“Creative, Cheri.”
She pointed to the art books. “I read lots of stuff. Architectural Digest.”
He lifted the phone again and held it out to her. She made no effort to take it.
“Call him, Cheri. Then we’ll take you down. Hey, your hands are shaking, babe. Tell you what, give me the number and I’ll dial it for you. How’s that for personal ser-vice?”
She took a deep drag on the purple cigarette. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why’re you leaning on me, talking about downtown?”
“It’s not just talk, Cheri. It’s real.”
“Real.” She dragged again, coughed, touched her bosom, tugged the sash. “Real. This is what I get for doing my civic duty. Moment I saw it I called.”
He said,“ I appreciate that, except now instead of acting civic you’re clamming up and demanding your lawyer, which is more like perp behavior. So now I’m wondering what you have to hide, and now I have to take you downtown to be extra careful to cover my butt.”
She hugged herself, rocked, smoked, crossed her legs. “They treated me like a perp right off, read me Miranda.”
“That’s for your sake, Cheri.”
“Yeah, everyone’s out to do me a favor.” She waved the cigarette, created sinuous smoke streams.
Milo cut through the smoke with his finger. “Sherms. Usually when we see those they’re in evidence bags. Spiked with Dust.”
“Not my thing,” she said. “I live healthy.”
“’Course you do,” he said. “But let me ask you, what’s the chance once we start going over this place—and we are going to go over it—that we don’t find something? Roach under the bed, little speck of hash, maybe some ’ludes or poppers to make a party go smoother. Something one of your guests accidentally dropped and the cleaning woman just happened to miss—you do have a cleaning woman.”
“Twice a week,” she said.
“Twice a week, huh? Things do have a way of accumulating between cleanings.”
“Listen,” she said, “all there is, is pills. Valium. Legal. Prescription—fact, I could use one right now.”
“Not now, Cheri. We need you lucid—clear.”
“I know what lucid means. Don’t think I’m no woodhead.”
“Perish the thought. Woodheads don’t usually end up owning the building.” He jiggled the phone. The clapper hit the bell and gave off a dull ring.
She said, “You find anything funny in there, I don’t know a single thing about it.”
“It’s your responsibility, Cheri. You own the whole building.”
She muttered something.
Milo said, “What’s that?”
No answer.
“Go on, make the call, or give me the number so I can call.”
She was silent.
“Anyway,” he said, “the dope we’re gonna find might keep you in lockup for a while, but it’s the least of your problems. Let’s not forget those two gentlemen out back.”
She shook her head. “Nuh-uh. I don’t know a thing about them—about what happened.”
“You knew them. ”
“Professionally, that’s all.”
“Professionally,” said Milo. He lifted a satinized purple business card from a cloisonné holder. “Cheryl Jane Nuveen. Recreational Counselor. Recreation, huh? Sounds like shuffleboard on deck.”
The cigarette dangled from her fingers, dripping ashes onto the zebra skin.
Milo said, “Enough small talk. What’s the lawyer’s number? Got to be a five-five exchange, right? Beverly Hills. Or Century City. Two hundred, two-fifty an hour. I figure the initial tab’s gonna run you three, maybe four thousand, minimum. And that’s only filing the papers. Once we book you, the meter really starts running—”
“Book me on what? Calling nine-one-one?”
“—and those guys like retainers, don’t they? Got payments on the Mercedes, keep the account going at Morton’s. Meanwhile you’ve got no recreation to counsel and your own payments keep coming. What’s the mortgage on this building you own, couple of thou a month? Meanwhile, you’re in storage with girls from the old neighborhood—they’re gonna be real happy to see someone made good, owns the whole building. They’re gonna relate very friendly to that.”
She raised her voice: “Book me on what?”
“My turn to ask questions. Your turn to shut up or answer.”
She stabbed a crystal ashtray with her cigarette. Kept stabbing after the glow had died. “Nothing to answer about.”
“Two bodies in your backyard and nothing to answer about?”
She rolled her eyes. “I told you I don’t know about that.”
“You knew them.”
“Professionally.”
“Who else besides you knew they were coming here tonight to play?”
“No one.”
“No one?”
“That’s right. I’m discreet—my business is based on it.”
“No one,” said Milo, “except the guy you called tonight in order to set ’em up.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Oh, no—oh, no—no way you’re gonna-”
“Cute deal, Cheri. You give him time to get away, then call nine-one-one and play good citizen: you think there’s been a shooting. You think there’s maybe two guys—prowlers—lying out dead in your backyard.”
“That’s the truth! I mean, about not knowing they were dead. How’m I gonna know they were dead or not? You think I’m gonna go out there to feel a pulse!”
“Making it sound as if they were strangers.”
“What’s the diff? I called, didn’t I?”
“Who else knew they were here, Cheri?”
“No one. I told you—”
“Too bad,” he said. “Officers Burdette and Pelletier told me you weren’t gonna be helpful, but I decided to keep an open mind. Looks like—”
“Burdette? That the house nigger with the attitude? That boy was rude to me, gave me that look—that... that...”
“Patronizing look?”
“Yes,” she said, “Patronizing. He was extremely patronizing. To the nth. Had an attitude. Like he was some King Hoohah and I’m some little sister who’s stepped out of line, it’s his job to knock me down. And the other one, she’s nothing but a diesel dyke-staring at my attributes whenever she got the chance. You guys shouldn’t be hiring perverts.”
“Attributes?” said Milo.
“Yeah.” She bent low in illustration, threw back her shoulders, suddenly confident again. She smiled at Milo, received a blank stare in return, and switched her attention to me.
Her smile was inviting and though I knew it was artifice, I had to look away to keep from reciprocating. When I did, she cursed under her breath.
Milo said, “Okay, we’ll take you downtown. You make the call from there. Get ready for a little nostalgia, Cheri. Sucking in AIDS breath in a holding cage full of five-dollar strawberries while getting your attributes checked out.”
She looked at me again, spread her legs slightly while keeping them crossed at the ankles. Confirming Burdette’s assessment of what was—or wasn’t—under the kimono.
I looked away again.
She said, “Okay. Fuck the lawyer. I didn’t do a thing wrong—don’t need to buy him another Mercedes. Give me one of those polygraphs. Crank it up—I’ve got nothing to hide.”
Milo said, “Polygraphs can’t stand up to smooth criminals. Anyone comfortable with lying can pass.”
Anger mottled her face like a rash. “So what the fuck do you want?”
“Just straight talk, Cheri. How you hooked up with Massengil and Dobbs in the first place. How long it’s been going on—everything that’s been going on. And everything connected to what happened tonight.”
She smiled through the anger. “Everything, huh? Sure your little policeman’s heart can take it?”
He hooked a finger at me. “Case it can’t, he knows CPR.”
“Okay,” she said, cr
ossing her legs again. “You pitch, I’ll catch.”
Milo said, “Let me make sure I’m getting this clear. You’re saying you want to talk about the events of this evening—December 6, 1988? Give a statement of your own free will, no attorney present?”
“Uh-huh.” She gave a wide smile full of big, perfect, milk-white teeth. Ran her tongue between them, sat up straight, touched her bosom.
“Yeah. Yes. Sure I’ll talk. To you. Cause you are the King Hoohah. You’re the real thing, chief, that’s for sure. And Cheri doesn’t go for facsimiles.”
27
She said, “Sacramento—that’s the beginning.”
She put another cigarette in her mouth. Milo lit it for her.
She smoked for a while.
Milo said, “Sacramento.”
“Yeah. That’s where I met him. I had a place there. My own place, smaller and not as quality as this one, but my own, also.”
Milo said, “Always been an independent, have you, Cheri?”
Her mouth tightened. “Not always. But I learn. I pride myself on that—learning from my mistakes.”
“How long ago?”
“Three years ago.”
“Where?”
“O Street, right up near the Capitol.”
“Doing your bit for good government?”
“You bet. More of them would a took more of what I gave, there’d be less strife, believe me.”
“Where you from originally?”
“Here. Inglewood.”
“How’d you get up to Sacramento?”
“I was in San Francisco first—three years. Moved ’cause I wanted things more quiet. And something I could do myself. Someone told me politicians were always wanting it—you had a seller’s market.”
“Recreation.”
She smiled. “Yeah. Being close to the action meant they could make their speeches in the morning, drop by for a lunchtime party, and go back to their speeches with a smile on their faces.”
“They,” said Milo. “How many others besides Massengil?”
“Lots, chief. It’s a company town. Not that fearless leaders was all I did. You had your doctors and your bankers, like any other place. But being there in that place, you did see lots of political types—aides, lobbyists, administrative assistants, all that shit. You learn to talk like them after a while.”
“Fun bunch?”
She grimaced. “Not hardly. I mean, they were free with the buck—expense accounts. But as a group, they had inclinations. If you know what I’m saying.”
“I don’t.”
“Kinky,” she said, as if talking to an idiot. “Mostly for tying-up. Bondage. Always wanting to be tied up or tying me up. Nearly every one of them. Got so when I took one on that I knew was political, I had the neckties and the ropes all ready. A few of them even wanted to be... embarrassed. Dirty stuff. Never seen so many people wanting to tie or to be tied. All horny about who was in charge. Then you’d turn on the TV, see those same faces you just saw all wrinkled up or wearing a leather mask, crying and pleading not to spank ’em, even though that’s what they really wanted—you’d see ’em giving speeches on the TV, going on about law and order, the American way, all that shit. Meanwhile, you’re knowing their idea of law and order is being hog-trussed.”
She laughed, filled her lungs with smoke. “Don’t it just make you want to run out and vote?”
Milo smiled. “Massengil a tyer or a tyee?”
“Tyee. Liked to have his arms and legs all bound up, so tight the blood was cut off. Then he’d stretch out and make me do all the work. Then afterwards, which was quick—with most of them it’s real quick”—she snapped her fingers—“I had to snuggle next to him like I was his mama and he’d latch onto my bubbies and talk like some little kid. Baby talk. Oogum snoogums for Mr. Law and Order.”
She laughed again, but looked uneasy.
“Real disillusioning,” she said, “isn’t it. High and mighty types running things, and what they really are is whining, bubby-sucking babies. Then, of course, there’s cops—”
“He ever get racial?”
“What do you mean?”
“Make racist comments? Want to set up some racist fantasy?”
“Nope,” she said. “Just the tying and the oogum talk.”
“How’d you meet him?”
“Through the other one?”
“Dobbs?”
“Uh-huh. He’s a doctor—psychiatrist. Liked to pretend this was all medical. Sex therapy. I should think of myself as his therapy assistant.”
“When’d you first meet Dobbs?”
“My last year in Frisco.”
“How?”
“Had this girlfriend of mine who got into the therapy thing—took a course or something and got this piece of paper saying she was legal. A surrogate. Dobbs taught the course, offered her a job. Used to send her people—patients—have her kick back some of the money to him. She made good, but he made better. Then when she moved out of town because her ex was threatening her, she gave him my name. I moved down to Sacramento and he started sending the people to me.”
“Even though you’re not legal.”
She smiled, “But I’m good, chief. I can be real patient—real therapeutic when I have to.”
“I’ll just bet you can, Cheri. What other politicians did Dobbs send you besides Assemblyman Massengil?”
“Just him,” she said. “It’s like they were special buddies.”
“What kind of special buddies?”
“Not fags or anything. Sometimes a couple of closet fags will use me to get into theirselves—doing a double and then accidentally one of their things brushes up against the other thing and we got a brand-new picture. But not them. They just used to show up, together. Like Sam needed Fatso to lead the way, and Fatso got off on setting things up.”
“He never sent anyone else to you?”
“Not down here.”
“What about Sacramento?”
“Okay, a couple. But after I did a little business with him, I didn’t want to do any more.”
“Why not?”
“He was a pig is why not. With Lorraine he’d taken fifty-five percent. With me he was wanting sixty. Finder’s fee. He said I needed him—his being involved made it legal. Threatening me.” She shook her head and rubbed one knee. “I went indy to get greedy pigs off my back. Told him bullshit, my being involved made it illegal for him and he had a lot more to lose than I did if the shit hit the fan. So we settled on twenty percent. Couple of months later, I had enough of my own business going, anyway. Taking a hundred percent. Didn’t want none of his, even with twenty percent, and told him so.”
“How’d he react to that?”
“Made a face but didn’t argue. And kept seeing me. With Sam. Sam had a thing for me.”
“Was he ever a client himself?”
“Once in a while.”
“Tyer or tyee?”
She shook her head. “All he wanted was wham-bam, Oh Jesus, oh Jesus!, roll his fat butt off, and fall asleep. Mostly he was a watcher—couple of times I caught him peeking through the door when I was with Sam. That gave me the creeps, but I didn’t say a thing. Didn’t cost me anything.”
“Where’s your trick book?”
“No trick book.” She tapped her coiffure. “Everything’s in here.”
“How about your calendar?”
“No calendar either. Each day passes I tear it up in little pieces and flush it down.”
“We’re gonna tear the place apart, Cheri.”
“Tear all you want. There’s no book. And don’t ask me to give you names—otherwise I will go downtown and suck AIDS breath.”
“Who knew Massengil was coming here?”
“No one knew. No one knew about anybody. That’s my specialty—discreetness. And with him I was extra-careful, ’cause he was so nervous about being caught, wouldn’t even leave his car out on the street. When he had an appointment, I cleared my calendar all day so th
ey wouldn’t be running into anyone.”
“Considerate.”
“Fuck considerate,” she said. “I charged ’em for time lost.”
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