18
Susan Lucy’s address on Prospect Street was located on a plateau driven into the Y formed by Canal and Vernon Streets-right where John Woll had been mugged-and held tightly in position by St. Michael’s Cemetery, which cut, higher still, across its back. Previously the eighteenth-century neighborhood of a thriving middle class, it had been left behind at some point, high on its exclusive perch, to watch the rest of the city grow prosperous without it. Its homes-the multi-storied gingerbreads and Greek revivals so prevalent in New England-were now weather-beaten and worn, cut up into ramshackle apartments overlooking debris-strewn streets and scruffy yards. It was not a dangerous area, really-although it had its moments-but it was about as forlorn as Brattleboro could offer.
Number 43B was on the second floor of a building half faded red, half bare and graying wood, with a set of stairs attached to its side by pragmatic afterthought. There was no particular reason why Susan Lucey should be home in the middle of the day, but after checking the phone book and finding the address was still hers, the omen was too good to pass up.
I cautiously climbed the unshoveled, icy steps, the banister wobbling under my right hand. The wind whipped at my pant legs and froze my ears. I knocked on the door.
I waited a minute in total silence and knocked again, just for the hell of it. I heard a bang from somewhere inside. Footsteps crossed the floor and the door opened a crack, revealing a young woman’s round, unhealthy-looking face framed by heavy, dull brown hair.
“What do you want?” The voice was flat and hostile.
“Miss Lucey?”
“Who are you?”
“My name’s Gunther. I’m with the police.”
“You got a warrant?”
“Do I need one?”
“Fuck you, Mac.”
“No, wait.” I put my hand against the closing door. “I wouldn’t want a warrant. I just want to talk to you about Kimberly Harris.”
“She’s dead.”
“Let me make you a deal. Whatever you’ve got in there, whether it’s dope or gambling or who knows what, I’m not interested, okay? I just want to talk.”
“This is ancient history.”
“I don’t think so-not any more.”
She didn’t answer, but she didn’t close the door, either. off t th
“Did you read about the killing in the newspaper?”
“Yeah. What’s Kimberly got to do with that?”
“Maybe you can help me find out.”
She sucked on her lower lip and thought a moment. The back of my neck was starting to freeze. “No bust for anything you find in here-right?”
“Not unless it’s a dead body.”
She snorted. “It might as well be. Come on in.” She opened the door and I stepped into a dark cave of hot, rancid, pungent air. She walked across the room and kicked the far door open, a solid naked leg protruding from her stained bathrobe. “Party’s over. It’s the cops.”
There was a muttered oath from beyond and the sound of clothes being put on in a hurry. The outline of a man appeared in the doorway. He quickly turned his face away. “What is this?”
“I just want to talk with the lady.”
Lucey grabbed him by the arm. “That’s twenty bucks.”
He glanced over his shoulder at me; I could hear his brain working. “Pay the lady, or I might ask for some ID.” He reached into his pocket. “Christ, it was hardly worth it.”
“Mutual, I’m sure.” She plucked the twenty from his fingers and shoved it into her pocket.
He walked sideways through the room, keeping his face away from me, tripping over a pile of dirty clothes on the floor as he went. I grabbed his elbow and steadied him. He jerked away and stormed out with a bang.
“All these guys. Pretend they’re hotshots. Who cares what they look like?” She settled into a disemboweled armchair, tucking her legs under her. As an afterthought, having made sure I’d had a view, she tucked her robe around her more tightly. “Thanks for the support.”
I moved a smeared paper plate from a wooden chair and sat.
“Don’t mention it.” My eyes had become accustomed to the dark and I glanced around. The place looked like a cyclone had hit it; from the smell, it had been a long time ago.
“So, how do you connect me to Kimberly?”
“Charlie’s Pharmacy.”
“Oh, that old fruit.”
“How well did you know Kimberly?”
She smiled her best Scarlett O’Hara, complete with tilted head. “Why do you ask?”
I sighed. “How much time did that twenty buy?”
“Usually, as long as it takes. That guy was into overtime. But this might be dangerous-isn’t that what you said?”
“Not if we move quickly. If we can’t, everyone I come in contact with might be hurt.”
She let her head fall back and stre bakly. If wetched her neck. “Compromise time, huh? Okay, twenty’ll be fine.” She wiggled her fingers. I pulled out my wallet, got up, and laid the bills in her hand. At this rate, she was making a lot more than I did.
“I knew her well enough. We did stuff together.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Dinner, movies… We did a few doubles.”
“What do you mean?”
She laughed. “Not double features. Boy, you haven’t been around much. Two on one-you know. Guys pay a lot for that; makes them feel masculine. The joke is, we do it mostly for us. Closet lesbians, I guess.” She laughed again. “I hadn’t thought of that before.”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a cellophane bag. She pushed some of its contents into a small pipe and lit up. “Want some?”
“No. Thanks. Was she experienced at that kind of thing?”
“Tricking? No, but she was good at it. That’s one of the reasons we broke up; she got too good. I mean, she really got into it. With me, it gets to be a job after a while, if I’m at it for too long. But with her, the more she did, the more she wanted, and she’d give it away too-to total strangers. I don’t suppose partnerships last too long in this business anyway. Ours was no different.”
“How long did you work together?”
“Not too long. A couple of months, maybe.”
“Starting around Christmas?”
“Yeah. How did you know that?”
“Charlie again.”
“Oh.” She took a deep drag and held her breath.
“What was Kimberly like?”
She paused before letting the smoke out in a long hiss. “She was a hot little number. Touch her anywhere and she turned on. I got the feeling sex for her was like water for a man in the desert. And kinky, too. She didn’t care. I mean, there are things I won’t do, you know? But not her. She’d try anything.”
“Did she talk about her past? Where she came from, things like that?”
“Nope. Not a word. I asked her a couple of times. You know, like I once said she must have spent her life in a convent to come on the way she did, but she never picked up on it and I let it be. You learn not to ask too much.”
“I bet. Still, there are usually slips of the tongue, references to the past. Everybody talks about themselves at least a little.”
Lucey took another hit, and I waited for the process to be over.
“Not Kimberly. She said she had nothing to look back on-everything good lay ahead.”
“Unhappy childhood?”
“Hey, I told you: I don’t know.”
“So what prompted the comment about not looking back?”
“Oh, that was weird. We’d taken on this real strange one-an older guy. He was real skinny, didn’t talk much, never smiled. We did a number on him, a pretty good one, too, because we were both feeling good, but he just lay there. I mean, he wasn’t limp-he worked okay-but he didn’t get involved. None of the usual routine, you know? No sweat and wrestle. I said to Kimberly afterwards that he could have gotten as big a kick from his hand, instead of paying for us. I think I called him a cold fish, and that’s when she said something like, ‘Just like my old man.’ And then a little later she said what I told you.”
“Aside from her prowess in bed, what was she like? I mean her personality. Did she laugh a lot? Was she serious? Did she seem well educated?”