The redhead opened her purse and started to rummage around. "Is it all right if I smoke?" she asked, still in that nasty-edged voice.
"As long as it's cigarettes," I told her.
"You have some religious convictions against marijuana, Mr. Burke?"
"Marijuana is against the law, lady," I told her, my voice toneless so the audience could get the sarcasm without the evidence to go with it. "If you have any illegal substances or objects on your person, I insist you remove them from this vehicle."
"Who're you trying to kid? After what you did in the…?"
"Shut your fucking mouth!" I snapped at her. "You really want to talk, you'll get your chance, okay? You want to make some tapes for the federales, you make them someplace else. Got it?"
She got it. Her face got hard again, like I'd insulted her, but she didn't say another word. Two hard dots of red stood out on her cheeks-not her makeup.
The big Plymouth worked the city streets the way it was created to dopassing through traffic as anonymously as a rat in a garbage dump, eating the potholes, smoothing the bumps, quiet and careful. The tinted windows were up on both sides, the air conditioner whisper-quiet, watching the streets.
I spotted the first bunch of working girls on 37th. Business was always slow this time of day, but the girls who worked the trucks and cabs for a living had to try harder than their sisters across town. On Lexington Avenue, the girls wore little shorts-and-tops outfits-over on the West Side, they worked the streets in bathing suits and heels. Even that was more subtle than you'd find elsewhere in the city-over in Hunts Point, they work in raincoats with nothing underneath.
Nothing but hard-core pros over here-black women who hadn't been girls since they were twelve, white ladies too old or too out of shape for the indoor work. The pimps kept the baby-faces for the middle-class trade farther east-the runaways worked Delancey and the Bowery or strictly indoors. I love the words some of the jerkoff journalists use in this town…like "call girls." The only thing these ladies ever used a phone for was to call a bail bondsman.
I slid the Plymouth to the curb. A tall black woman with a silky wig swivel-hipped over to the window, wearing one of those spandex suits, the green metallic threads shimmering in the sun. Her bright smile never got near her eyes.
"Looking for something, honey?"
"For someone. Michelle. She around?"
"You her man, baby?" the whore wanted to know, casting a sly glance at the Plymouth -it wasn't exactly your standard pimpmobile.
"Only if someone gets stupid with her," I told her, just so she'd know.
"Honey, I'm out here in this heat about some money, you understand?"
"You find her and bring her back over here, I'll pay one trick's worth-deal?"
"I don't work blind, man," she said, all business now.
"Tell her Burke needs to talk with her."
She seemed to be thinking it over-looked past me to where the princess was sitting, nodding her head like she understood what was going on. Traffic was slow-her sisters strolled the sidelines, bored but watchful. It had been a long time since they'd seen anything new-or anything good. Finally, she made up her mind. "I get a half-yard for a trick, baby. That's the price for bringing Michelle around, okay?"
There was no trick in the world this woman could get fifty bucks for, but insulting her wasn't going to get the job done.
"I'll pay you your piece, okay? Let your manager go look for his commission someplace else. Fifty-fifty, right?"
She flashed me a quick smile and swivel-hipped her way back to the other girls. No car-trick whore splits fifty-fifty with a pimp, but letting her think I believed that myth was worth the discount-for both of us. It's a sweet life out on the stroll in this city-every street-whore has a guaranteed time-share in the jailhouse. And the emergency ward is her only pension plan.
I pulled the Plymouth through a wide U-turn into the mouth of the construction site, reached in my pocket for a smoke, and got ready to do some waiting.
22
THE REDHEAD wasn't good at waiting like I was- I could tell her life hadn't been like that. Too fucking bad. I let my eyes roam around the flatlands, watching the whores work, checking for any backup the redhead might have brought along. It's easy to tail a car in the city, but anyone following us would have to be some distance away or I'd have spotted them by now.
She shifted her hips on the bench seat, recrossed her legs. The silk-on-silk sound was smooth and dry to my ears. Like a gun being cocked. "I've never been here before," she said. "What do you call this neighborhood?"
"After you talk to my friend, I'll talk to you, okay?"
"All I asked…"
"Don't ask me anything. Don't talk to me. When I know it's just me you're talking to, I'll answer, you understand? I'm not going to tell you again."
I was watching her face when I spoke to her. If she was wired and the backups were out of eyesight, she'd want our location to go out over the air-and I wasn't having any. Her face told me nothing-nothing except that she wasn't used to being talked to like that and she didn't like it. Well, I didn't like any of this, but if Julio was turning into a public-address system, I had to find out why. Everybody has rules they live by. Mine were: I wasn't going to die. I wasn't going to go back to prison. And I wasn't going to work a citizen's job for a living. In that order.
I spotted my bird-dog whore before I saw Michelle. She walked quickly over to the Plymouth, holding the wiggle to a minimum. She wanted to collect from me before a new customer took her for a ride.
"She'll be here in a minute, honey. You got my quarter like you said?"
"Right here," I told her, holding a twenty and a five in my left hand where she could see it.
The whore said nothing. I believed her that Michelle was coming-I'd had too good a look at her face for her to pull a Murphy game on me. That is, if she had any sense. But if she had any sense, she wouldn't be out here tricking.
Then I saw Michelle. The tall, willowy brunette was wearing pencil-leg red pants that stopped halfway up her calves-spike heels with ankle straps-a white parachute-silk blouse, the huge sleeves billowing as she moved. A long string of black beads around her neck and a man's black felt fedora on the back of her head. Like all her outfits, it would have looked ridiculous on anyone but her. That was the point, she told me once.
I released my hold on the bills and the whore flashed me a quick smile and moved back to her post. The redhead wasn't missing any of this, but she kept her mouth shut. I got out of the Plymouth and moved over to Michelle, my back blocking the redhead's view. I didn't have to watch her-Michelle would do that-she always knew what to do.
She put her left hand on my shoulder, reached up to kiss me on the cheek while her right hand snaked inside my jacket to the back of my belt. If there was a gun in there, she'd know the person inside the car was bad news. If I stepped to the side, the passenger would be looking at my pistol in Michelle's hand.
Michelle patted my back, whispered in my ear, "What's on, baby?"
"I'm not sure," I told her. "The redhead in the car braced me outside the courthouse. She's related to that old alligator-Julio. She wants something-I don't know what yet. The old bastard gave her some information about how to find me. She made it clear she was going to stay on my case until I talked to her."