"Have I?"
"I said Kelly."
She shook her head. "No."
"Never was ever picked up and printed?"
"You mean arrested? For what?"
"Hookin', being a ho. You never was busted?"
"I'm not a whore, you moron, I'm a fashion model."
"What they call theirselves, except the ones on the street. They selling ass and want you to know it. Listen, the police gonna ask who's this Kelly with the man, hardly any clothes on, showing herself, they can see she's a ho. I say yeah, but high class, you understand, or Mr. Paradise wouldn't have nothing to do with her. You both ho's, keep it simple in my mind."
Kelly said, "You know it'll be in the paper."
"Yeah, I guess, and on the TV."
"Pictures of the famous lawyer and the prostitute. They'll find out soon enough it's Chloe. But while they're still thinking it's me :"
"What?"
"They'll call my dad."
"He live here?"
"In Florida, he's retired. He'll have to come up to arrange the funeral. He was just here yesterday."
Montez said, "Hmmmmm."
"You didn't think of that, did you?"
"All I been doing is thinking since he flipped the fuckin coin. If I'd known you two were coming tonight: See, but nobody told me." He was behind the chair again looking at himself in the window before he said, "Okay," like he was starting over. "The police gonna want to know all about little Kelly. Gonna ask you what she was like. She have a boyfriend was jealous? A pimp was angry at her for something? You don't know much about her, nothing of her family, where they might be at."
"Or her brother," Kelly said, "who'd beat the shit out of you?"
Montez grabbed a handful of her spiked hair and pulled her straight up in the chair, Kelly's hands on the chair arms, gasping until he let go.
"You don't know nothing will help them," Montez said, "and I don't either. Kelly? Chloe? Shit, I get 'em mixed up all the time. Names sound the same-you look enough alike it give me the idea."
"We're not exactly twins," Kelly said.
"You got the same hair, the same cute nose-you confuse me, you gonna confuse the police." Montez patted her on the head. "Babe, all I need is time to visit the bank and take this fuckin lawyer suit off and act my age. The time I got brought up for assaulting police officers the man represented me free of charge, put me in a cheap suit of clothes, laid a Bible on the table I read while he argued my case and showed I'd been intimidated. Set up, the man looking for a lawsuit. He got me off and I went to work for him, not knowing I'd become his monkey he dressed up and I'd perform as his cool number one and pimp for him. Understand, he's already paid for what's in the deposit box. What happens nobody claims it, the bank keeps it?"
"So it's okay to take it," Kelly said.
"I'm giving you a way to look at it," Montez said. "The man's not out anything he isn't already out. Understand? See, but now I got to get hold of it quick."
"Like the guy told you," Kelly said, feeling her buzz, "you've got two days, Smoke."
Montez said, "Uh-oh," stared at her and said, "Letting me know you can be a cool little bitch when you feel like it. But see, what you have to remember, we partners now. We don't come through we both get shot in the head."
After the cop with the tobacco breath left-it made her think of her dad-she sat staring at her reflection in the window, a little girl wrapped in her coat. Lost. Alone. She wished she had another alexander. Boy, they were good. She saw herself talking to the cop in that dumb, numb voice playing Chloe in shock. Looked at it the way she would study a proof sheet of poses and thought:
Are you nuts?
A black dude in a pinstriped suit tells you to act like you're in shock, never having ever seen anyone in shock before, and you do it. In front of a no-bullshit cop, not an ounce of sympathy in him, a gun on his belt, handcuffs-
Are you fucking nuts?
She turned halfway around in the chair to look past the back cushion to the doorway. Now there were two black women in the hall, the one in uniform and the other one, older, good-looking hair, very natural, in a long, dark quilted coat and red scarf that wasn't bad. Kelly said, "Excuse me, but what happens now?"
The older one, in her forties, stepped to the doorway and said, "You over your shock?"
"I feel a little better. I don't suppose I could go downstairs."
"Why you want to do that?"
"I want to go home."
"We can take you to 1300, police headquarters, talk to you there."
"Jesus Christ, you think I shot my best friend?"
"And your boyfriend?"
"The old man? This is the first time I've ever been here. I met him tonight." Getting a little frantic. She told herself to be cool, and said, "I have no idea what the fuck happened. Okay?"
The woman in the long quilted coat came in the room now saying, "I'm Sergeant Michaels. Why don't we turn your chair around and I'll sit on the bed?"
Kelly said, getting up and starting to move the chair, "Have you talked to Montez yet?"
"We talking to everybody," Jackie Michaels said, helping her with the chair. "The first thing I want to get straight, Chloe, are you a prostitute?"
9
Delsa stood in the doorway. he turned on the overhead light. The girl in the chair, facing him, looked up with her Halloween eyes and they stared at each other until Jackie came out to the hall and closed the door.
"Frank, that girl's no more in shock than I am. She's stoned. Musta toked her way out of her condition. You can smell it out here."
"You feel her up?"
"I lifted her mini."
"Yeah:?"
"She has on a pair of bikinis I couldn't of got into when I was ten years old. She ask me what I was looking for. I told her a gun. I went right at her and she got a little excited, but just for a minute. It was like she caught herself and turned it off. She seems alert, then acts a little goofy, like maybe she's stoned."
"Maybe she's pretending."
"Well, at times she seems over the top, if you know what I mean. You wonder if she's acting."
"She a hooker?"
"She says no, and never was. You're gonna like her, Frank."
Alex, the evidence tech, came along the hall with his camera and his kit. Delsa said, "Let's get it out of the way," and brought Alex in with him.
She was standing now, hands on her coat draped over the back of the chair. She looked around and said, "I didn't expect to be searched."
"Now you're having your picture taken. Miss Robinette, I'm Sergeant Frank Delsa, with Homicide. I'm sorry about your friends."
She said, "Only one was a friend," and looked at Alex. "Can I wash up first?"
"After," Delsa said. "We'd like to get you the way you are, part of the scene, the two of you dressed alike."
"Not quite."
"Were you topless, earlier?"
"No, I wasn't."
"Had your underwear on?"
The ceiling light went off.
Alex, his hand on the switch, said, "This is better. Five minutes, I'll be out of the way." He motioned to the girl and Delsa watched her cross from the chair to the dresser. Bare legs and sneakers, the sweatshirt covering her skirt. He watched her take her spot and look at the camera over her shoulder, knowing how to do it.
She said to Alex, "Like this?"
"I could sell that one," Alex said. "What I need is a straight front view, arms at your sides." He got ready to shoot and lowered the camera. "Frank, the bong. It's up to you."
Kelly stepped to the side. "How's this?"
Alex raised the camera again. He said, "That's good," snicked off three exposures and said to his model, "You have any tattoos?" She shook her head. "Then that's it."
"Why don't you do the bathroom," Delsa said, "and a G.S.R. test on her as long as you're here."