno about filing to hold up probate on your wife’s estate pending a claim.’
Allen had told me that he thought Lucy would be too much of a ditz to get around to making a will. Presumably he’d been counting on that.
‘That son of a bitch,’ I said.
‘He didn’t tell you about that?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Were you aware that three years ago Mr Allen inherited a house in California, the property of his mother, which he was renting out for fourteen hundred dollars a month?’
‘What?’
‘You were not aware of this?’
‘Of course we weren’t. He never even told Lucy that his mother had died.’
More lengthy note-taking.
; ‘What time did you leave?’ Mason continued.
‘Leave where?’
‘Mr Allen’s home.’
‘I don’t know. About midnight, I suppose.’
‘The same evening?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘Back to Reno.’
‘Isn’t that kind of late to be starting a long drive?’
‘It was either that or spend the night at Allen’s place. I certainly didn’t want to do that.’
‘So you drove straight to Reno?’
‘No, I stopped at a motel on the highway, then went on the next day and got a flight back here in the afternoon.’
‘And Mr Allen was in good health when you left?’
‘Well, he was pretty drunk, but otherwise okay.’
‘Did you part on good terms?’
‘As good as could be expected under the circumstances.’
‘What circumstances?’
‘We’d had what politicians call “a frank discussion”. Like I said, he was pretty drunk.’
‘A discussion about what?’
‘About those things I mentioned earlier. And some other personal stuff.’
The detective made some more notes. The squeaking of his felt-tip pen was getting on my nerves.
‘So what happened?’ I demanded.
‘Well, that’s what we’re trying to figure out. You say you left Mr Allen alive and well at around midnight Saturday night, is that correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay. Now it seems there’s very little traffic on that road at any time, and next to none at all on Sunday. Leastways, the sheriff’s people haven’t been able to trace anyone who passed by that day. So we don’t know what happened Sunday. But on Monday, around noon, a passing motorist called in to report the incident.’
‘What incident?’
‘It seems Mr Allen had a kind of mast with a vane attached which he used to make his own electricity.’
‘He showed it to me.’
‘Well, there were some freak winds on Sunday night. Couple of roofs got blown off on an Indian reservation not far away. They also took down this mast of Allen’s. Apparently it was never properly secured, just a few ring bolts into a shallow concrete slab.’
‘I saw it swaying when I was there.’
‘So anyway the mast tips over and falls on the trailer where Allen lived, wrecking it and overturning a wood stove he had going. The resulting blaze destroyed almost everything inside.’
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