Strega (9 page)

19

I
MADE my way back through the dirty marble corridors of the Criminal Court, thinking my thoughts. Wolfe reminded me of Flood—so did the Rottweiler.

It was late March, but the sun was already blasting the front steps of the court. Maybe a real summer this year, not like the whore's promise we'd been getting for the past weeks—the sun would shine but the cold would be right there too. Only city people really hate the cold. In the city, it gets inside your bones and it freezes your guts. In the country, people sit around their fireplaces and look at the white stuff outside–saying how pretty it is, how clean it looks. The snow is never clean in the city. Here, people die when the Hawk comes down—if the cold doesn't get them, the fires they start to keep warm will.

I reached in my pocket for a smoke, looking out over the parking lot across the street where I'd stashed my Plymouth. A black guy with a shaved head, resplendent in a neon–orange muscle shirt with matching sweatband, caught my eye. "Got a cigarette, pal?" he asked.

At least he didn't call me "brother." When I got out of prison in the late 1960s, that bullshit was all over the street. Being an ex–con was never too valuable a credential, but back then at least it was a guaranteed introduction to girls. And the Village was full of them—promiscuously sucking up every shred of revolutionary rhetoric like marijuana–powered vacuum cleaners.

I made a good living then. All you needed was some genuine Third World people for props and you could raise funds faster than Reverend Ike—telling hippie jerkoffs that you were financing some revolutionary act, like a bank robbery. It was open season in the Village. Better than the Lower East Side. The hippies who lived over there believed they were making a contribution with their plotting and planning and their halfass bombs and letters to the editor. They were too busy organizing the oppressed to see the value of cash transactions, but they never knew where to buy explosives, so I did business with them too. Good thing they never tried to take out the Bank of America with the baking soda I sold them.

That's how I got started finding missing kids. It may have been Peace & Love in the streets, but the back alleys were full of wolves. The worst of the animals didn't just eat to survive—they did it for fun. So I'd run some of the kids down and drag them home. For the money. Once in a while one of the wolves would try and hold on to his prey. So I made some money and I made some enemies. I used up the money a long time ago.

When the revolution died—when BMWs replaced jeeps and the hippies turned perfectly good lofts a human could rent for a little money into co–ops with six–figure down payments—I stopped being relevant. I was ready for it. Some of the Third World wasn't, and they took my place in the jailhouses. Those that didn't go quietly got the key to Forest Lawn instead.

When things got nasty in New York, I rolled the dice on Biafra. I figured I'd do the same thing over there I was doing in New York, only on a grand scale—save a bunch of kids and make myself a fortune in the process. I didn't do either one, but I beat the odds anyway—I walked away from it. It's what I do best.

That was then. The black muscleman asking me if I had a cigarette was now.

"You taking a survey?" I asked him.

Our eyes locked. He shrugged, shifted his position, and went back to scanning the street. He probably didn't even smoke—just keeping in practice. His act needed work.

20

T
HE PLYMOUTH was in the parking lot across the street. Even on a warm day, that lot's always cold. The three courthouses surrounding it make a perfect wind tunnel. The car's fresh coat of primer made it look like it had been painted with rust—the Mole always changes the color after the car is used on a job and we hadn't decided on what to use next. It looks like a piece of junk, but it's anything but, with its independent rear suspension, fifty–gallon tank, fuel injection, heavy–duty cooling and shocks, bullet–proof glass, rhino–style bumpers—all that stuff. It wasn't fast, but you couldn't break it no matter what you did. It was going to be the Ultimate Taxicab, but it didn't work out that way.

The woman was standing in front of the Plymouth, tapping her foot impatiently like her date was late. All I could make out was that she was female. She was wearing a tan summer trenchcoat over dark slacks, her head covered with a black scarf and her face hidden behind sunglasses with big lenses. Nobody I knew, but I put my hand in my pocket anyway—some people subcontract their revenge.

Her eyes were on me all the way up to the Plymouth, so I walked past it like it meant nothing to me. But when I heard "Mr. Burke?" I knew there wasn't much point.

I don't like problems out in public—especially when half the public is cops.

"What?" I snapped out at her.

"I want to talk to you," she said. Her voice was shaky but determined. Trouble.

"You got me confused with someone else, lady."

"No, I don't. I have to talk with you," she said.

"Give me a name or get lost," I told her. If she knew my face from the courthouse but didn't have a referral from someone I knew, I was gone.

"Julio Crunini," she offered, her face close to mine now.

"I don't know anybody named Julio, lady. Whatever you're selling, I'm not buying, okay?" And I reached past her to open the Plymouth's door and get the hell away from her and whatever she wanted. Julio's been out of prison too long, I was thinking—his mouth was getting loose.

She put her hand on my arm. Her hand was shaking—I could see the wedding ring on her finger, and the diamond sparkling in the sun next to it. "You know me," she said.

I looked into her face, and drew a blank. She must have seen what I was thinking—one hand went to her face and the sunglasses disappeared. Her face meant nothing to me. Her mouth went hard, and she pulled away the scarf—her flaming red hair fired in the sun.

"You know me now?" she asked bitterly.

It was the jogger from Forest Park.

21

N
OTHING CHANGED in my face—I was raised in places where it isn't a good idea to let people know what you're thinking—but she wasn't looking for recognition.

"I don't know you, lady," I told her, "and I don't want to."

"You don't like my looks?" she challenged me. A real Mafia princess all right—she was used to this.

"I don't like your smell, lady. You stink of trouble, and I got enough of my own.

I pushed past her like I had someplace else to go. Her hand reached out and grabbed my forearm—I gave her the same look I'd given Julio in the garage, but she didn't have enough sense to know what it meant. Her hand was aristocratic—dark–red polish over manicured nails.

"If you don't talk to me here, I'll just come to Murray Street, Mr. Burke—to your hotel."

It was a good, hard shot—she thought. Julio must have opened up like the Red Sea. Only a few people knew I lived at the Deacon Hotel. Of course, those people were all wrong. The front desk would take a message for me from force of habit—the only force any junkie recognizes—but I hadn't lived there for years, ever since I got off parole. It didn't matter now—this broad was making word sounds from her mouth, but all I heard was "tick, tick, tick…"

Her face had the smug look of a woman with lots more cards to put on the table. Uncle Julio's halfass
omertà
was the modern version—rock–solid until it got a better offer.

"Get in the car," I told her, holding the Plymouth's door for her to slip past me.

"My car's right over there," she told me, gesturing toward the inevitable BMW sedan. "It'll be more comfortable—it's air conditioned."

"I don't care if it's got a waterbed, lady. You get in here, or you get in the wind."

She hesitated for just a second—the script wasn't going like she'd planned. Then the same tight–set look she had on her face when she'd started jogging around Forest Park appeared—she'd made up her mind.

Her reconstructed nose turned up at the Plymouth's interior but she slid across the vinyl bench seat without another word. I pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward the West Side Highway. I needed to find out what she knew, but I wasn't doing any talking until I was sure she was the only one listening.

I grabbed the highway at Chambers Street and turned uptown. The environmentalists had lost the first round—the old elevated structure was gone and along with it the shadows that provided the cover for the working whores. Michelle wouldn't be on the piers this time of day, and I needed her help. The new construction site on Eleventh Avenue a few blocks south of Times Square was my best bet.

The redhead opened her purse and started to rummage around. "Is it all right if I smoke?" she asked, still in that nasty–edged voice.

"As long as it's cigarettes," I told her.

"You have some religious convictions against marijuana, Mr. Burke?"

"Marijuana is against the law, lady," I told her, my voice toneless so the audience could get the sarcasm without the evidence to go with it. "If you have any illegal substances or objects on your person, I insist you remove them from this vehicle."

"Who're you trying to kid? After what you did in the…?"

"Shut your fucking mouth!" I snapped at her. "You really want to talk, you'll get your chance, okay? You want to make some tapes for the
federales
, you make them someplace else. Got it?"

She got it. Her face got hard again, like I'd insulted her, but she didn't say another word. Two hard dots of red stood out on her cheeks—not her makeup.

The big Plymouth worked the city streets the way it was created to dopassing through traffic as anonymously as a rat in a garbage dump, eating the potholes, smoothing the bumps, quiet and careful. The tinted windows were up on both sides, the air conditioner whisper–quiet, watching the streets.

I spotted the first bunch of working girls on 37th. Business was always slow this time of day, but the girls who worked the trucks and cabs for a living had to try harder than their sisters across town. On Lexington Avenue, the girls wore little shorts–and–tops outfits—over on the West Side, they worked the streets in bathing suits and heels. Even that was more subtle than you'd find elsewhere in the city—over in Hunts Point, they work in raincoats with nothing underneath.

Nothing but hard–core pros over here—black women who hadn't been girls since they were twelve, white ladies too old or too out of shape for the indoor work. The pimps kept the baby–faces for the middle–class trade farther east—the runaways worked Delancey and the Bowery or strictly indoors. I love the words some of the jerkoff journalists use in this town…like "call girls." The only thing these ladies ever used a phone for was to call a bail bondsman.

I slid the Plymouth to the curb. A tall black woman with a silky wig swivel–hipped over to the window, wearing one of those spandex suits, the green metallic threads shimmering in the sun. Her bright smile never got near her eyes.

"Looking for something, honey?"

"For some
one
. Michelle. She around?"

"You her man, baby?" the whore wanted to know, casting a sly glance at the Plymouth—it wasn't exactly your standard pimpmobile.

"Only if someone gets stupid with her," I told her, just so she'd know.

"Honey, I'm out here in this heat about some
money
, you understand?"

"You find her and bring her back over here, I'll pay one trick's worth—deal?"

"I don't work blind, man," she said, all business now.

"Tell her Burke needs to talk with her."

She seemed to be thinking it over—looked past me to where the princess was sitting, nodding her head like she understood what was going on. Traffic was slow—her sisters strolled the sidelines, bored but watchful. It had been a long time since they'd seen anything new—or anything good. Finally, she made up her mind. "I get a half–yard for a trick, baby. That's the price for bringing Michelle around, okay?"

There was no trick in the world this woman could get fifty bucks for, but insulting her wasn't going to get the job done.

"I'll pay you
your
piece, okay? Let your manager go look for his commission someplace else. Fifty–fifty, right?"

She flashed me a quick smile and swivel–hipped her way back to the other girls. No car–trick whore splits fifty–fifty with a pimp, but letting her think I believed that myth was worth the discount—for both of us. It's a sweet life out on the stroll in this city—every street–whore has a guaranteed time–share in the jailhouse. And the emergency ward is her only pension plan.

I pulled the Plymouth through a wide U–turn into the mouth of the construction site, reached in my pocket for a smoke, and got ready to do some waiting.

22

T
HE REDHEAD wasn't good at waiting like I was— I could tell her life hadn't been like that. Too fucking bad. I let my eyes roam around the flatlands, watching the whores work, checking for any backup the redhead might have brought along. It's easy to tail a car in the city, but anyone following us would have to be some distance away or I'd have spotted them by now.

She shifted her hips on the bench seat, recrossed her legs. The silk–on–silk sound was smooth and dry to my ears. Like a gun being cocked. "I've never been here before," she said. "What do you call this neighborhood?"

"After you talk to my friend, I'll talk to you, okay?"

"All I asked…"

"Don't ask me anything. Don't talk to me. When I know it's just me you're talking to, I'll answer, you understand? I'm not going to tell you again."

I was watching her face when I spoke to her. If she was wired and the backups were out of eyesight, she'd want our location to go out over the air—and I wasn't having any. Her face told me nothing—nothing except that she wasn't used to being talked to like that and she didn't like it. Well, I didn't like any of this, but if Julio was turning into a public–address system, I had to find out why. Everybody has rules they live by. Mine were: I wasn't going to die. I wasn't going to go back to prison. And I wasn't going to work a citizen's job for a living. In that order.

I spotted my bird–dog whore before I saw Michelle. She walked quickly over to the Plymouth, holding the wiggle to a minimum. She wanted to collect from me before a new customer took her for a ride.

"She'll be here in a minute, honey. You got my quarter like you said?"

"Right here," I told her, holding a twenty and a five in my left hand where she could see it.

The whore said nothing. I believed her that Michelle was coming—I'd had too good a look at her face for her to pull a Murphy game on me. That is, if she had any sense. But if she had any sense, she wouldn't be out here tricking.

Then I saw Michelle. The tall, willowy brunette was wearing pencil–leg red pants that stopped halfway up her calves—spike heels with ankle straps—a white parachute–silk blouse, the huge sleeves billowing as she moved. A long string of black beads around her neck and a man's black felt fedora on the back of her head. Like all her outfits, it would have looked ridiculous on anyone but her. That was the point, she told me once.

I released my hold on the bills and the whore flashed me a quick smile and moved back to her post. The redhead wasn't missing any of this, but she kept her mouth shut. I got out of the Plymouth and moved over to Michelle, my back blocking the redhead's view. I didn't have to watch her—Michelle would do that—she always knew what to do.

She put her left hand on my shoulder, reached up to kiss me on the cheek while her right hand snaked inside my jacket to the back of my belt. If there was a gun in there, she'd know the person inside the car was bad news. If I stepped to the side, the passenger would be looking at my pistol in Michelle's hand.

Michelle patted my back, whispered in my ear, "What's on, baby?"

"I'm not sure," I told her. "The redhead in the car braced me outside the courthouse. She's related to that old alligator—Julio. She wants something—I don't know what yet. The old bastard gave her some information about how to find me. She made it clear she was going to stay on my case until I talked to her."

"So talk to her, honey. You didn't drag me away from my lucrative profession to be your translator."

"I want to see if she's wired, Michelle."

Michelle's impossibly long lashes made shadows against her model's cheekbones; her fresh dark lipstick framed her mouth into a tiny circle.

"Oh," is all she said. Michelle's life must have been hell when she was supposed to have been a man.

"I'll pull over around the corner behind the trucks, okay? You get in the back with her—make sure she's clean. I'll check her purse.

"That's all?"

"For now."

"Baby, you know I started the treatments but they didn't do the chop yet. Just the shots. And the psychiatrist—once a week. It's not cheap."

"You definitely going through with it?"

"If I was gay, I could
come
out, you know? But like I am, I have to
break
out. You know."

I knew. None of us had ever asked about Michelle, but she gradually told us. And the Mole had explained what a transsexual was…a woman trapped in a man's body. Even before she started getting the hormone injections and the breast implants, she looked like a woman—walked like a woman, talked like a woman. The big thing was, she had the heart of a woman. When you go to prison, the only people you could count on to visit you were your mother or your sister. I didn't have those people—it was Michelle who rode the bus for twelve hours one way and then walked through the ugly stares and evil whispering to visit me upstate when I was down the last time. She still worked the same car tricks—all she needed was her mouth. I knew what was in her purse— a little bottle of cognac she used for a mouthwash after each time. And the tiny canister of CN gas the Mole made for her.

"I don't have a price for this job, Michelle. It may not be a job at all, okay? But if she's got anything in her purse, we'll see about a donation."

"Close enough," she said, "but if she's got no cash, you take me to the Omega to hear Tom Baxter before he leaves town. Deal?"

"Deal," I told her, and she climbed into the back seat behind the redhead.

I found the dark spot in the shadow of the trucks and pulled in.

"Get in the back seat," I told the redhead.

"Why?" she snapped.

"Here's why," I told her. "I don't know you—I don't know what you want. My secretary back there is going to search you. If you're wearing a wire, out you go. It's that simple. She's here because I can't search you myself."

"I still don't see why…"

"Look, lady, you asked
me
to talk to you, okay? This is the way we do it. You don't like it, you take whatever business you have and you shake it on down the road."

The redhead softly scratched her long nails across one knee, thinking. I didn't have time for her to think.

"Besides," I told her, "haven't you had enough experience with men telling you to take your clothes off?"

Her eyes flashed at me, hard with anger, but she didn't say a word. I looked straight ahead, heard the door open, slam, open and slam again. She was in the back seat with Michelle.

"Toss your purse over the seat," I told her.

"What?"

"You heard me. My secretary's going to check your body; I'm going to check your purse…for the same thing."

The lizard–skin purse came sailing over the back seat and bounced off the windshield. I picked it up, unsnapped the gold clasp. Sounds from the back seat: zippers, the rustle of fabric. The purse had a pack of Marlboros, a gold Dunhill lighter, a little silver pillbox with six five–milligram Valiums inside, a tightly folded black silk handkerchief, a soft leather purse with a bunch of credit cards and a checkbook—joint account with her husband—and three hundred or so in cash. In a flap on the side I found thirty hundred–dollar bills—they looked fresh and new, but the serial numbers weren't in sequence. No tape recorder. Not even a pencil.

"She's clean," said Michelle from the back seat. I heard the door open and slam again, and the redhead was next to me.

"So…?" I asked Michelle.

"All quality stuff. Bendel's, Bergdorf's, like that. The pearls are real.
Very
nice shoes. But that underwear is just
tacky
, honey. Nobody wears a garter belt outside a motel room didn't your mother tell you that? And that perfume…honey, you need some heavy lessons in subtle."

The redhead snapped her head around to the back seat.

"From you?" she asked, trying for sarcasm.

"Who better?" Michelle wanted to know, genuinely surprised at such a stupid question.

"How much do I owe you?" the redhead asked Michelle in the same voice she would have used on the man who tuned her BMW.

"For what?"

"Well, you are a
prostitute
, aren't you? I know how valuable your time is."

"I see. Okay, Ms. Bitch—the hand job was on the house, but you can give me a hundred for the fashion advice."

The redhead reached in her purse. She never touched the new bills. She put together a hundred from the other supply and tossed it into the back seat. Michelle was dismissed.

She floated around to the redhead's open window, winked at me to say goodbye. Then she spoke in a soft voice to the redhead. "Honey, I may be a whore, but I'm not a cunt. Think about it." And she was gone.