by Nancy Rue
The other man rocked his chair onto its back legs and waved in the direction of the chalkboard hanging behind him. His mop of gray curls brushed against it and erased half the items on the menu. Was that hairdo a perm? A perm?
Desmond gazed at the board and pointed toward the smeared version of “Wings Hotter than the Surface of the Sun.”
“I’ll have me a order of them,” he said.
“Coming up,” Moustache said. “And you, pretty lady?’”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” I said. “Except to a Diet Coke if you’ve got one.”
“You want it with lemon, lime, or cherry? It’s all fresh.”
They were trying so hard I felt a stab of pity. Five years ago, when the Monk’s Vineyard had opened here in the heart of the historic district, they’d served only wine, and the best of it. At first it had taken off, attracting the more trendy locals as well as their traveling counterparts. I used to recommend it to some of my carriage tour customers, the ones who tipped generously and weren’t carrying shopping bags full of cheap souvenirs.
But like most specialty businesses, the owners of the Vineyard—two older men whose names I’d never caught—had been slammed by the recession. From the looks of the menu, they’d gone from exclusively selling fine wines to serving up Mrs. Paul’s and calling it hors d’oeuvres. It didn’t seem to be working. The FOR SALE sign they’d had hanging on the front railing for a year was still there.
“Make that two orders of wings,” I said. “The kid has a hollow leg.”
Just the thought of eating them nearly gave me the heaves, but the smile it brought to Moustache’s face might make it worth a little indigestion. I’d never met these two before and might not again if the place ever sold, so what was the harm? Besides, Desmond was settled in at a table, legs propped on the railing, chewing the proverbial fat with Curly. I hoped he’d find out if that was a perm or natural. I was trying not to imagine the old gentleman under a dryer with rods in his hair.
“You going to give me a hand, George?” Lewis said from the doorway.
“I’ve got to entertain the guests,” George said.
“I could give you a hand,” Desmond said.
“No, you couldn’t,” I said.
“What will you have to drink, son?” Lewis said.
“Whatever’ll make my moustache grow like yours. That thing is cool.”
“Nothing with alcohol, caffeine, or sugar for him,” I said.
George chuckled, a sound seldom heard in anyone but an old man with time on his hands. “That just about rules out everything, doesn’t it?”
“Why don’t you let him come in and pick something out?” Lewis said.
I sighed and gave Desmond the nod. He was through the door before I could take my next breath. Give it fifteen minutes and he’d be filling orders himself, guaranteed.
“He’s a pistol,” George said. “Reminds me of myself at that age.”
I had to agree in terms of the hairstyle. I forced myself not to ask him for the name of his salon.
“I see you made the papers.”
I almost overshot the chair I was just lowering myself onto.
George chuckled again. “Front page too. Now, Lewis, he’s an old journalist from way back—used to run the night desk. He wasn’t that impressed with the article—said it was slanted—but I got the gist of it, and I have to say, I knew it was only a matter of time before you started to stir things up around here.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Do we know each other?”
“I used to hear you giving your carriage tour spiel. Liked your spirit.”
“The owners didn’t call it ‘spirit,’” I said. “They called it ‘sarcasm.’” And worse, but I didn’t think it was worth mentioning.
The way George was nodding, I didn’t have to. “I’ve been following your work the last several months,” he said.
“And?” I said.
He waited while Desmond presented me with a Diet Coke, festooned with a lime wedge, a lemon slice, and a maraschino cherry, and disappeared back into the innards of the Vineyard, though not before calling over his shoulder that those wings would be up in just a minute. I’d once worked in a short-order restaurant, and it was a week before I got that lingo down. He was obviously a natural for the food-service industry.
When Desmond was gone, George leaned forward in conspiratorial fashion. “It’s quite the coincidence that you walked by today because I was thinking about trying to contact you.”
“I’m not sure there are any coincidences,” I said.
He looked up at the porch ceiling, and brought his substantial gray eyebrows into a scowl.
“Would you know anything about a brothel upstairs there?”
I gagged on the cherry.
“You work with the ladies of the night,” he said. “I thought you might have heard about these two.”
“What two?” I said.
“I don’t know for sure. Lewis thinks I’m going senile, which is why I’m mentioning it to you while he can’t hear. But ever since we rented that apartment up there to those two women, there’s been a lot of foot traffic between the hours of dark and who knows when. When we come in to open up in the morning, their shades go down and it seems like they sleep all day. The next night when the sun sets, it starts all over again, and not always the same guys.” He shook his curly head ruefully. “Seems like they’re doing a better business than we are.”
“Here’s your hot wings.”
Desmond approached with two steaming plates. He’d donned an apron with a silk-screened figure of a Friar-Tuckish monk holding an impossibly large bunch of grapes on the front of it. Lewis watched fondly from the doorway, wearing its twin.
“What else can I get you?” Desmond said as he set the platters on the table. “Another Diet?”
“Aren’t you going to eat?” I said.
“I ain’t got time for that. We just had a order called in.”
George raised his copious eyebrows at Lewis. “Called in? From where?”
“From above.”
“Upstairs above?”
“That’s the one.”
“No.”
“It’s for two pastrami on rye and an order of baked beans, George.”
“We don’t make pastrami on rye.”
“We do now.” He nodded at Desmond, who was whipping off his apron. “Desi’s making a deli run.”
“No, really,” I said—but I couldn’t get more than two words in between George and Gracie.
“We’re not taking food up there,” George said. “Not until Ms. Chamberlain checks it out for us.”
“What?” I said.
“I told her about my suspicions.” He nodded significantly toward Desmond. “I’m having her go up and see if we’re right. She knows how to handle these things.”
“You got you some bad women up there, Mr. Georgio?” Desmond said.
Both men looked at me, hearts probably beating faster than they had in years. Either that, or they were about to stop altogether.
George regained his composure first. “I see the boy is aware of the kind of work you do.”
“My bio mom was a—”
“I’m appropriately honest with him,” I said.
“You better go check it out, Big Al,” Desmond said. “I can hang here with Mr. Georgio and my man Lewie. We got plenty to do.”
“Sit down and eat these wings,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I directed a stony gaze at George. “You’ll keep an eye on him.”
“I won’t let him out of my sight.”
I turned to Lewis. “How do I get up there?”
“There’s an elevator in the hall,” he said. “I’ll show you.”
I was still gritting
my teeth as he led me briefly into the dark interior of the Vineyard and then to an even darker hallway that ran to another door onto the street.
“Thank you for doing this,” Lewis said. He pulled at his moustache with nervous-looking fingers. “I keep telling myself George is wrong, but if he isn’t, we don’t want any trouble with the police.”
“I’m just going to look it over and tell you what I see, and that’s all,” I said.
But “Lewie” was already on his way back to the kitchen.
I decided I must be crazy as I bypassed the deathtrap of an elevator and went for the stairs. Who knocks on a door and says, “Excuse me, but are you turning tricks up here?” What was I, the moral police for the entire town now? Only because I didn’t want Desmond to think I was a slacker did I keep going up to the first landing. Okay, that was a lie. I reached the second floor, crossed the hall, and banged on the door only because I knew Lewis and Clark weren’t going to let me go until I finished the expedition.
I half-hoped nobody would respond, but my fist hammering was rewarded by “Hang on—I’m coming,” followed by a jerking open of the door. A woman blinked at me in the semidarkness. Dressed in cleavage-to-thigh spandex, she was only slightly more classy than the women who still walked West King Street.
Doggone it. George and Lewis were right.
“What is it?” the woman said.
Make that “girl.” Even through the smoky air, I could see that the half-inch layer of makeup she was wearing added five or six years to her face. She couldn’t have been more than twenty or twenty-one.
“So who are you?” she said. One side of her goopy lip headed toward her nostril, where a tiny gold ring resided.
“I’m looking for a job.”
No. I did not just say that. Who was going to believe—
But the girl stepped back briskly and nodded me into the room with a snap of her head. The moment I stepped into the light from the lava lamp on the table, of course, she apparently realized her mistake.
“I don’t think you’re qualified for the work we do here,” she said, words jammed together like a runaway train.
Her polyurethane smile was so condescending, I wanted to shake her. Maybe the girls on West King were classier than she was. At least they weren’t proud of their profession.
“Sorry.” She pointed her breasts toward the door. “We’re a modeling agency and quite frankly, you’re a little old.”
“Get off it, honey,” I said. “I know what you’re doing up here.”
She jerked her arms into a fold across said breasts. “And what would that be?”
As if on cue, a seductive giggle rippled from behind the closed door off the room we were standing in. A muffled male voice responded, followed by another throaty laugh. I watched Chesty swallow. Desmond’s Adam’s apple had nothing on hers.
“If you’re a cop, you better show me a badge,” she said.
“Look, I’m not here to bust you,” I said. “I’m not even a cop.”
A light dawned in her eyes, which were so dilated I wondered she didn’t pull a pair of shades out of that cleavage. “If you’re looking for your husband,” she said, “that isn’t him in there. Not unless you robbed a cradle.”
I must be having a bad hair day. That was the second slur about my age in the last two minutes.
“I don’t have a husband,” I said.
“Shocking.”
“A, I’m here to warn you that your landlords are on to you, and they are going to call the police if you don’t either cease and desist or clear out.”
At least, that was what I thought they had in mind. We hadn’t gotten that far.
“And B.” I hesitated because I wasn’t sure what “B” was, until it tumbled from my mouth. “B, this is a dead-end deal you’ve got going on up here, and I can help you turn it around.”
“Into what?” The upper lip almost disappeared up her nose, where it would undoubtedly be met by the trail of moisture coming out.
“Into a way of life where you don’t have to get high to tolerate your occupation. Or sell your body to get high. Whichever way you look at it, you’re going nowhere fast. Like I said, I can help you. It’s what I do.”
And I sure hoped God had a plan for that because none of this was coming from my brain. Now was a nice time for God to start speaking through me again. Judging from the way this girl’s eyes were bulleting into me, I was sure any minute she was going to produce a handgun.
Instead, she laughed, the second ugly sound to fill the room. The other was the shrill voice from behind the door. It had morphed from a giggle to a torrent of words only half of which I could make out.
“What’d you come here for? You still got to pay! Just get out!”
The last two were accompanied by the flinging open of the door. The man on the receiving end of the tirade had no choice but to get out because a willowy Hispanic girl gave him a shove that landed him on his back on the floor, right at my feet.
Kade Capelli looked up at me.
It didn’t matter that he was fully clothed. The ire still marched right up my backbone, and out my mouth.
“Getting to know St. Augustine?” I said. “You should’ve said something. I’d have gotten you a better tour guide.”
“He needs to get out!” the slender girl said to Chesty. Her voice bore the faint trace of Hispanic beginnings.
“What did he do?”
“It’s what he didn’t do.”
“Hey, listen, I’m gone.” Kade got to his feet and dug into his pocket, producing a wad of bills that he pushed toward the Hispanic girl. Chesty intercepted the money and pointed haughtily to the door. He backed toward it and at least had the grace to look sheepishly at me.
“I didn’t mean to tick her off,” he said.
“Why are you telling me that?” I said. “Tell her.”
“I don’t wanna hear nothin’ from you,” the girl cried. “Just—”
“I know. I’m getting out.”
“You, too, lady,” Chesty said.
“Who’s she?” the other girl said.
“Don’t know—don’t care. Both of you, out.”
Kade had already beaten a hasty retreat. I could hear him bursting through the door to the street below.
“Did I not just tell you to leave?” Chesty said.
“I’m going,” I said. But I still stood in the middle of the garish room.
“That doesn’t look like ‘going’ to me.”
“Listen, if you ladies aren’t busy on the seventeenth—that’s a Saturday, lunchtime—come to Number Two Palm Row. Around noon.”
“Why?” Chesty said. “Wait, don’t tell me. You’re having a revival and we can come be saved.”
“No,” I said. “We’re having a Feast. And I don’t know what will happen to you. You’ll have to come and find out.”
Then I beat it out of there before I was forced to blurt out something else I never meant to say.
When I reached the porch of Monk’s Vineyard again, where Desmond was sipping what I hoped was sparkling cider out of a champagne glass, I was barely coherent. All I could get out was, “You were right, fellas. I don’t know what you want to do about it.” I took the glass out of Desmond’s hand and set it on the table. “But we’ve got to get home.”
“We heard the yelling,” George said. “Already called the police.”
Lewis nodded toward the figure approaching the porch. Wonderful. It was young Officer Kent. Was there some kind of plot afoot that I hadn’t been made aware of? First Kade. Now him.
At any rate, I was so not in the mood for any more males of their generation. I hadn’t had time yet to figure out why I was this livid about Kade Capelli. I’d be incensed at any guy who exploited women, even higher-end hookers lik
e those two. But I couldn’t explain the burning knot in my stomach over this particular one. Maybe it was because I hadn’t seen this in him when I met him. I felt like a dope.
Or maybe it was because I’d given him Chief’s number and told him to apply for a job as his assistant. Note to self: Contact Chief the minute you can get out of Desmond’s hearing range.
“You called the police, gentlemen?” Officer Kent said.
He stood now on the bottom step, just below me and Desmond, who was trying to wriggle from the grip I had on the back of his jacket.
“I did,” George said. “But this is the lady you want to talk to. She went up to investigate.”
Kent looked like I was the last person he wanted to talk to. The freckles around his eyes folded.
“I guess it won’t do me any good to say I wish you’d called us first before you went up there,” he said to me.
“None.” I looked at Desmond. “I want you to stay right here with George and Lewis. Do not step off this porch or I will take away your helmet. Permanently. I need to talk to this officer.”
“We’ll keep him busy,” Lewis said.
That was what I was afraid of, but I had no choice. I nodded for Kent to follow me and led him all the way across the street to the now closed gate to the Spanish Quarter. If Desmond could hear us over here, he was the bionic boy.
“Did the women admit to you they were soliciting?” Kent said when I stopped on the sidewalk.
“No. If you went up there and asked them now, they’d deny it, and you’d be hard put to find any evidence.”
“Then how do you know?”
“It’s my job to know. Look, arresting them isn’t going to solve anything. We both know that.”
He looked at me, the proper words already forming on his freckled lips. And then he let his shoulders drop, until he looked for all the world like a boy who had failed at his post on the safety patrol and had come to turn in his badge.
“I do know that,” he said. “And I wish I could do what you do.”
“Which is what?”
“Take them in and try to turn them around. I can’t do that. If I pick one up, I have to arrest her and from there it’s out of my hands.”