The door to the kitchen opened and a black kid walked out carrying a large grey tub. He loped over to a table and cleared it of dirty dishes and glasses. His hair was in cornrows and he had the gaunt look of someone who had seen too many long nights dancing with crack. How he managed to continue working surprised me, but by the way he looked I imagined he’d probably quit any day.
He walked by me on his way to another dirty table.
“Hey,” I said to him and held out a fifty.
The kid stopped and eyed the green in my hand. “Yeah?”
“Are you Malcolm?”
“Nope,” he said flatly but never took his eyes off of the cash.
I waved the bill in my hand. “I need to ask Malcolm a question.”
He looked around the restaurant. “Go ahead and ask.”
I shook my head and folded the bill in my hand. “Not here. Out back.”
“What’s the question?”
“Out back,” I said and got up from the table. I passed Malcolm on my way to the cashier. I dropped three bucks in front of the clerk. “I just had coffee. That should cover it and the tip.”
She nodded and took the cash.
Out back, I had just lit a cigarette when Malcolm came out. “Can I have one of those,” he asked with a motion towards my smoke. I gave him one and lit with my lighter.
“Where’s the money?”
I pulled the fifty out of my pocket and slipped it under the lip of the dumpster next to us. “You get it when you give me an answer.”
“Then ask your question.”
“Why was Fawn Taylor down on Sprague?”
His eyes widened and he stopped midway through an inhale on his cigarette. The smoke came out in bursts as he coughed. “You five-oh?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m looking into her death as an interested party.”
“Interested party? What’s that mean?”
“It means I want to know why she was down there.”
Malcolm looked over at the cash that hung from the dumpster. “She was workin’.”
“You mean hookin’?”
“Same thing, gee.”
“Why was she workin’?”
“Girl didn’t have no cash. Couldn’t steal any from her parents. Them folks never left shit lying around.”
“Why’d she need cash?”
Malcolm looked at me. “That’s more than fifty dollars worth of questions.”
“I’ll double it then. Why’d she need cash?”
“She needed more of that cookie-cookie crack than she could afford.”
“You got her smokin’ it?”
“I didn’t make the girl do nothing she didn’t want to do.”
“Who was she working for?”
Malcolm shrugged. “I dunno. She was independent.”
“No one’s independent.”
The kid laughed at me. “Listen, this is how it worked. I hooked her up with my dealer. She wanted some of the juice but he wouldn’t give it to her for free. So she let him fuck her for a hit. He told her if she wanted more to go and earn it on Sprague. That bitch sure could fuck for a girl her age.”
“You knew she was fourteen?”
“Yeah, I did. She knew what she wanted. I just helped her find it.”
“What did she want?”
“Black dick and good times.”
I pounced on him, forcing him into the building. When the back of his head hit the concrete wall, the cigarette fell from his mouth. I punched him hard in the gut and doubled him up. My hand grabbed his face and slammed his head again into the wall. I smashed him three times in to the wall and let him drop to the asphalt. He lay on the ground, moaning softly.
As I walked away I tucked my shirt into my pants and straightened my jacket. I shook free another Camel and lit it. I wandered through the parking lot of the Home Depot and entered the store.
An hour later, I climbed into a clean River City Taxi and told the driver I needed to go back to the Davenport hotel. He was a young, white kid in a pressed white shirt with a black tie. His spiky blonde hair and diamond stud earring clashed with the business attire but his attitude was professional none-the-less.
“Yes, sir,” he said when I told him my destination. “I’ll have you there in a few minutes.”
We were traveling westbound on Sprague behind a thick patch of traffic. The kid remained quiet except to ask me if I had a preference on a music station. When I told him I didn’t he turned off the radio. We rode in silence for a couple of miles when I saw it. Near Freya Street, the thing that nagged at me earlier when I was on Sprague finally worked its way into my consciousness. On one side of the street, an older white woman walked down the street in high heels and a short skirt. Across the street, a large black man walked at the same pace, his eyes always on her. His walking cane was for show and bounced lightly off the ground as he strolled.
“Do me a favor and stop the car.”
The driver looked over his shoulder at me before pulling into the parking lot of an auto detailing shop. “Sir?”
“I’m getting out here. What do I owe you?”
He rattled off an amount and I shoved some bills in his hand. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Axel.”
“Well, Axel, I want you to be my driver next time. If I ask for you by name, they’ll send you, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thanks,” I said and climbed out of the cab.
Axel radioed in to his dispatcher before pulling out of the parking lot. Across the street, a dark green Saturn pulled into a parking lot near the hooker. She walked over to the passenger window and talked to the driver for a moment before she climbed in. The car sped away from the area.
The black dude that followed her on my side of the street continued towards me. His stroll was vintage pimp and his eyes scanned the neighborhood. When he looked at me, I stared back. He stopped for a moment before strutting into a bar called The Hole.
I walked half a block and followed him into the bar.
The bar was dark and dingy. A dented brass rail ran the length of the counter behind which a fat, greasy man poured drinks. My reflection shone back at me in the large mirror that hung behind the bottles of booze. Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I found the pimp sitting in a back booth.
I wandered over to him and waited patiently while he finished talking to a little Asian whore who knelt by his side. She couldn’t have been more than twenty years old.
“Now, get out there and earn me some bank,” he cooed to the girl.
“Okay, Rolo,” she said and stood up. “You waiting for me?” she asked me with a smile that revealed a tooth missing on the left side of her mouth.
I shook my head and motioned towards the big man.
The girl looked back down at Rolo who nodded back. “It’s alright.”
When the girl was gone, he turned his attention to me. “You a cop?”
“No.”
“What the fuck you want?”
“Answers.”
His tongue darted over his lips. “About what?”
“About the business.”
A smile spread across his face. “You wanna start pimpin’?”
I sat across from him.
“I didn’t say you could sit down.”
“I didn’t ask.”
The smile turned into a snarl. “Be careful who you play hard with.”
I leaned in. “I am.”
Rolo smiled again and leaned slowly back in the booth. He put his hands behind his head. “What do you wanna know?”
“Who runs prostitution in this town?”
The smile faded from Rolo’s face. “You’re a cop.”
“I already told you no.”
“You tryin’ to move in on my territory then?” Anger flashed in his eyes and his nostrils flared.
“I’m trying to figure out who a girl was working for.”
“Why?”
From the inside of my jacket, I pulled out Fawn’s picture and slid it across the table to Rolo. “Because someone killed her.”
“She’s a young one. Looks like a debutante.”
“Were you running her?”
“If I was I wouldn’t tell you,” his eyes flashed up to me. “But she wasn’t in my stable and that’s the truth. But she looks familiar. I might have seen her once or twice before.”