“We weren’t friends, Mike.”
“You weren’t?”
She took the glasses off. The flesh around her eyes was swollen, puffy, and red; redder still were what had been the whites of her eyes. Lily had been crying. Lily had been crying her heart out.
“I loved Ronnie,” she said. “And she loved me.”
She began to sob and Velda put an arm around her, and gave me a tortured look. Lily had no tears left, but the crying? That may have only just started.
Finally it eased up, and she gave us her phone number, saying she’d do anything to help that she could. If we wanted a look at Jasmine’s “dungeon,” and their living quarters, she’d accommodate us, if we liked. I said we might take her up on that.
She asked, “Can you find the one who did this?”
“Count on it.”
“I don’t mean to insult you, Mike, but... you look like a man who could kill somebody if you felt like it.”
Velda seemed amused by the hooker’s good judge of character.
I said, “Are you sure you’ve never heard of me?”
Her little smile seemed almost embarrassed. “I remembered while we were talking. You killed that Penta character. It was on the news.”
“I did.”
The ravaged eyes bore in on me. “Will you kill Ronnie’s killer, Mike?”
“I promised a friend I wouldn’t.”
“That’s too bad. That’s a shame.”
“But this friend is a cop who will see that the killer goes away for a long, long time.”
“That’s something, anyway.”
She put on the sunglasses and slipped out of the booth. Velda scooted out too, to give her a hug.
When Velda returned, she said, “That special client of Ronnie’s... who liked to get rough. What’s that tell you?”
“Well, two things come to mind. Vincent Colby frequents the Dungeon Room at the Tube.”
“That’s one.”
“And those black eyes that Sheila Ryan habitually gets? We may have been reading that wrong. What if it’s our client’s son who’s been battering that babe?”
“Our client’s son who wears Obsession?” She half-smiled, shook her head. “The one who knows some martial arts? Maybe after the hit-and-run outside Pete’s Chophouse, the dark side of Vincent Colby came out to play.”
I was nodding. “The bunkai knee-kick kills didn’t start in till he’d had the concussion.”
I got out of the booth, threw some bills down to cover the damage. Said, “You go home, doll. This long night isn’t over yet.”
Her hand found mine. “You must be dead on your feet, lover. Come home with me. Let’s get some rest and start back in on this tomorrow.”
I shook my head. “Our killer isn’t taking any time off. I don’t like the way the players in our little cast keep thinning. It’s only eleven. Like the song says, I’ll knock on your door around midnight.”
“Around midnight,” she said, not arguing.
The mist kept promising rain while the sky’s occasional rumble made a threat out of it. Only the glowing signs of chain retailers (B. Dalton) and fast-food (Nathan’s) burned through the haze to break the spell of the old Bohemian Village that lingered on tree-lined streets where the buildings were too low-slung to create a skyline. The wet night would not dissuade the dealers and muggers from frequenting Washington Square Park, though the former had the decency to set up shop on benches, while the latter clung to the darkness, the cops a no-show in an area mostly left to its own devices.
Yet the Village remained a state of mind, where rebels and outsiders, artists and scribblers, hustlers and dreamers, converged on disorganized streets that turned the grid of Manhattan into a game of pick-up sticks. You could still play chess here, catch a foreign film, groove to jazz, eat midnight pizza, and get hopelessly lost.
I was neither tourist nor newcomer to a part of town that said, “Go screw yourself,” and, “Welcome,” all at once. And knowing the growls and looks and downright refusals from cabbies who hated Village fares because of those goddamn streets down there, I drove myself — my black Ford always spooked residents into thinking it was an unmarked car, which only amused me.
The apartment I was looking for was on Morton Street, in a brick mid-block five-story with a fire escape riding its face. The trees along here were skimpy with autumn making way for winter, and parking on the street was scarce, but I found a spot two blocks down from my destination.
When I’d used the phone at the pub, I got the Ryan girl’s friend, who she was staying with, who said Sheila was out but expected back shortly. The friend said I could come around, her voice chirpy and sociable and vaguely familiar. It still seemed that way, when she buzzed me up.
On the third floor, at number 302, I saw why: the blonde in her early twenties who answered the door — with her hair all permed and teased, as if Marilyn Monroe’s hair had exploded but in a good way — was the Red Riding Hood receptionist/secretary from Colby, Daltree & Levine.
She wasn’t wearing the big-lensed glasses tonight, but the eyes themselves were plenty big, their deep blue emphasized by a lot of darker blue eye shadow. She wore a form-fitting black dress with a pattern that it took me a while to discern was little gray screwdrivers, pointing up and pointing down alternately.
“Mr. Hammer,” she said, the words emerging from a mouth so dark-red lipsticked it was damn near black, “you’re lucky you caught me! I just got back from a date and I’d have been in bed.”
That seemed a little ambiguous, but I didn’t ask for an explanation. Was she on something? Maybe a little tipsy?
Hat in hand, I asked, “Is Ms. Ryan back?”
“No, but it shouldn’t be too long. Come in, come in!”
I did, entering into a small living room with funky second-hand 1950s atomic furniture and a kitchenette where the dishes of a working week awaited attention. The wood floor had a central throw rug — black with colorful geometric shapes — and riding the pastel walls were a framed Andy Warhol print of Debbie Harry and original abstract paintings probably bought on a nearby street.
She deposited me on a comfy overstuffed Naugahyde two-seater sofa, then gestured to the kitchenette. “Can I get you a wine cooler or a light beer or anything?”
“No, I’m fine. Sorry to impose.”
Her voice had a musical lilt. “Sheila should be along soon. Do you mind if I get out of these things?”
Was that a trick question?
“Not at all,” I said.
A nearby amoeba-shaped coffee table, with boomerang designs, was scattered with Cosmo, Vogue and the New Yorker, from under which Playgirl cover boy Geraldo Rivera peeked. He was smiling at me, as if suppressing a wink. The second-hand store Leave It to Beaver-era furnishings struck me as a cheap way to put together a hip decor.
She came back with the make-up washed off, wrapped up in a belted white silk dressing gown that stopped at the knee. Without the war paint, she looked about sixteen. She plopped down next to me, sitting with her legs tucked under her and her arm along the sofa’s upper edge.
“I know who you are,” she said.
“Yeah, I’m the guy who came around Colby’s a couple of times lately.”
“No. I mean I know who you are.”
I shrugged. “That makes two of us.”
She frowned a little. “You mean you know who I am?”
Who’s on first?
“Not really,” I said. “But I know who I am. I’m Mike.”
“I’m Julie Olsen.”
“Pleased to meet you, Julie.”
With the vaudeville routine out of the way, she moved on. “Sheila told me some things about you. Said you’re famous, in a way.”