Her hand came out with all kinds of keys and a St. Christopher medal on a silver ring. She fingered through them wanting to see a front door key, please, that looked like hers. She found it, walked up to the entrance with him, put the key in the lock, tried to turn it: She said, "I must still be a little blitzed, I can't even pick the right key," and knew it was the wrong thing to say. Delsa waiting, watching her, Delsa saying why not let him try, and took the keys from her. He chose one, slipped it in the lock and opened the door. Kelly said, "Hey, you're good with keys." Sounding stupid and thinking, Keep your fucking mouth shut, okay? Jesus. They rode the elevator to the fourth level. In front of Kelly's door now he wanted to see if he could do it again. He unlocked the dead bolt, no problem; Kelly not exactly wide-eyed, more like the dumb girl watching. He tried two keys in the spring lock before the door opened. She said, "How do you do that?" Sounding amazed, still the dumb girl. She couldn't help it. He told her you try to match the key to the lock. "And if that doesn't work," Kelly said, "kick the door in?" He was a nice guy, he smiled. But then asked why she had so many keys. Yeah, welclass="underline" "They seem to accumulate," Kelly said. "Two or three, I don't even remember what they're for. Well, I do-one's for the locker downstairs, but I don't store anything in it. Another one gets you up on the roof. There's a sundeck:" Talking to be talking, filling the silence as he watched her.
He held up the ring of keys and picked out the ones he had used. "This is your front door key, and these are for your apartment, your loft. Okay?"
Smiling again, still the nice guy.
But the smile this time telling her he knew who she was.
Then why didn't he come out and say it?
Delsa, in no hurry, wanted her to tell him.
He followed her into a brick foyer and along a hall of closets, doors to a study, a bathroom. She snapped a switch and track lighting came on over the living area. She said, "Both the bedrooms are over here. The kitchen's over there and everything else is in between."
Everything being whatever two girls with style and money wanted, half a basketball court in muted tones and splashes of bright color, plants and weird paintings, a soft look to the rumpled sofa, chairs with bamboo arms, bare windows in brick walls, red Orientals on the tan-painted concrete floor, a ficus that filled a corner and reached almost to the ductwork in the fifteen-foot ceiling, a round dining table with a slate top, an exercise bike, a tiled counter separating the kitchen. Delsa took it all in before his gaze returned to the dining table and the mail and magazines waiting there.
"You don't have a computer?"
"In the study."
He had to ask, "How much does a loft this size go for?" She told him four hundred, and he said, "Four hundred thousand?" even though he knew it was what she meant-for the corner of an old laboratory where they used to make aspirin. He said, "It's nice," nodding his head.
She said, "You live in the city?"
"Cops had to until a few years ago. I'm still here, on the east side." He walked over to the slate dining table.
"Which one of you owns the place?"
The table held a few magazines, a pile of catalogs, a Victoria's Secret, a few bills, a large black envelope, ten by twelve. He turned to see her with a bright expression, eyebrows raised as she worked on an answer that should be easy, but having a tough time being Chloe.
"Whose name is it in?"
She said, "Mine," right away this time.
"You hold the mortgage?"
Delsa waited.
She said, "It's paid for."
Delsa let it go. She was probably telling the truth. Chloe owned the place-not out of reach for a nine-hundred-an-hour call girl; he assumed that, too-and Kelly, who hadn't moved from that spot since they came in the loft, shared expenses.
He said, "You get a lot of mail, don't you?"
She said, "Mostly junk."
He picked up the Victoria's Secret catalog and showed her the cover. "Are you in here?"
She said, "Kelly is," and after a moment, "page sixteen."
Delsa found it and looked at the girl in the black bikini panties well below her hip bones, brown skin, no stomach. None.
She came over in her coat and looked at the page. She said, "Yeah," in a quiet voice, close to him, "that's Kelly. It was shot last summer."
Delsa leafed through the magazine-she was playing with him again, wanting him to see her-and stopped. He said, "Here's Kelly again. In her underwear. Wait a minute. Or is it you?" Offering her a break.
She looked at herself wearing low-rise panties and thongs. "Yeah, I forgot, that is me, right."
"The thong," Delsa said, "doesn't look too comfortable."
She said, "I can't wait to get it off."
Delsa told himself she was agreeing that it was uncomfortable, not making a move on him, putting anything into what she said. Otherwise he'd get out of here now and come back with Jackie Michaels, not take a chance fucking up seventeen years on the job. She was a witness. Maybe the best-looking girl he had ever seen this close, or outside of the movies, or even counting the movies, but she was still a witness.
He picked up the black envelope and looked at the label, addressed to Kelly Barr, from a photographic studio. He turned to Kelly-as-Chloe, almost as tall as he was.
"You think this will tell me something about her?"
"They're just photos."
He walked away, bringing the catalog and the black envelope to the counter, took a kitchen knife from a rack and slit the envelope open.
"We'll need pictures of the complainant."
"The what?"
"The victim."
"They're swimsuit shots."
"Taken recently?"
"Last week."
Delsa pulled out a half dozen color prints and a proof sheet and laid them on the counter: Kelly full length in bikinis, tiny ones.
She came to the counter to look at herself, leaning in on her arms to study the proof sheet.
She heard him say, "Your glasses are in your bag. You don't need them?"
She straightened and turned to him.
"You figured it out."
"Even without the glasses."
"You saw her in the chair, her skirt up. You look at these shots :"
"And I know Chloe doesn't model swimming suits," Delsa said.
"Yesterday we happened to be looking at this catalog and she said, 'If you want to know why I never wear a thong, ask Mr. Paradise.' You know what she meant?"
"He didn't go for the Hitler look," Delsa said. "Just an old-fashioned guy. Are you gonna tell me who you are?"
"You already know."
"I'd like to hear you say it."
She shrugged in her cinnamon coat.
"Okay, I'm Kelly Barr. Now what?"
He told her she had gone through enough for one day. He'd pick her up in the morning and take her statement at 1300, police headquarters.