Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy (19 page)

I dropped my head toward the train. "Tell your
models to take their lunch break."

A laugh. "I'll tell you, man, these here be a
lot easier to work with than the prima dormas in this trade."

"How so?"

"Aw, these girls, they hook up with an agency,
they figure they're movie stars. They get to wear hot clothes, go to
big parties, everybody coming on to them. Then they find out
modeling's just standing around for an hour, hour and a half, same
leg set, same perfume or wine or whatever the fuck product in their
hand. They cop an attitude, you know?"

"Was Mau Tim like that?"

A more cautious look. "They're all like that.
This strictly product work, like I'm doing here? This is easy money.
You do good work, it shows. How your work looks don't depend on some
model's got a hair across her ass, you know?"

"How did you discover her?"

Puriefoy took a deep breath, went over to a chair,
and slumped into it. "You want to sit?"

"Thanks, no."

Puriefoy rolled his shoulders, then crossed his arms,
feet flat on the floor. "Mau Tim — she was calling herself
'Tina' then, by the way — Mau Tim I spotted in a café over in
Copley Place. She had this bag from Neiman's next to her, and she was
checking it, maybe figuring somebody'd try and walk with it. I watch
her, eating this croissant. She takes a little nibble, like a rabbit,
you know? Then she sends out her tongue after the little bits around
her lips. Man, I watch her for like a minute, I know she's a natural.
You know about scouting, you know what a natural is?"

"Naturally photogenic?"

"Yeah, but more than that. See, Mau Tim, she was
perfect being herself. Like they used to say about that actor dude,
Spencer Tracy. I mean, you don't have to pose a girl like that, you
don't have to like direct her, you just tell her the theme for the
shoot, and she does it and you click away at her. They say somebody
with grace, it shows when they move? With Mau Tim, it showed even
when she didn't move. It showed through the lens and on the paper. I
printed a galley sheet for her test shots, I couldn't decide which
ones ought to go in her mini-book, they were all that good."

I thought the rnini-book decision was up to the
agents. "You sent her over to Lindqvist/Yulin?"

The photographer pulled back a little. "Yeah.
Why?"

"Just checking something. Why that agency?"

A shrug. "They were a little hungry. They did
okay by a sister I sent them, got her good fashion bits, even a
couple of runways for the lah-di-dah boutiques. See, Mau Tim was
exotic, man. She needed a little bringing along before she hit the
big time, and I figured Erica could do that."

"But not George?"

"George? Man, George is like a booker, not a
creative guy. Erica's got the vision, George's got the rolodex, you
know?"

"According to Yulin's rolodex, you and Mau Tim
were pretty good friends"

Puriefoy pulled back a little more. "You could
say that."

"Lovers?"

"The fuck difference does it make?"

"I have to follow through on anything that might
help me find out who killed her."

"Who killed her? The fuck you talking about? I
was there, man. Some burglar done it."

"Back up a step, all right? Mau Tim lived with
you for a while?"

Puriefoy waited a moment before answering. "Yeah.
She was overage, man, her decision to check out on the family. Only I
didn't know about . . . her family, you know?"

"She didn't tell you she was connected?"

"Shit, no. I walk over to her — at that café
with the croissant? — and I say, 'Hey, lovely lady, you a model?'
And she says, 'No,' but not like 'Get-the-fuck-lost' no, just kind of
a 'not yet.' And I like her more as a natural, and she tells me her
name is Tina and we go around on that for a while, and pretty soon
we're back at my place for a little sweetness in the dark."

"Where's your place?"

"Apartment, over in JP."

Jamaica Plain, the farthest west of the Boston
neighborhoods. "How soon after that did she move in with you?"

"Like a week, maybe two. Didn't tell me her last
name that first time. But when she did, she said it was 'Dani,' and I
should start calling her 'Mau Tim,' on account of that was her name
in Vietnamese, only not exactly."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it wasn't her name, translated like. It
was more a description." Puriefoy closed his eyes. "It
meant like, 'purple flower,' or something. For her eyes. She was
always doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Making up names for things. She was at my place
one night, and we're watching one of the Star Wars videos, I forget
which one. But when that Darth Vader comes on the screen, she — you
know whose voice they used for him?"

"James Earl Jones."

Puriefoy looked disappointed, like I'd spoiled a
punch line. "Yeah, old James Earl with that voice comes up from
his high tops somewhere. Well, we're watching the screen, and in
walks the guy all dressed in that black outfit, and Mau Tim jumps on
me and says 'Your voice is just like his, and you're a big brute,
too. I'll call you Grute Vader from now on.' "

"Why 'Grute' Vader?"

"Account of it rhymed with 'brute,' maybe. But
it could have meant something in Vietnamese, too. Mau, she was into
that kind of thing."

"What kind of thing?"

"People's backgrounds."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, like she really enjoyed Sinead on account
of Sinead had a real ethnic name. Irish."

"Right."

Puriefoy looked a little sheepish. "Right. And
she was always asking me about my roots."

"Your family, you mean?"

"Yeah, like that genealogy shit. I read that out
to Chicago, man, it is a thriving business, black folks trying hard
to trace themselves back just a couple generations to Mississippi,
and from there all the way to the slave times. I told Mau Tim I
wasn't so interested in my past as my future."

"A future that didn't include her?"

"
Shit happens."

"And now you're involved with her girlfriend?"

"The fuck difference does that make?"

"
I'm just wondering who broke it off, you or Mau
Tim?"

No response.

"Was it because she moved on to other
photographers?"

Puriefoy's molars worked inside his mouth. "This
part have to go outside this room?"

"Probably not."

"That ain't good enough."

"Al1 right. Between you and me."

"I just don't want it getting back to her
family."

"Sinead's?"

"Shit, no. Mau Tim's."

"It won't."

"Okay." Puriefoy shifted his feet on the
floor. "Mau Tim's shacking with me about three weeks, I'm
sitting here. Right in this chair, setting up some shots, and the
door there opens. I got my back to it, and I didn't hear no knock. So
I tum around, and there's this little cheech standing there."

"Cheech?"

"Italian greaser. Eth-nic ster-eo-type, you
know? We called that kind of dude a 'cheech' down in New York."

"So this guy comes to see you."

"
Yeah. And he says to me, 'We'd consider it a
good thing for you to stop seeing Tina Danucci.' Said it just like
that, real polite."

"What did you say?"

"I told him I didn't know no Tina Danucci, but
the last name stayed in my head, like it was a name from somewhere."

"Did your visitor point that out?"

"He said, 'Well, maybe you know her by Tina Dani
or Mau Tim,' and the cheech, he really stretched it out, like 'Mau
Tim'  was fifty letters long. Then he said, 'Don't matter what
her name is, she ain't for you.' "

"What did you say?"

"I told him to get the fuck out of my studio."

"And did he?"

A little shiver. "What he does, he pulls up his
sleeves, he's wearing this long leather coat and suit, and he like
shoves everything, jacket, shirt, up to here," Puriefoy pointed
to the middle of his forearm, "and then the guy says, 'Let me
state the message a little clearer.' And then he says, 'Hands off or
hands off' — and the guy goes like this." Puriefoy chopped
with each hand at the other wrist, then another little shiver. "I
got the message."

"
You see Mau Tim after that?"

"I told her, I was having some problems, she had
to move out and I couldn't see her no more."

"Why didn't you tell her the truth?"

"Man, I believed the little cheech. I didn't
want it getting back to her family that I was even talking a lot with
the girl."

"How did she take it?"

"Didn't seem to bother her. And like right after
that, she moved into the place in the South End."

"Did you see Mau Tim much after she moved?"

"Not at her place, but you're in the business,
you're going to see each other. Plus she was Sinead's friend, lived
in the same building. I talked to her some at Sinead's apartment,
drinks over to the Pour House, Caiobella, like that."

"She was underage."

Puriefoy shook his head. "Mau was eighteen and
change."

"For drinking, I mean."

"Aw, man, she could look any age she wanted to,
most of them can, but Mau never pushed the booze thing in public.
What I mean is, she'd take a drink at a party now and then, but she
didn't hit the shit when she'd go out. Too many empty calories, you
know?"

"What'd you talk with her about?"

"I don't know. The usual shit. Which ad agency
is hot, which account just went where."

"Anything about her agency?"

"You mean like her agents?"

"Yes."

"Just the same thing I told her when I found
her. 'Babe, you are the real article. You need some seasoning up
here, but then you got to go to the bigs.' "

"The big leagues?"

"The Big Apple."

"Mau Tim couldn't go to the top outside New
York?"

"Uh-unh. Oh, she could do okay. This dude from
Dorchester, Thom McDonough? He went over to Paris, and he's doing
just line. But with her looks, Mau was like born for the City That
Never Sleeps."

"Would that have meant changing her agents?"

"Yeah. Well, wouldn't have to, but that'd be the
smart thing to do."

"
You know whether she decided to take your
advice?"

"No."

"Which way was she leaning?"

"Aw, man, I don't know."

"If she did leave, would you have gone with
her?"

Puriefoy shifted the feet some more. "What're
you saying?"

"You gave me the impression that you were from
New York originally."

"So?"

"So maybe you could help her down there like you
helped her up here."

"Un-unh. Mau, she was big enough now, she didn't
need me no more. Besides, I believed the little cheech that came to
see me, you know?"

Puriefoy made the chopping motion at his wrists
again.

"Okay. You visit Sinead much over at her
apartment?"

"The fuck do you care about that?"

"I was wondering about the party that night."

"The night Mau Tim got killed?"

"Right."

"I don't like to think about that, man."

"Force yourself, we'll get through it quicker."

"I already told the cops everything I know. Go
talk to them."

"You were there, they weren't."

Puriefoy shook his head again, sounded tired. "Okay,
okay. Shit, get on with it"

"Tell me what happened."

"Sinead, she's fixing a little party for Mau,
then we're going out dancing after that, probably over to Citi — by
Fenway Park?"

"Go on."

"
So, I get there, and Sinead — girl's got no
mind, you know? — she says she forgot to buy the wine, and can I go
out and get some."

"She's under twenty-one, too, right?"

Puriefoy looked puzzled.

"How could she have bought the wine in the first
place?"

"Oh, man, she puts on some makeup. Like I said,
they all could pass for thirty, they wanted to."

"Okay. Back up a little. You first get to the
building on Falmouth Street. You have a key to the front door?"

"Shit, no, man. I don't want any more to do with
that building than I have to. I just ring the bell for Sinead from
outside on the stoop, and she lets me in."

I said, "So the night Mau Tim was killed, you
get inside Sinead's apartment.