Hundred Dollar Baby (3 page)

"So I'm spared," I said.

"Until I renegotiate," Ollie said.

"When you renegotiate," I said, "charge a lot."

Ollie grinned again, still pointing the gun more or less at me. He nodded his head slowly. Then he put the gun down on his desk.

"Well, that fucking terrified you," Ollie said. "Didn't it."

"Iron self-control," I said.

"Attaboy," Ollie said.

I sat and had coffee with Hawk and April in the front parlor of the mansion. The furniture was men's-club leather. There was a fire in the fireplace. On the walls were reproductions of Picasso's nude sketches.

"You don't know Ollie DeMars," I said.

"No," April said.

"I know Ollie," Hawk said.

"I'm startled," I said.

"Got a crew in Southie," Hawk said. "They steal stuff, hire out to bigger outfits for rough work. Ollie's pretty bad."

"As bad as you?" April said.

Hawk smiled. "'Course not," he said.

"And your only contact with Ollie's employer is by anonymous phone call," I said.

"Yes."

"And he wants a percentage of your operation."

"Twenty-five percent," April said.

"How does he know how much that would be?" I said.

"I don't know."

"How much would it be?" I said.

"All of my markup," she said.

"You have a lot of overhead," I said.

"This is not a half-hour in a cheap hotel," April said.

I nodded. Hawk sipped his coffee. He was expressionless. And, except for drinking the coffee, he was motionless. It was as if nothing interested him, as if he saw nothing and heard nothing. Except that later, if it mattered, it would turn out that he had seen and heard everything.

"How do you suppose he knows about you?" I said.

"Maybe he was a customer," April said.

"Or is," Hawk said.

April looked startled, and then uneasy.

"You think he might still be coming here?" she said.

"No way to know," I said. "How do people find you?"

"Most of it is referral," April said.

"Satisfied customers?"

"Yes."

"And how did they get to you?" I said.

"We have some contacts in good hotels, limousine services, some of the big travel agencies. And of course there's the Internet."

"The Internet," I said.

"Look up `escort services' on one of the search engines," April said.

Hawk said, "I explain to you later what a search engine is."

"No need for scorn," I said. "I have a cell phone, too."

"Ever use it?" Hawk said.

"I'm thinking about it," I said. "What will I find under escort services."

"About three million hits," April said. "Nationwide."

"So if I'm going to, say, Pittsburgh," I said, "I look up escort services in Pittsburgh and there's a list."

"A big list," April said.

"And that's true of Boston?"

"Heavens," April said, "that's true of Stockton, California."

"And you're listed in Boston?"

"Sure," April said. "And about two hundred thousand others. We feel that it's in our best interest to put our name in play. But we don't rely on the Internet, and we screen the Internet customers very carefully."

"What are you screening for?"

"We are looking for repeat business," she said. "We want grown-ups who value discretion and top-drawer accommodations. We are looking for people who travel first-class."

"How can you tell?" I said.

"One learns," she said and smiled.

"I show up, they let me in," Hawk said to me. "You show up, they don't."

"Hawk," April said, "we probably wouldn't even charge YOU."

"So this guy could be a local customer, or somebody who found you on the Internet," I said. "He could, I suppose, be one of the people that shill for you."

April hunched her shoulders as if the room were cold.

"I don't like to think that," she said. "And I don't like to call them shills."

"Sorry," I said. "How about referral associates."

She smiled.

"Better," she said.

"Could be more than just April," Hawk said.

"Maybe," I said. "Either way, it needs to be somebody that would know how to find Ollie DeMars. Ollie probably doesn't have a website."

"So we looking for someone can find the right whorehouse-excuse me, April-and the right enforcer."

"Most people wouldn't know, either," I said.

Hawk nodded. We were quiet for a minute. Then, just as I said "cop," Hawk began to nod his head.

"A cop?" April said.

"Local, state, federal, any cop." I said. "Any cop can easily come up with a story that would get him this information, and no one would question it."

"Federal?" April said. "You mean it could be, like, an FBI agent?"

"Sure," I said. "Or California Highway Patrol, or a U.S. Marshal, or a precinct commander in Chicago, or some Sheriff's Deputy in Cumberland County."

"Where's Cumberland County," April said.

Susan did that, too, asked questions out on the periphery of what I was saying. I wondered if it was a female trait ... or did I obfuscate ... female trait sounded right.

"Maine," I said. "Around Portland."

"Maybe you scared him off," April said.

"We'll see," I said. "Until we know, Hawk or I will hang around here."

"I the thug," Hawk said. "You the sleuth. I do the hanging around. You sleuth us up something."

"You want to go pack a bag or something?" I said.

"Keep a bag in my car," Hawk said. "So I got clothes and ammunition. One of the young ladies on staff went out and bought me the new Thomas Friedman book."

"And you expect to get paid for this?" I said to Hawk.

"Half what you get," Hawk said. "Like always."

"This one may be pro bono," I said.

"Sure," Hawk said, "long as you split it with me."

I stood at my office window and looked down at Berkeley Street. It had snowed often in January, and the streets were compressed by snowbanks. Sidewalks were difficult, and the plows further snarled the already encumbered traffic. Still, the sun was bright, and some of the young women from the big insurance offices were out for early lunch.

Outside the bank below my office, at the corner of Boylston, a big Cadillac SUV pulled over. Ty-Bop got out of the backseat and opened the front door. Tony Marcus, in a tweed overcoat with a fur collar, stepped out and picked his way across a snowbank toward my building. The Cadillac pulled away. Junior was probably driving, if the SUV was big enough.

I was behind my desk by the time they got to my office. I had the side drawer open, where I kept a spare piece. Ty-Bop opened the door and Tony walked through.

He said, "Spenser."

I said, "Tony."

Tony hung his coat up carefully, and pulled up a chair and sat, hiking his pant legs to protect the creases. Ty-Bop lingered by the door with his hat on sideways over cornrows. He was wearing droopy jeans and a thigh-length, too-big, unbuttoned Philadelphia 76ers warm-up jacket over some sort of football jersey. He looked about twenty, a standard gangsta rap fan in funny clothes, except he could put a bullet in your eye from fifty yards. Either eye.

"How's the family?" I said to Tony. Tony shrugged.

"Your son-in-law is no longer in Marshport, I assume."

"We both knew he wouldn't be," Tony said.

"Daughter okay?"

"No worse," Tony said.

I nodded.

"You give my son-in-law a break in Marshport," Tony said.

"No reason not to," I said.

Tony nodded. "What's your problem with Ollie DeMars?" he said.

"Couple of his crew were bothering a woman I know," I said. "Hawk and I asked them to stop."

"April Kyle," Tony said.

I nodded.

"Ollie not somebody to let that slide," Tony said.

"He tells me he's just an employee on this, and is waiting instructions from his employer."

"He say who he employer is?" Tony said.

"Says he doesn't know."

Tony frowned.

I continued.

"Says he gets his instructions by anonymous phone call. Says he gets paid by anonymous wire transfer."

"How do you get anonymous wire transfers?" Tony said.

"Ollie declined to comment," I said.

"Offshore account, maybe," Tony said.

"Maybe," I said.

Tony leaned back in his chair and put his fingertips together in a kind of tent in front of his chest. He was a medium-size black man with a soft-looking neck, a modest Afro, and a thick mustache. His clothes probably cost more than several cars I'd driven. He looked prosperous and soft. He was more than prosperous. But he wasn't soft. Like Hawk, he moved easily in and out of blackspeak as it suited him.

"They is a couple approaches to the whore business," he said. "There's volume-a bunch of hookers, ten, twelve johns a day. And then there's quality-not-quantity. One daily fee."

"But a big one," I said.

Tony nodded.

"As you know," he said, "I have always felt that whores are a black business."

"I love racial pride," I said.

Tony smiled.

"Without his heritage," Tony said, "what's a man got?"

"Money," I said. "Power. Women, scotch whiskey, Ty-Bop to shoot anyone you don't like. Cars, clothes, guns . . ."

Tony smiled and put up a hand.

"Okay, so maybe heritage ain't everything," he said.

"Maybe running half the city is something," I said.

"But it's only half," Tony said.

"So far," I said. "And heritage has nothing to do with it."

"I pretty well got all the whoring organized in this city," Tony said. "I got a tight hand on the volume end of it, but the blue-blood part of the business is labor-intensive, ties up a lot of capital, so I let the blue bloods run it and take a franchising fee."

I nodded. I looked at Ty-Bop leaning against the wall next to the door. In my experience, Ty-Bop rarely spoke. He was rocking gently to the sound of music no one else was hearing. There was no sign that he heard anything being said.

"You collect from April?" I said.

"Sure. She'll tell you that. Price of doing business," Tony said. "But not so much that they can't make a profit. I want them in business."

"And if they don't pay?"

"Send somebody over," Tony said.

"And if Hawk and I show up?"

"Maybe send more people," Tony said. "But it ain't relevant anyway. She always pay."

I waited. Tony looked at his tented fingers. Ty-Bop continued rocking to the music of the spheres.

"Now there seem to be somebody else in the woodpile," Tony said.

"Nice metaphor," I said.

Tony shrugged. "Ain't no room for two of us," he said.

"And you figure I might be looking for him, too."

"Uh-huh. "

"He trying to cut in on other places besides April?" I said.

"Somebody is."

"Ollie doing the muscle work?"

"Yeah."

"And you haven't intervened?" I said.

"Not yet," Tony said. "Ollie's a tough nut to crack. We crack it if we have to. But you eliminate Ollie and another Ollie will turn up. It ain't efficient."

"But eliminate his employer and you won't have to eliminate Ollie," I said.

"Tha's right," Tony said.

"You believe Ollie," I said. "That he doesn't know?" "

Don't know," Tony said. "Was hoping you might shed some light."

"You don't think it's Ollie himself?" I said.

"His crew does mostly muscle work," Tony said. "Ollie ain't a whore-business guy."

"You think the employer is local?" I said.

Tony put his fingertips against his lips and tapped them lightly as he thought about the question.

"Never thought he wasn't," Tony said after a while.

"So," I said. "We're teaming up to crack the case?"

"Thought I'd let you know I was interested," Tony said. "You find this guy, might be something in it for you."

"What might be in it for him?" I said.

"You wouldn't need to worry 'bout that," Tony said.

"Nice," I said.

Tony stood and put on his coat. Outside my window the snow was starting to come down again. Small flakes, not falling hard but falling quite steady.

"We got a common interest here, Spenser," Tony said.

"I know," I said. "I'll keep you on the mailing list."

"Good," Tony said.

He nodded at Ty-Bop. Ty-Bop took out a cell phone and dialed and said something I couldn't hear. Then he opened the door and went out. Tony went out behind him. I went to my window and looked down at Berkeley Street. The Caddy SUV pulled up. Ty-Bop opened the front door. Tony got in. Ty-Bop closed the front door and got in the back. The Caddy pulled away across Boylston, straight on down Berkeley toward the river.

I closed my desk drawer.

There is a walkway down the center of the mall on Commonwealth Avenue, and the city had kept it shoveled during the winter. They hadn't yet gotten to it this snowfall, and there was maybe an inch of dry snow beneath our feet as April and I walked down toward the Public Garden in the early evening. The snowfall had slowed to a light haze that created halos on the streetlights and made the expensive condos in their handsome brownstone look especially comfortable.

"You've not heard from the anonymous caller," I said.

"No."

"Business is okay?" I said. "Hawk isn't scaring the clients?"

"Business is as good as ever," April said. "Hawk has stayed pretty much in the background, and there haven't been any incidents."

The evening commuter traffic in this part of town was on Storrow Drive and the Pike. The traffic moving on Commonwealth was mostly cabs. The only other pedestrians on the mall were people with dogs.

"So," I said, "since I last saw you..."

"You mean when I was still a kid?"

"Yeah."

"After I left you and Susan, I went back to Mrs. Utley, in New York, and ... she sort of brought me up."

"You worked for her," I said.

"Yes. She taught me how to dress, how to walk, how to speak. She showed me how to order in good restaurants."