Ceremony (18 page)

"No," he said. "Maybe later I can get somebody to send a social worker over."

"I'll look in on her occasionally," I said. "And my friend Susan will too."

Hawk had rummaged behind the bar and came out with two more bottles of Schlitz.

"Man got a fine taste in long necks," Hawk said. He handed me one. "Sorry 'bout you being on duty, Lieutenant."

McNeely ignored him. I took a long pull on the beer bottle. It felt clean and cold going down. I could use clean and cold for a while.

I said, "The night is young, McNeely. Hawk and me got places to go, people to see. You need us anymore?"

He shook his head. He was staring into the kitchen. "Not now," he said. "Somebody in the DA's office will want to talk with you one of these days. We'll let you know. "

Hawk and I walked out into the cold night. There were police cars all over the street, their blue lights turning, the mechanical sound of radios rasping and crackling in some of them. A station wagon with the tailgate down was half full of cardboard boxes. A motorcycle cop in a helmet and leather jacket was directing traffic past the congestion and a bunch of Beacon Street neighbors were standing around hugging themselves and staring. To the right down across the street near the corner of Fairfield, Susan's big red-and-white Bronco stuck out into the traffic. People gave way as we walked toward it, looking at both of us, noticing the Band-Aids and the bruises, not saying anything.

"Could of saved a lot of energy if we'd burned a couple people in there early. Nothing like a couple gunshots to clear an area," Hawk said.

"Too crowded," I said. "No way to know who you're shooting. Most people in there didn't deserve to get shot."

Hawk grinned. "Deserve," he said. He spat some pinkish saliva onto the sidewalk under the streetlight.

When we got to the car, April was sitting in the front seat with Susan.

"She came with me on her own," Susan said. Hawk and I had climbed into the back past April's tipped-forward seat.

"I called the police and then I came back and stood outside. Several people came out, including the man from upstairs, and then April came out and saw me and walked over. When the police came we walked back to the car to get warm." Susan drove slowly past the Poitras house, waved on by the motorcycle cop.

"Why do you suppose they wear those high boots?" Susan said. "Is there some motorcycle reason for it?"

"Make them think they cavalry," Hawk said.

Susan turned up Gloucester and then left onto Marlboro. “I assume we're going to your place," she said.

"Yeah. You need a ride to your car, Hawk?"

He shook his head. "I'll walk down from your place and catch a cab in front of the Ritz."

Susan pulled up half a block from my front door. "My God," she said, "there's a parking spot."

Hawk and I were silent.

"I can't stand it again," Susan said. She opened the door and got out. April got out as soon as Susan did. Hawk got out and stood with them while I backed the Bronco into the first space I'd seen open on Marlboro Street since Labor Day weekend. Then I got out and joined them.

"Send me a bill," I said to Hawk.

He nodded, nodded at April, kissed Susan good-bye, and headed down Marlboro, walking as he did everything, without seeming effort, moving. to the rhythm of some internal and volitionless mechanism. I watched him go for a minute and then turned and gestured toward the apartment.

"In case you have to wee wee," I said to April. "There's a place upstairs."

"I don't need to," she said.

We went up. My apartment smelled empty. It was neat, the cleaning person had been there. Somehow that made it worse. It looked like one of those display rooms in department stores.

"Anyone hungry?" I said.

April shrugged. Susan said, "Yes."

"I'll make something while we talk," I said. "A drink while I'm cooking?"

Susan had coffee. April wanted Pepsi, but settled for a beer. Me too.

April sat beside Susan at the counter. On the other side of the counter I was working my magic. While I worked it, I talked to April.

"You got a plan, kid?"

"For what?"

"For what you're going to do tomorrow?"

"Can I stay here tonight?"

"Yes."

April drank a little beer from her glass. I could see she didn't like it much. Hard to warm up to someone who didn't like beer. Suze had managed to overcome that handicap, but it wasn't a good start. "And tomorrow?" I said.

She shrugged. "You gonna drag me out to see Mommy and Poppy?"

"No."

April looked at Susan. Susan smiled neutrally and drank some coffee. She could smile a hole through Mount McKinley whenever she felt like it, and I was never able to figure out how she could modify the smile to neutral, or even, when she chose, disapproval.

I had a country patd I'd made from lamb and duck and pistachio nuts and an anchovy. I sliced that up and made sandwiches on whole wheat bread. I put the platter of sandwiches out with a dish of bread-and-butter pickles that Susan and I had made in September from a bunch of small funny-looking cucumbers we'd bought at a farm stand in Danvers. "Well, what are you gonna do with me?" April said. "What do you want me to do?" I said.

Susan picked up half a sandwich and ate a bite. "Do you have any of that peach chutney that Paul gave you?" Susan said. I did. I got the jar out and put it on the counter. Susan took a small forkful and put it on her saucer. She took a dab from the plate and ate it and took another bite of the sandwich.

April looked at her sandwich. "What is this," she said. "Pat(-," I said.

"What's that?"

"It's like meatloaf," I said.

Susan ate a little more chutney.

"You got any white bread?" April said.

Susan's eyes gleamed at me over her coffee cup.

"No." "What's that jam?" April said.

"Chutney," I said. "It's sort of a fruit pickle, it's not jam.

April took a very small bite of the pit& sandwich and showed no more pleasure than she had with the beer.

"Sorry," I said. "I'm out of Wonder Bread and bologna. Would you like peanut butter? Or toast and "Toast," she said.

I sliced bread and put it in the toaster. I put out some Trappist boysenberry jam. I knew she'd prefer grape jelly, but I was out of that too.

"So what are you going to do tomorrow?" I said to April while her toast was toasting.

She shrugged again.

"You want to go home?"

"No." "You want to go back to Providence?"

She shook her head.

"Want a job?"

"Doing what?" she said. "What would you say your most marketable skill was?" I said.

She made a small unfunny laugh. "Fucking," she said and glanced sideways at Susan, checking the effect. Susan ate a pickle, holding it in the very tip of her thumb and forefinger and taking a bite out of it. She never ate anything in one bite.

"I think I won't ask your second most marketable skill," I said.

"Wise," Susan said. "April, let's see if we can cut through a little of the cynical disaffection. Spenser and I both think you're too young to be alone and directionless. We are trying to get you to help us think of something for you to do. I am less sentimental than he is. I might take you back to your parents' home, leave you there, and let them deal with the problem. But he won't do that. He would see that as merely postponing the problem, or giving it to someone else. On the assumption that you'll run away again."

"I didn't go to all this trouble," I said, "to have you back with Red turning tricks in the Zone."

"Maybe I like that," she said.

"You don't," I said. "I saw the picture of your house on the wall in that crib you were living in on Chandler Street."

"So what does that mean?'

-I carried a picture of my house through nearly two years in Korea," I said. “I know why you had it on your wall, and I know what it means."

Her toast had popped and I buttered it and put it out with a jar of jam and a spoon. She ate some.

"So what do you think I should do?" April said. "I'd rather be a whore than live at home."

I looked at Susan. She widened her eyes and shook her head-one of her don't-ask-me motions.

"How about you move in with Amy?"

"I don't like her," April said. "She's feebie. And her old man's going to jail. She won't have any money."

"So we're back to whore again," I said.

She nodded. I ate some of my sandwich and drank some of my beer.

"How do you like whoring?" I said.

"It's okay sometimes. Sometimes the guys are nice. It's not bad."

"What's the worst thing about it?" Susan said.

"Creepy guys, being alone with them in the back of a car or in some toilet or a dump like you saw."

"How many tricks a night with Red?" I said.

"Ten, fifteen."

I got up and got more beer and sat back down on my side of the counter and looked at her. "If you're going to be a whore, why be a cheap one?"

She shrugged. Made me think of Paul Giacomin when I'd first met him. That was two years ago. Now he was different. He hadn't even come for Thanksgiving. He'd stayed with his girl friend. He didn't shrug like that anymore. At least not at me.

"If you'll go with me," I said, "tomorrow I'm going to take you down to New York and introduce you to a woman named Patricia Utley, who runs a high-priced and selective prostitution business."

I heard Susan let her breath out softly.

"You want me to be a whore?" April said. "No," I said, "but I know at least one good woman who used to be a whore for Patricia Utley. If you're going to be a whore, at least we can upgrade your level of whoring. You'd do one trick a night and not every night. You'd be dealing with a relatively civilized clientele. You'd learn how to dress and talk and order wine in a restaurant. You'd be better off than you are now."

"In New York?"

"Yes."

"I never been to New York."

"I'll take you," I said. "And if she likes you and you like her and she's willing to take you on, she'll look out for you."

"You're really going to introduce me to a madam?"

"Best I can think of," I said. "You decide you don't like it, let me know and I'll come down and get you and bring you back."

"Is it in a nice part of New York?"

I nodded. The sandwiches were gone. I was on my third beer. Susan was sitting very quietly now, watching and listening and not saying a word.

"Should I?" April said to Susan.

"No," Susan said. "I don't think you should. I think you should go home, and I will try, with you, to get you and your parents into counseling. I cannot believe that being a whore is a better choice."

April looked back at me.

"I won't urge you," I said. "Susan may be right. You have to decide. You have to judge whether your parents would seek counseling, whether you would, and if it would help."

"And," Susan said, "you have to judge how you really feel about being a prostitute."

"If you want me to be a whore, why'd you take me away from Red and them in the first place?" April said. Nobody says a whore has to be smart.

I took a deep breath. "I don't want you to be a whore or not a whore. I want you to be free. I want you to choose what you do and I want you to live a better life than you were living in the sheep ranch in Providence. If your choice is between growing up with Red and growing up with Patricia Utley, 1 think you're better off with Utley."

We were all quiet then, Susan and I looking at April, April with her plump, sullen little face clenched in confusion staring at the counter. I got up and cleared away the dishes. Susan made herself another cup of coffee.

"Would you come with me?" April said to Susan.

"To see Patricia Utley?"

"Yes. You and him both?"

Susan was quiet for a moment.

I said, "She can't, April. What happens to a guidance counselor who places students in a whorehouse?"

"You think it's okay," April said to me.

"I do, or I might," I said, "But I'm not on the school committee in Smithfield. People rarely get elected to school committees because they have a broad and flexible sense of life's possibilities."

April said, "Huh?"

Susan said, "I'll go with you, April."

"If I don't like it I don't have to stay, do I?" April said.

"No," I said.

"Okay. I'll talk to this lady," April said.

It was about two thirty in the morning. April was asleep on my couch. I was showered and aspirined and retaped and lying in bed beside Susan.

"Is this crazy?" I said.

She turned her head on the pillow and looked at me and said, "I think so."

"You think it will work out if she goes home and you try to arrange therapy?"

Her eyes were lovely, dark and deep. "No," Susan said. "I don't think it would."

"So the best we can do is give her a chance to sell her body less often for more money," I said.

Susan was quiet.

"I know how much you care about your job and your profession," I said to her. "The kid doesn't understand, but I know what it took for you to say you'd go visit the madam with her." "I can't put the profession ahead of the people it's supposed to serve," Susan said. "It would be like teachers who care more about education than students."

"Because it's right doesn't make it easy," I said. "I admire you quite a lot."

Susan's eyes were much closer. "You made me what I am today, big boy."

"And I did a hell of a job," I murmured.

Susan rested her head against my chest. I turned the light out with my free hand.

"You think she'll stay with Utley?" Susan murmured.

"Yes," I said.

"You think her parents would really care if they found out?"

"They shouldn't find out," I said. "They'd think they were supposed to care, but in fact, I think, they'd be relieved. We'll work up a story for them."

"You think the Child Study Department would give me extra credit for field work on this one?" Susan said, her voice had that fading liquid quality it got as she was falling asleep.