Playing God (9 page)

He wasn't an ass man or a tit man or leg man. Mostly, he was a celibate man. Not that he didn't notice or desire. It was just that in a society where lack of impulse control ran rampant, he had too much. Except for occasional explosions of temper, he kept himself locked down. From his earliest years he'd been an observer. Observed his father beating his mother and his mother's silent, stoic grief. Observed the ugliness of what people did to each other. Learned to shift his eyes and pack his feelings down.

"You never come see me, Joe." She pouted, swishing her hips.

Despite the weather, she wore a wisp of low-slung black vinyl and an abbreviated tank top cut so low you could have mailed letters in her cleavage. A faint suggestion of dark hair feathered her stomach below the gleaming silver navel stud. She had skinny little girl arms and legs and a full, voluptuous ass. When she stood on tiptoe to reach in the cupboard, he was treated to the sight of most of it. If she was wearing any underwear at all, it was only a thong. He'd heard a guy describing how she gave a blow job once. He sometimes woke up thinking about it.

She flicked her tongue at him. "Should see your face right now, copman. You know you want it."

"I don't have to have everything I admire," he said. "You taking care of yourself?" Alana couldn't be rushed.

"I do my best, keep away from drinking and drugs and men who want to mess with my mind." She ducked her head in a self-deprecating way. "Mostly. Try to keep some money in the bank. Things have been slow, lotta guys tapped out after the holidays. Bad weather for business. I'm too old to be hanging out on street corners."

She was twenty-two. Senior citizen in the hooker business. "Especially dressed like that."

"Hey. I wear a coat. You think I'm a moron or somethin'?"

"I think you're divine. But does it cover your ass?"

She set coffee mugs on the table with a clink. Bent to get milk from the refrigerator with a grin back at him over her shoulder. "Maybe in your business, you worry about covering your ass. I worry about showing mine."

"Hard damned place to get frostbite, that's all."

She burst out laughing. "I wish you'd come around more. Not many people who can make me laugh. Hey, I'm moving up in the world. Got a beeper and an answering service. Don't have to go out there and freeze my ass." She shot him a sideways glance, daring him to disapprove. "You don't look like you're taking care of yourself."

"I try. Got some money in the bank. Can't seem to stay away from people who drink and do drugs and want to mess with my head, though."

"Yeah, I wouldn't wanna work in no cop shop. Whew! Too much testosterone. Even the women got too much testosterone." She sketched a mustache on her upper lip. "You've got a hard-worn look, man. I mean, I find it sort of attractive, a guy who shows the mileage, but you're never going to get yourself a wife, you go around needing a shower and shave, hair sticking out like that, shoulders hunched like a grouchy old bear. Woman wants a man who takes some pride in himself."

"Thought she wanted a man with bucks in his wallet and an itch to scratch."

She poured his coffee and sat down across from him, holding a small white bear. "That, too, Joe. But any woman wants to be wanted—my kind or the marry and settle down kind. So how come you won't let me... you know... cheer you up a little?"

"Just seeing you cheers me up."

"Don't give me that moose crap. You're here on business, aren't you."

"My life. My business. No difference. Tell me about the doc with the Mercedes who got killed last night."

Not looking at him, she stroked the bear's head. "He was a simple man. Pick up a girl, drive her to his favorite spot, open his shirt, unzip his pants, and get blown. He was clean. Didn't ask for weird shit. Paid cash up front and never asked for free seconds. Closest he came to kinky was liking to have his nipples sucked. I can handle that. It's kind of sweet, actually. Not that he was sweet."

She dropped the bear and popped out of her chair. "How's your coffee? Want me to warm it up?"

"It's fine. What do you mean he wasn't sweet?"

She bent forward from the waist and rested her forehead on her knees, a sudden, graceful move that showed off her amazing agility. She danced at a club sometimes. He'd never gone to see her. She swept her hair forward, covering her face, massaging the back of her neck. "I've got this headache," she said. "You ever get headaches?"

He knew this game, verbal hide and seek, but he wasn't in the mood for games. After a moment, she sat up, giving him an irritated look. "I mean, Mr. Can't-be-distracted, that he never showed any kindness or interest, or even any sign I was human. Lots of guys try to make conversation. They're nervous and shit, so they chatter. Or they don't say much, but what they do say, it's a little like flirting. Like how pretty I am and stuff? Or how they've never done this before and they're nervous and I have to tell 'em they'll do fine, they're gonna love it. But he didn't talk much, just confirmed the price for what he wanted."

She picked up the bear and caressed it nervously. Burgess was curious. It was a dangerous business, but there wasn't much that spooked Alana.

"There was something cold there," she continued. "Like he needed a woman to do him but she didn't really exist. She was just a mouth, some hands. People didn't matter to him, which was weird 'cuz he was a doctor, you know? So even though he was easy, I didn't like doing him." She raised her eyes to his, eyes that had seen so much they should have been jaded, but they were only puzzled. "I understand need. I understand horny. Most men are pretty simple. I didn't understand him."

"He was always like that?" She nodded. "Always one girl, or sometimes two?"

"One."

"Any idea who he was partying with last night?"

She dropped the bear. "I know something about it."

Probably a lot, if he was reading her right. This hesitation and slow divulging was part of the game, a kind of foreplay between them. They had to make it good because foreplay was all there ever was. But today he was so damned tired. Like an old married man. Not tonight, honey, got a headache. "You going to tell me or am I supposed to beg?" Trying to ignore the way her right forefinger and thumb caressed her left thumb.

"Take it easy, Joe. I'm thinking. I know you don't believe I can, but I'm doin' it."

"Come on, Alana, either you know or you don't."

She gave him a slant-wise look with her gorgeous eyes and made a tut-tut sound with her tongue. "Don't be a booby, Joe. I gotta live with these people. I can't just sit here and dish out everything I know, not with them already thinkin' I'm your snitch, if not your lady friend. I'm trying to think how to do this."

He rubbed the back of his neck wearily. "Sorry."

Her face lit up. "You're the only guy I know ever says he's sorry."

"Look. Alana. I'd love to sit and gossip over coffee, but I'm beat and I've got a million things to do before I get some rest, so can you please hurry up?" A giant vise was squeezing the base of his neck.

"Oh, hell, Joe. Sure. Anything for you. You know that new girl, popped up a couple months ago, young kid with shiny black hair, kind of bouncy, like she's still a cheerleader or something? Name's Lulu?" He nodded. Rubbed. Couldn't ease the pain at all. "Well, her pimp set it up. I don't know who the other girl was. Somebody he recruited. Lovely blonde bitch who could put all the rest of us out of business."

Cold day in hell, he thought. "You know whether Pleasant asked for it or whether this girl, Lulu, suggested it? She was the other girl?"

"He asked, is what I heard, but that might not be true." Ignoring his second question, she came around the table and pushed his hands away. "Here. Let me do that. You want something? Advil? Aspirin? Tylenol? Demerol? Tylenol with codeine?" Her fingers dug into his shoulder muscles, strong, hard fingers, finding the tension and pressing it out. Traveling up his neck and massaging the muscles at the base of his skull, up into his hair where the skin felt tight. "Take off your sweater and unbutton your shirt," she ordered. "I can't do anything through all these clothes."

"I'm fine."

She backed away, leaving him hungry for those searching fingers. "Sheesh, Joe. You're so far from fine I can't even measure the distance. Not that I was ever much good at math. Here's the deal. You come in the bedroom, lie down and let me do something about that headache, and I'll talk to you. Otherwise..." She put the heels of her hands together, open like a vee, then snapped them shut. "I clam up." When he didn't respond, she said, "You can keep your pants on. Protect your virtue. Saving yourself for marriage. Sheesh. Someday you're going to take some lady to bed and get out six years later."

"We can talk here."

"Then you'll be talking to yourself."

"Alana. You know I can't—"

"Can't what, Copman? Let a friend give you a backrub?" She left the room.

She'd cooperate if he'd just play her game. Reluctantly, he heaved himself up and followed her into the bedroom. She'd thrown a pink scarf over the lampshade and was lighting a scented candle. "Jesus, Alana, it's only a headache."

She handed him Advil and a glass of water. "Take two." He did as he was told. A rarity. Then she stripped off his sweater, unbuttoned his shirt and helped him pull it off. "You keeping your gun?" He nodded. "Suit yourself. You always do. Lie down on your stomach. Here. Let me get these pillows out of the way." The bed was piled with frilly pillows, the whole room pink and girlish. Monuments to a girlhood she'd never had.

She straddled his body, the warmth of her bare thighs against him. There was a gurgling and the smack of palms rubbing together. "Oh, Jesus, Alana. Not massage oil."

"Shut up." He felt the heat of her hands and the icy tang of mint on his skin. Her hands spreading and smoothing, kneading his muscles, working his back up along the edges of his shoulder blades, hurting him as they pulled the soreness out. Working and reworking the hard spots until he actually groaned. She slapped his shoulder lightly. "Good. Let it go, Joe."

"Talk to me."

"Not yet." Her fingers walked up his neck and tangled themselves in his hair, finding all those tight, tight scalp muscles and soothing them, then moved down his back, working out from his spine across the bands of muscle, traveling down to his lower back. Kneading it, pressing it, soothing it. He wanted this to go on forever. Didn't have forever. A dead man was calling.

Suddenly her hands stopped. "You're thinking again."

"You can feel it?" He slid away from her, rolled onto his back, plumped up some pillows, and leaned against the head of the bed. He felt surprised and blessed. "You're good," he said. "Very, very good. This is what you should do for a living."

"Oh, I'm definitely in the therapeutic relaxation business."

"You know what I mean." She sat a few feet away, cross-legged on the bed, her hands resting on her knees, looking at him. The soft pink light suited her. Her skin glowed, her eyes glowed, she looked soft and mysterious beneath that cloud of hair.

"Penny for your thoughts," she said.

"How beautiful you are. But I came here for information."

"Bullshit. You came here to get onto the soul train," she said. "To plug into the closest thing to a life you got, which is me. You want information, you coulda brought me in like the other girls. You came here to check up on me, because you think you're my daddy, which you aren't even close to. For starters, 'cuz you never beat on me and you never fuck me. You came here to do battle with temptation because you're just a big Catholic prick who thinks he's got life locked down but sometimes just has to let something out of a cage to see if he can tame it."

"About the dead doctor," he said.

She turned her back on him. "There's this pimp. Scary, mean son-of-a-bitch named O'Leary. Got a place near the bus station. That's good for business. They went there. Pleasant wanted to be tied up. Watch a little lesbo love. The whole nine yards." She shrugged. "I don't know. Not what I would have expected. The guy was so cold and clinical. Like, this was MTV and he's the education channel. Unless he's sci-fi."

"This O'Leary. He got a first name?" She shrugged. Knew and wasn't telling. He wondered why. "Far as you know, Pleasant's always done it in the car?"

"Couple times in the summer, when there were lots of tourists out, he'd go with girls to their places. He was here once."

Burgess knew he was sitting on a hooker's bed but it felt funny, like being in bed with his victim. He started to get up, thinking it would be better in the kitchen. Get some nice, clinical distance.

"Sit down," she said. "I'm not done. How's your head?"

"I think I'll live."

"Coming from you, that's high praise. I don't know. Being inside had a strange effect on him. I'd been with him in his car maybe five, six times, and it was always the same. Short, simple, clinical. When he was here he wanted to get more adventurous." She didn't elaborate and he didn't ask.

"What else did you hear about the party at O'Leary's?" Alana looked away. "What? Come on. Talk to me. What?"

Her eyes swept back, moving slowly down his body. There was more intimacy in her glance than in some twenty-year marriages. He felt a ridiculous urge to cover himself, even though her hands had just been all over him. Even though she did men's bodies for a living. "Dumb ass," she said. "You've got nothing to hide. You're one of those guys who look better with their clothes off."