The Long Good Boy (21 page)

“Pay you for
what
?”

“I told Chi Chi she could have the money tonight. I was here longer than she usually is, so that'll be a hundred. Actually, make it one-fifty. I'll tell her you were feeling generous, what with me being new and all.”

We could hear the men at the open door, waiting for whoever was parking his car, shouting across the courtyard. Vinnie reached for the middle desk drawer.

I shook my head. “Key to the cash box? I don't think so. It's on you this time, Vinnie. And by the way, if you try to take this out on Chi Chi in any way, I'll be back. And he'll be back,” nodding in Dashiell's direction.

“What are you talking about?”

“Never mind that bullshit.”

I stuck the gun in the waist of my skirt, took the money he was holding out to me, carefully counted it.

“You know what to do,” I told him. “You've been through this before.” I headed for the bathroom, hoping that none of the early arrivals had been drinking coffee while driving in. A moment later, I heard them, three men. They were at the closet, pulling out their white coats and rubber boots, and then I heard Vinnie call them into the office. Then their voices became muffled, and Dash and I made a quick exit, down the worn steps, through the refrigerator, then out into the courtyard, where I was just about to let my breath out, free at last, free at last, except that Timothy McCoy was there, stepping out of his car.

“Hey, you,” he shouted, “get away from here.” Looking first at Dashiell and then at me, he scowled, taking a step toward us, then stopping. “Weren't you told that fifty times already? Go on, go home. We're running a decent business here.” He stood there waiting until I'd left the courtyard and headed back toward Washington Street, the sun up now, the hookers and johns nowhere in sight.

I turned west again, the cold wind blowing over the river, cutting right to the bone. We didn't have to wait for the light to turn green. There was no traffic. Once I was on the other side, I stood near the fence, took the gun from my waistband, and tossed it as far as I could into the dark water, hearing the plop as it hit, seeing the small splash as it was swallowed up.

Vinnie was a liar, true, but I was sure he'd told the truth about one thing. The gun I'd just pitched into the river was acquired after Mulrooney had been killed. No way whoever did the murder left the gun right there in the desk drawer. And if he had, no way would the Crime Scene Unit have missed it.

Had Chi Chi lied about getting paid from petty cash? Vinnie had really looked confused about that one. Chi Chi said he left the office to get her money but that she didn't know where he had gone. But he reached for the drawer when I asked to be paid. Of course. I'd seen a key there, not the small kind that would open a padlock on a cash box, a big one, the kind you used to lock an old door, the door to that locked back room perhaps. But if all that had nothing to do with the money, what did it have to do with?

On the way home, I decided to pick up a muffin and tea. I took out the twenty Chi Chi had given me back and found a shopping list on it: tape, six rolls; box cutters, three; black markers, two. Someone was moving. In this city, no one stayed put for very long. Nothing stayed the way it was. And nothing was what it appeared to be.

26

You Never Know Who Might Be Listening

I slept most of the day, waking up twice to feed Dashiell and take him out, looking at a world I felt I no longer belonged to. When it got dark, the long shadows no longer in the garden, everything gray and cold, I took a bath and, in my terry robe, sat at the table with a bowl of cereal, trying again to figure out what had happened a few weeks earlier.

I couldn't be sure, but I didn't think the murders had to do with the carting industry. And it surely wasn't about the meat. That wouldn't be the cops. It would be the FDA. If anyone gave a shit what the American public ate in the first place.

And Vinnie. He was definitely a little worm, a petty thief, a liar, an unscrupulous businessman, but was he the killer? Had Mulrooney found out about the deal Vinnie had made to get the cheaper genetically altered meat? Was he about to spoil all Vinnie's plans? And was Rosalinda there, touching up her makeup in that filthy little bathroom?

A petty thief. A liar. What if Vinnie was pocketing the difference between the natural pork and the altered pork? What if Mulrooney found out?

But would he? Why was Mulrooney there in the first place? And why was all my thinking leading me in circles?

Later in the evening, back on the stroll, I found Chi Chi on the corner of Thirteenth and Washington and told her everything went well. I thought she ought to give it a break for a few days before going to see Vinnie, then it would be okay. “Well,” I told her, “maybe give it a rest for a week. And if there's any trouble, any at all, here's what I want you to do. I want you to say, ‘Vinnie, lay a hand on me, and I'll get my friend and her dog back here.' Okay?”

“Why? What happened?”

“I was late leaving.”

“Shit.”

“That's what
he
said.”

“What happened?”

“The manager, McCoy, he saw me in the courtyard and told me to get the hell out of there. That's all.”

Chi Chi looked away.

“He's seen you, too, huh?”

“Once or twice. He probably thought it was me again.”

“Maybe he did. But we're not exactly twins.”

“He don't really look. He just sees a ho. We all look alike to him.”

“So he knows you were inside?”

She shook her head. “Some of the girls, they look for a courtyard, you know, to relieve themselves.”

I nodded, reaching into my purse. “Here. This is just to tide you over until Vinnie calms down.”

“Oh, shit. The men came in while you was there?”

“Yeah. But that's not it. I got out without them seeing me. He didn't like what I did with him.”

“I could teach you. You could learn, Rachel. You got brains.”

“Yeah, well, maybe some other time. This time, we just talked. I had some questions to put to him, about the murders.”

Chi Chi's eyes got wide. “An' he tol' you stuff? He knows who did her?”

I shook my head. “I don't know. I'm not sure of anything yet, except that Vinnie's a liar.”

“What? He's married?”

“Yeah,” I told her. “That, too.”

A car stopped at the corner, and Jasmine staggered out. Or was shoved out.

“What are you doing on this corner?” I asked Chi Chi, watching Jasmine mincing her way toward us. “I thought you're always on Little West Twelfth Street. I thought you guys were territorial.”

“Who you calling a guy?” she said, pulling Clint out of her jacket, putting him down next to Dashiell.

“It's just an expression. Nothing personal.”

“I could sure use something.” Jasmine wiped her nose with the back of her hand in a gesture my mother would have found unladylike. Actually, she probably would have found the whole scene unladylike.

“Ain't nothin' to be had, girl. You look bad.”

Jasmine sniffed again. “Yeah, well, there's nights and there's nights.”

“Rachel here got to talk to Vinnie, over by Keller's, about the murders.”

I lifted a finger to my lips, but neither of them was watching. “Look,” I said, reaching out and touching Chi Chi's arm, “it's not a good idea to talk about what I'm doing. You never know who might be listening.”

“But this here's Jasmine,” she said. “She hire you, for God's sake. Why wouldn't I tell her the news?”

“It's not like there is any yet.” I turned to Jasmine, noticing the bruise on one cheek, and that one of her small eyes was now smaller than the other. “I don't believe he was telling the truth.”

“He lie to a hooker? Imagine that.”

“What happened to you?” I asked her, pointing to her face.

“Someone patted me on the cheek, but he didn't know his own strength. The johns, they always do that when they're finished with you, pat you on the cheek, say thank you, sister, for a job well done.” Hands on her hips. Then she changed her mind, took a strand of that blue-black hair, and pulled it forward over the bruise. “Stick around, Rachel, you'll get patted on the cheek, too. So, we safe yet? Lord, I'd like to be safe.”

“Rachel's been going out on her own,” Chi Chi told her. “She having ten, twelve dates a night. LaDonna told me.”

“And no one hit you?” Jasmine said. “Man, you got the luck.”

“Well, I—”

“You got the lucky boa. Maybe that's why.” She reached out and pushed her fingers into those sad feathers. The way things were then, the middle of the night, standing on the greasy sidewalk waiting for strangers to buy a little of our time, a little piece of our lives, we'd all seen better days. I hadn't looked in a mirror lately, but I was pretty sure there were dark circles under my eyes and a sallow look to my skin. But, no, no one had punched me in the eye, smacked my face so that it turned colors. Not yet, anyway.

Jasmine's hand was still stroking the boa. “You got some secret you want to share with Jasmine?” A coy question, but she had a hard eye on me.

I shook my head.

“You're just one lucky broad, is that it?”

“Look, I—”

“How about if I wear the boa for a couple of nights? Rosalinda would have lent it to me, I asked her pretty please.”

I slipped the boa off, and Jasmine slipped off her fluffy short sweater, draping it around my shoulders and buttoning the top button. “Wouldn't want you catching your death,” she said, and then to Chi Chi, “Where is that bitch Grace?”

Is that why they were here instead of their usual place, because Grace wasn't? All this time, I'd never seen anyone swapping stations.

“Better class of customer here,” Chi Chi told me.

“Yeah? How so?”

She sighed, amazed I could ask such a dumb question. “Because they come from there.” She pointed toward West Fourteenth Street. “And they turns onto Washington, and the good ones get taken up right away, before they gets there,” she said, pointing to where she usually stood. “Get it? We gets the dregs.”

From what I had seen, they were all the dregs, but I didn't say so.

“Alice, she posts herself on that corner, dances around. She practically naked, no matter how cold it is. And she got cleavage now.” Chi Chi nodded, agreeing with herself. “Grace usually here. Usually by herself. You can't work this corner when Grace is here. Sometimes she with Devon, he around. Maybe she with Devon now.”

“How come? She the favorite?”

But I didn't get an answer, because Dashiell started to bark and Clint began to whine. LaDonna was headed toward us, coming from the other way, pretty in pink. She had a twenty in her hand, rolled up like a cigarette.

“Hey, LaDonna,” I said.

LaDonna ignored me. She took out a pack of cigarettes, shoved the twenty in the pack, took out a smoke. Chi Chi's hand went out, and then the pack was offered to Jasmine and to me. We stood there watching for traffic, LaDonna and Chi Chi smoking, the dogs taking turns sniffing each other's butt, the wind blowing down the canyon of dark streets with a hollow sound, but you couldn't hear it when the door to Hogs and Heifers opened, the rockabilly pouring out at us in a shaft of yellow light, a bozo in a leather jacket glancing back at his Harley before going inside to the smoke and boozy smell, the wall of noise, a place to pass some time out of the cold and loneliness of the streets. Feeling cold and lonely myself, I slipped my arms into the sleeves of Jasmine's sweater and wiggled my fingers at the girls. Then Dashiell and I picked our way home, leaving the others hoping for one more trick before calling it a day.

27

They Make Mistakes, She Said

My first day on the selling floor of Saks, I sold eight pairs of socks in only four hours and got a note from Frances with her address and a little map showing where her house was in relation to the subway stop.

Much as I missed Dashiell, after an afternoon of discussing the virtues of cotton blends versus rayon, of triple-cuff versus the standard fold-over, I decided to walk home. Four hours of recycled air had been too much for me. I needed some of the free-floating kind, some of New York's finest, complete with gasoline fumes, but minus the blood-and-guts smells of the meat market, where I'd be spending the latter part of my workday.

Not being one to fritter away time, I decided to make it a working walk. I pulled out the little notebook where I had the information I'd gathered about my case. Well, information and questions. I'd worked on my case at Saks, too, twice going to the ladies' room to add notes and questions; then, hoping to answer one or two of my questions on the way home, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed the first number.

“Hullo?”

“Mrs. Willensky?”

“Yes?”

“Hi. I'm a journalist,” I said. I was in a churning sea of people, the woman passing closest to me, walking uptown, talking on her cell phone, too.

“Harry, stop it. Harry, you're killing me,” she said as she walked by me, her small Gucci bag tucked under her arm.

“I'm doing a piece on the meat district,” I said into my phone, “the Gansevoort Meat Market, its history and the latest developments, how they affect the wholesale meat market, et cetera, et cetera, and I was wondering if I could talk to Mr. Willensky for just a few minutes, ask him some questions.”

“He's not home from work yet,” she said.

For a moment, I couldn't think of anything to say. I looked at the faces coming my way, the backs of people passing me, everyone walking as fast as they could. Where were they all going so fast?

“Oh,” I said. Fucking eloquent. If I ever gave up PI work, I could become a speechwriter or do stand-up. “When I was researching the area”—lame, lame, I thought—“I read that he'd retired. So I thought he might have the time to talk to me. The other managers I spoke to were too busy to answer my questions.” Brilliant, I thought. I just gave Willensky the perfect out.