“What would you say if I told you the blonde in the Pucci is a working prostitute?”
Carella looked at the woman again. “I don’t think I’d believe you.”
“Why not?”
“Well, to begin with, she’s a bit old for the young competition parading the streets these days. Secondly, she’s in deep conversation with a plump little girl who undoubtedly came down from Riverhead looking for a nice boy she can bed and eventually marry. And thirdly, she’s not selling anything. She’s waiting for one of those two or three older guys to make their move. Hookers don’t wait, Gerry. They make the approach, they do the selling. Business is business, and time is money. They can’t afford to sit around being coy.” Carella paused. “Is she a working prostitute?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Fletcher said. “Never even saw her before tonight. I was merely trying to indicate that appearances can sometimes be misleading. Drink up, there are a few more places I’d like to show you.”
He knew Fletcher well enough, he thought, to realize that the man was trying to tell him something. At lunch last Tuesday, Fletcher had transmitted a message and a challenge: I killed my wife, what can you do about it? Tonight, in a similar manner, he was attempting to indicate something else, but Carella could not fathom exactly what.
Fanny’s was only twenty blocks away from Paddy’s Bar & Grille, but as far removed from it as the moon. Whereas the first bar seemed to cater to a quiet crowd peacefully pursuing its romantic inclinations, Fanny’s was noisy and raucous, jammed to the rafters with men and women of all ages, wearing plastic hippie crap purchased in head shops up and down Jackson Avenue. If Paddy’s had registered a seven on the scale of desirability and respectability, Fanny’s rated a four. The language sounded like what Carella was used to hearing in the squadroom or in any of the cellblocks at Calcutta. There were half a dozen hookers lining the bar, suffering severely from the onslaught of half a hundred girls in skin-tight costumes wiggling their behinds and thrusting their breasts at anything warm and moving. The approaches were blatant and unashamed. There were more hands on asses than Carella could count, more meaningful glances and ardent sighs than seemed possible outside of a bedroom, more invitations than Truman Capote had sent out for his last masked ball. As Carella and Fletcher elbowed their way toward the bar, a brunette, wearing a short skirt and a see-through blouse without a bra, planted herself directly in Carella’s path and said, “What’s the password, stranger?”
“Scotch and soda,” Carella said.
“Wrong,” the girl answered, and moved closer to him.
“What is it then?” he asked.
“Kiss me,” she said.
“Some other time,” he answered.
“That isn’t a command,” she said, giggling, “it’s only the password.”
“Good,” he said.
“So if you want to get to the bar,” the girl said, “say the password.”
“Kiss me,” he said, and was moving past her when she threw her arms around his neck and delivered a wet, open-mouthed, tongue-writhing kiss that shook him to his socks. She held the kiss for what seemed like an hour and a half, and then, with her arms still around his neck, she moved her head back a fraction of an inch, touched her nose to his, and said, “I’ll see you later, stranger. I have to go to the Ladies.”
At the bar, Carella wondered when he had last kissed anyone but his wife, Teddy. As he ordered a drink, he felt a soft pressure against his arm, turned to his left, and found one of the hookers, a black girl in her twenties, leaning in against him and smiling.
“What took you so long to get here?” she said. “I’ve been waiting all night.”
“For what?” he said.
“For the good time I’m going to show you.”
“Wow, have you got the wrong number,” Carella said, and turned to Fletcher, who was already lifting his martini glass.
“Welcome to Fanny’s,” Fletcher said, and raised his glass in a toast, and then drank the contents in one swallow and signaled to the bartender for another. “You will find many of them on exhibit,” he said.
“Many what?”
“Many fannies. And other things as well.” The bartender brought a fresh martini with lightning speed and grace. Fletcher lifted the glass. “I hope you don’t mind if I drink myself into a stupor,” he said.
“Go right ahead,” Carella answered.
“Merely pour me into the car at the end of the night, and I’ll be eternally grateful.” Fletcher lifted the glass and drank. “I don’t usually consume this much alcohol,” he said, “but I’m very troubled about that boy . . .”
“What boy?” Carella said immediately.
“Listen, honey,” the black hooker said, “aren’t you going to buy a girl a drink?”
“Ralph Corwin,” Fletcher said. “I understand he’s having some difficulty with his lawyer, and . . .”
“Don’t be such a tight-ass,” the girl said. “I’m thirsty as hell here.”
Carella turned to look at her. Their eyes met and locked. The girl’s look said, What do you say? Do you want it or not? Carella’s look said, Honey, you’re asking for big trouble. Neither of them exchanged a word. The girl got up and moved four stools down the bar, to sit next to a middle-aged man wearing bell-bottomed suede pants and a tangerine-colored shirt with billowing sleeves.
“You were saying?” Carella said, turning again to Fletcher.
“I was saying I’d like to help Corwin somehow.”
“Help him?”
“Yes. Do you think Rollie Chabrier would consider it strange if I suggested a good defense lawyer for the boy?”
“I think he might consider it passing strange, yes.”
“Do I detect a note of sarcasm in your voice?”
“Not at all. Why, I’d guess that ninety percent of all men whose wives have been murdered will then go out and recommend a good defense lawyer for the accused murderer. You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’m not. Look, I know that what I’m about to say doesn’t go over very big with you . . .”
“Then don’t say it.”
“No, no, I want to say it.” Fletcher took another swallow of his drink. “I feel sorry for that boy. I feel . . .”
“Hello, stranger.” The brunette was back. She had taken the stool vacated by the hooker, and now she looped her arm familiarly through Carella’s and asked, “Did you miss me?”
“Desperately,” he said. “But I’m having a very important conversation with my friend here, and . . .”
“Never mind your friend,” the girl said. “I’m Alice Ann, who are you?”
“I’m Dick Nixon,” Carella said.
“Nice to meet you, Dick,” the girl answered. “Would you like to kiss me again?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have these terrible sores inside my mouth,” Carella said, “and I wouldn’t want you to catch them.”
Alice Ann looked at him and blinked. She reached for his drink then, apparently wishing to wash her possibly already contaminated mouth, realized it was his filthy drink, turned immediately to the man on her left, pushed his arm aside, grabbed his glass, and hastily swallowed a mouthful of disinfectant alcohol. The man said, “Hey!” and Alice Ann said, “Cool it, Buster,” and got off the stool, throwing Carella a look even more scorching than her kiss had been, and swiveling off toward a galaxy of young men glittering in a corner of the crowded room.
“You won’t understand this,” Fletcher said, “but I feel grateful to that boy. I’m glad he killed her, and I’d hate to see him punished for what I consider an act of mercy.”