The Long Good Boy

by Carol Lea Benjamin

  “That’s not it. I tried it last night, and—”

  “So I heard. And speaking of which, you with me, I pays Devon. You on your own, you on your own.” She held out her hand. I dropped a twenty into it. She glanced down and snorted. “You want me to give this to Devon, tell him it’s your night’s earnings?”

  “That’s his percent.”

  “His what?”

  “His percent, you know, ten percent, like any other kind of agent.”

  “He ain’t your agent, honey. He your lifeline. He don’t like your line, you don’t have a life. Simple as that. What was your take last night, Miss Thing?”

  “That.”

  “This?” She held it up by one corner, the way I’d hold it if the pillow man had touched it.

  “I’m new at this. What’d you expect?”

  “You don’t want me telling him that either, not after the story we laid out for him. How old are you, anyway?” Sticking her face in mine, so close I could feel her breath on my skin.

  “Thirty-eight. Almost thirty-nine.”

  “A late bloomer?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “That’s what I should tell Devon, that you’re a late bloomer? You almost thirty-nine, one foot in the fucking grave, and you still a beginner?”

  I shrugged.

  LaDonna sighed. “I been out here since I’m sixteen.”

  “Sixteen?”

  “You got hearing problems, you so old? Sixteen. Full-time. Had to, after I left home.”

  I nodded, as if I understood. But of course, I didn’t.

  “Why I use a pimp,” she said. “You don’t want to be on your own at sixteen, God knows what’s going to happen to you without no one to watch your back.”

  “You’ve been with Devon since you were—”

  “Hell, no. My first pimp, he got hisself killed. Big mouth,” she said, as if that explained everything. “The second one, he disappear. One night he here, the next night, he gone. Permanent. Never heard another word about him.”

  “He never showed up again?”

  “That was my meaning. Devon, he the third. Been with him two years.”

  “You give him everything? Every dime?”

  “If I wants to live, I do.”

  She still had the money in her hand. “Well, that’s it. That’s everything. He was real lonely, the guy who picked me up, and we started to talk.”

  “You did what?” Her face screwed up, about the same way mine must have looked when I learned how the girls tuck and tape their equipment, then hide the works under a satin gaff.

  “He started to talk. Well, he didn’t just start. Truth is, I started first. And before you know it, two hours had gone by, we’re parked on Bethune Street, gabbing away. So then I said, Look, I gotta go, I’m going to be in real trouble spending so much time with you. And that’s when he handed me the twenty. I said, Time is time. Don’t matter what we did or didn’t do, you owe me fifty.”

  “And what’d he say?”

  “He said, ‘Fifty? For just talking? Fuck that noise.’ So that’s all I got. He’d been so nice up until then, so candid and forthcoming. He’s got two kids in college. A boy and a girl. He plays the violin, his son. And the daughter—”

  LaDonna put a finger to her lips, then shoved the twenty into her bra. “Some nights are like that. You can’t make money nohow. Devon understand, long as you don’t make a habit out of it. So, you wants to go alone again?”

  “I do,” I told her, “because last night, with this lonely guy, I thought maybe if I get these johns talking, I can learn something. No one’s going to talk with you doing them, that’s for sure.” And that’s when a car pulled up, a tan SUV, a really tall guy behind the wheel, white, uptight, wearing a tie, for goodness’ sake. What was he doing here?

  I leaned my elbows on the frame of the open window, my butt sticking out behind me, my flesh covered in goose pimples, even those few places where it was covered by skimpy clothes, my raisin-colored lips trembling. (Revlon, six-forty-two after my discount.) I didn’t know how much was from the cold and how much was from naked fear. What was I doing here?

  “How about a real treat?” I asked him. “Like nothing you ever experienced.”

  “How much?” he asked, his voice breaking.

  “Not nearly as much as you’d think,” I said. Then Dashiell put his paws up next to mine, his butt sticking out behind him, his tail wagging.

  “Whoa. What the hell is that? He with you?”

  “He just sits in the back. He’s a pussycat.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. I never heard about anything like this.” He reached toward the button that would close the window.

  “You owe it to yourself,” I told him. “Tell you what, you don’t like the way I treat you, you don’t have to pay me a dime.”

  “You’re kidding. Nothing?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Hop in,” he told me.

  I let Dashiell in first. My john blinked, but before he could react further, Dashiell had hopped into the backseat, and I was sliding onto the front one. “Home, James,” I told him.

  He sputtered.

  “Just a little joke,” I said. “How about swinging around onto Horatio Street, parking under a tree?”

  He pulled away. I wiggled my fingers at LaDonna. I waited until the car was parked on Horatio Street, the engine off, before commencing with my plan. In fact, I gave him enough time to pull his zipper halfway down.

  “Undercover cop,” I said.

  His hand stopped moving. “Jesus.”

  “Either you leave the area the minute I get out of this vehicle and never show your skinny white ass in this neighborhood again—not even to get a beer at the White Horse Tavern or check out the beautiful new park along the river, got that?—or else your name and your likeness go up on the Internet. Have you seen the Arrested Johns site yet?”

  He shook his head. “What do you mean, my likeness?”

  “Now’s as good a time as any, in case you’re in a big rush next time I see you here.” I opened the little purse and took out my Minox, preserving the startled look on his pale face once, then once again, trying for a mug shot duo but getting two identical pictures because he seemed frozen, his mouth hanging open, his breathing raspy and loud, as if he were about to have a heart attack. “Second one’s for good luck,” I told him, “mine, not yours.”

  “Hey,” he said. “This isn’t fair. You said—”

  I shrugged. “Better safe than sorry. And I’d be one sorry-assed cop if next time I see you, you see me and drive away before I can capture your likeness. Am I correct?”

  “I’ve never … this is the first time, and nothing …”

  “Save it for the judge, buddy. We’re offering a week of grace. But the bad news is, the clock’s been ticking, and it’s half over. I find you here again after Tuesday, your name goes up. This goes up.” I lifted the camera. “The mayor’s thinking of releasing the list to the Times, too. Me, I think it’s excessive. Hey, guys will be guys, you know? But I’m not the mayor, and he likes to see evidence of how he’s making the city safer in the Times.”

  Which is where I got this idea. I’d picked up a copy someone left in the coffee room when I was on my afternoon break at Saks and read an article that said that women responded to stress by social contact rather than by fight or flight.

  “You read the Times?” I asked my john. “Anyone you know read it, your boss perhaps? The wife?”

  I didn’t get an answer. No surprise. “Before I go, I was wondering if you’d like to contribute to the Policeman’s Benevolent Fund, me being a policeman, in a manner of speaking, and being benevolent enough to let you off with just a warning.”

  “How much?”

  “Oh, sir, that’s entirely up to you. Shall we say fifty?”

  He began to lean across me, to open my door, but I pushed his arm away. Hell, I was a cop, I could open my own damn door. It was stuck, I could shoot it open.
r />   I stared at him for a moment, then opened the door, whistled for Dashiell, and watched my very first trick drive away, figuring yesterday didn’t really count because no money had changed hands. Now all I had to do was walk slowly back to the stroll and do it again. It wasn’t that I thought I could clean up the meat district single-handed. It was that I needed the other hookers to think I was legit. I needed to seem to be working, and this was the least painful way to accomplish that. And this time I wouldn’t have to pay Devon out of my own pocket.

  It had to do with a hormonal difference between the sexes, the article had said. It said that women often attempted to “tend and befriend.” Well, hadn’t I just done that? I thought, heading back to work.

  But what would that mean for my clients and their colleagues? They dressed like women. They referred to themselves as women. And some of them were saving up for the surgery that would make them appear more like women. But were they women? When push came to shove, would they fight like hell or try to charm their way out of trouble? That is, I thought, picturing what Rosalinda might have looked like in her bloodstained gown, the wand still in her hand, if they saw the trouble coming in the first place.

  25

  What About the Money? She Asked

  Perhaps the success of my own war on prostitution the night before had gone to my head. Or maybe it was the research I’d done on-line that left some nagging questions needing answers. It could even have been the secondhand smoke from Chi Chi’s joint. Who knows? Nevertheless, there I was with her, presenting my startling request.

  “Jus’ a little something to tide me over,” she said. She held it out to me. I shook my head.

  A minute later, forgetting she’d already told me why she had ducked around the corner, under the sidewalk bridge, to grab a smoke, she said, “I got the fiercest headache. This make it go away.” She peered toward the corner. “Devon see me, I’m as dead as the rest of the meat around here.”

  Clint finished sniffing and put his front paws up on my fishnet stockings. I scratched behind his ears, folded over like the flaps of envelopes.

  “I came looking for you for a reason,” I said, Chi Chi doing her best to look alert. “I’ve changed my mind.”

  “’Bout what? You not going to solve this case for us?” Chi Chi stumbled. I grabbed for her arm, but she pulled it away.

  “Doing Vinnie.”

  “Say what?”

  “Are you supposed to see him this morning?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, I’d like to go instead. The door’ll be open, right?”

  Chi Chi nodded again.

  “Chi Chi, I’ve got all these pieces of information, but I can’t put them together in a way that makes sense. I’m trying.” I shook my head. “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. I don’t want you to get hurt. That’s why I need to—”

  “I din’t say no, did I?”

  “Thanks. Really.”

  “And like I said, you could keep half the money.” She sniffed. “Right?”

  “I don’t want the money. You paid me enough.”

  “Okay. Whatever you say, Rachel. You want I should wait here?”

  “Is it time?” I looked at my watch. Then up at the sky, which had just started to lighten.

  “More than time. It late. See, I got delayed with a trick. He let me off,” she waved her hand in the direction of downtown, “an’ I had to walk back. Then I stopped to have me a little smoke, ease my pain. Jus’ try the door. I’ll wait here for you. You need Clint?”

  Chi Chi had obviously had a bit more to shore her up than the one joint. I told her I didn’t need Clint, I would go in the way she did, through the front door. She thought about that, then nodded and said she’d wait.

  “You don’t have to,” I told her. “I doubt I’ll have anything to tell you when I come out, but I have to try everything. You never know where the information that gives you the answer will come from, what’ll set your mind straight.”

  “What about the money?” she asked.

  “How much do you get?”

  “Sixty,” she said.

  Yeah, yeah.

  I pulled some cash out of my purse, a bigger one this time, more to carry, and gave her three twenties, easiest money she ever earned. She held it in her hand, saying nothing. Then she handed me a twenty back.

  “Sometimes he only pays forty,” she said, “and you a beginner.”

  I could see from the sidewalk that the padlock was off the door. I made my way across the cobblestones, careful not to get my heels caught in the spaces between the stones, looking the way Chi Chi had the night I spied on her from up on the bridge, that same funny walk. Dashiell was heeling. At the door, I bent and took off his leash, hanging it around my neck. Then I pulled open the door, let him in ahead of me, and signaled him to heel again. We picked our way through the hanging carcasses, not much here at this hour, before the morning deliveries. Coming to the end of a row of hooks, sides of pork hanging on the last three and blocking my vision, I found myself nose to nose with the head of a pig, his eyes staring dead ahead, as if he were looking right at me, his mouth open. There were six of them. Now, what was that all about? Halloween was long past. I hurried on, the sound of the compressor covering any sound I might make, pushing through the plastic strips, heavier than they looked, reminding Dashiell to stay at my side. Once we’d gotten to the top of the stairs, I pointed to the floor, then held my palm in front of his face to let him know he should stay put.

  The light was on in the office. So was the heater. I could hear the fan, feel the heat coming out into the cold hallway, see the orange glow from where I stood.

  “Where’s Chi Chi?” he asked. He’d gotten up from where he’d been sitting, coming halfway around the desk, stopping, one hand on his hip, the other pointing at me.

  “Busy,” I told him. “Anyway, she thought you might like a change of pace.”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t tell her that. I didn’t tell her to send someone else.”

  “No. You didn’t.” I walked closer, sliding one cheek and thigh onto the edge of his desk. We were close enough to touch. “Something wrong?” I asked him. “Not enough money in petty cash to pay me?”

  “What are you—”

  “I have some questions, Vinnie. You answer them, I leave, no problem. It won’t cost you a dime. In fact, if you cooperate, this little meeting never happened.”

  “Why should I talk to you? Who the fuck are you?”

  I slipped my hand into my purse. Vinnie backed up so fast, he nearly fell into the chair he’d recently vacated. As I pulled my hand back out, Vinnie raised his in a defensive gesture, as if he could stop a bullet with it, as if that ever worked.

  I held up my cell phone.

  “What the—”

  “I have your wife on speed dial,” I said.

  Vinnie froze, one hand still up in the air, the way the Supremes used to do it when they sang, “Stop in the Name of Love.”

  I was waiting to see if I needed to call in the big guns, but Vinnie’s hands never moved.

  “Why don’t you roll your chair back a little,” I suggested.

  That seemed to wake him up, and he reached for the drawer on the top left side. I swung my leg around the front of the desk and kicked the door shut, catching two of his fingers when it closed. Then I whistled, and there was Dashiell in the doorway before Vinnie had the chance to pull his damaged hand out of harm’s way.

  “Watch him.” I slapped the desk, and then Dashiell was on it, his back paws on the old blotter, his front ones at the edge, as if he were ready to spring again, his compressor going full blast.

  I leaned forward and opened the drawer, flipping my hand at Vinnie, telling him he could have his wounded paw back, then pulling out the gun and, without looking at it, pointing it at him.

  “Charlton Heston would be so proud of you,” I told him. “On the other hand, didn’t you ever read that when you keep a gun, there’s a huge chance whoever b
reaks in will end up using it on you?”

  He didn’t answer me. He was cradling his hand and staring at Dashiell.

  “Did you hear me?” I asked.

  “It’s since Mulrooney,” he said. “I’m here alone, and I don’t know who the hell—”

  “You could always lock the front door,” I said.

  “But—”

  “I know. You’ve got needs. And Rosalinda had to earn a living. And anway, don’t they call it a victimless crime?” Nothing, not even a polite little nod. “Until, of course, Rosalinda became a victim. I’m wondering what might have caused that. I’m wondering how you could help me, Vinnie, given the fact that both she and Mulrooney died at virtually the same time and that it stretches credibility to think that since Mulrooney worked here, and Rosalinda worked here, we might say, and they both died on the night of Halloween, that those deaths were unrelated.”

  “I didn’t …,” he said. Then he stopped. He closed his mouth so tight, his lips all but disappeared.

  “You didn’t?”

  He shook his head.

  “I never thought you did,” I said, slipping my other leg up onto the desk, putting an arm over Dashiell’s back. I heard the cup Vinnie kept his pens in hit the floor and break, the pens and pencils skittering across the dirty floor, but I didn’t turn around to look. “Hey, the cops released those two guys from CityWide Carting. Paper said they were someplace else that night. Lucky guys, don’t you think? Most times, cops want to know where you were and there’s no one around to corroborate your story, you’re home alone watching TV, boohoo, no alibi. Am I right?”

  Vinnie took a breath, his first, as far as I could tell, since the Eisenhower years.

  “Especially when you’re talking four, five in the morning.”

  “Six.”

  “Six?”

  “That’s what we were told.”

  “Broken watch pinpoint the time?”

  Vinnie shrugged. He wasn’t the ME. How the fuck did he know the answer to a question like that?

  “Of course, saying it was them, saying those alibis were bought and paid for, why would they have killed Rosalinda, too?”

  This time Vinnie’s mouth opened, then closed again.