Cinderella

6

Matthew disliked him on sight. Big beefy man with a wide forehead and prominent nose, coming across the deck to greet him, hamhock hand extended, blue jeans, and a T-shirt that had “Larkin Boats, The Way to the Water” printed on its front. The man was probably a saint, and yet — instant animosity. That happened sometimes. Even with women. Even with gorgeous women. Something clicked in the unconscious, who the hell knew? Maybe Larkin reminded him of a high school geometry teacher who’d given him an F. Or maybe there were just certain combinations of sights and smells that signaled to the brain and triggered defense mechanisms, watch out for this guy. Whatever it was, he didn’t like Larkin.

But there were some questions he needed to ask him.

And, after all, when he’d called, the man had been gracious enough to invite him to his home for an early afternoon drink, hadn’t he? Instead of asking him to stop by at his place of business. Gorgeous house on Fatback Key, all wood and glass and stone, sitting right on the Gulf. Matthew and Larkin sitting on lounges facing the water. Thunderheads building up out there the way they did every day at this time.

“It wasn’t Otto started calling her Cinderella,” Larkin said. “It was me.”

“When was that?” Matthew asked.

“When I hired him.”

“Which was when? I’m sorry to be asking all these questions, Mr. Larkin...”

“No, no, listen, I’m happy to help. What happened was I went to this ball in April sometime... well, down here there are more balls than you can count, I’m sure you know that.”

“Yes,” Matthew said.

“Over on the East Coast, in Miami, it’s your Cubans throwing a ball every time one of their daughters turns fifteen. That’s a custom with Spanish-speaking people,” Larkin said, educating Matthew. “The daughter turns fifteen, they dress her like a bride and throw a ball. All the friends rent lavender tuxedos and come to the party to wish the kid well on her fifteenth birthday because pretty soon she’ll be on her back on the beach with her legs spread and not too long after that she’ll be a fat old lady with a mustache.”

Larkin laughed.

Matthew said nothing. He was not liking Larkin any better.

“La quinceañera they call her,” Larkin said, “a lot of bullshit. Anyway, here in Calusa, we got balls to mark the seasons of the year, which is even more bullshit. Around Christmastime, you have your Snowflake Ball for the American Cancer Society, and in the spring, when the purple jacaranda trees are blooming, you got your Jacaranda Ball for Multiple Sclerosis or Muscular Dystrophy, I always mix them up. That’s where I met her. At the Jacaranda Ball.”

“This was...?”

“In April.”

“When in April?”

“Beginning of the month sometime. The jacarandas were just starting to bloom. In she walks, a pretty young thing in a blue gown the color of her eyes, slit high up on her right leg and scooped low over a very good chest. Danced with her all night long. Had her picture taken by a photographer who was charging fifty bucks a pop for charity. That’s the picture I gave Otto. The one I had taken at the ball. Did you see that picture?”

“Yes, it’s in the file,” Matthew said.

“Gorgeous girl, am I right?”

“Very pretty.”

“Sure, that’s the picture I gave him. Plus twenty-five bills as a retainer. Find her, I told him. Find Cinderella for me. That’s the first time I called her that.”

“Why was that?”

“Well, because I met her at a ball, didn’t I? Dressed like a princess, sapphire pin on her chest, high-heeled shoes looked like glass, all she’s missing is a tiara. Plus by morning the princess turned into a fuckin’ whore who stole my Rolex cost eight thousand dollars at Tiffany’s in New York.”

“Which is why you hired Otto.”

“Yeah.”

“To get your watch back.”

“To find her, never mind the watch. The watch is probably in Alaska by now, you think she’s gonna hang onto a hot watch engraved with my initials on the case?”

“You merely wanted him to find her.”

“Merely? You think I was giving him an easy job or something? Merely, the man says. I didn’t even know her name.”

“I thought she—”

“Yeah, she told me Angela West, but I looked in the phone book before I called Otto, and there were six Wests in it, none of them Angela. So all I had was this picture of a young blonde girl — Cinderella, right? Of which maybe there are fifty thousand such young blonde girls in the city of Calusa, so Otto’s supposed to run down to the beach and find her. That’s not such a merely, Matt, is it okay if I call you Matt?”

“Most people call me Matthew.”

“Matthew then,” Larkin said and shrugged as if to say there was no accounting for taste. “The point is, this was a hard job I gave Otto, and he wasn’t making a hell of a lot of progress, I can tell you that.”

“Why’d you go to him in the first place?”

“Why? Because I heard he was a good—”

“I mean, why didn’t you go to the police?”

“I didn’t want to.”

“Why not? She stole your watch.”

“I felt this was a personal matter. Between her and me. I didn’t want the police in this. Anyway, the police are full of shit, Matthew, I’m sure you know that.”

Matthew said nothing. Far out on the water, a trawler was silhouetted against the gray of the sky. Sandpipers skirted the waves as they nudged the shore. Overhead, a flight of pelicans hovered and then dipped into an air current. Matthew wondered if birds knew when it was going to rain.

“So when did you go to him?” he asked.

“Around the end of the month.”

“The end of April.”

“Yeah, sometime around the end of the month.”

“Why’d you wait so long?”

“What do you mean?”

“She stole your watch early in April, but you didn’t go to Otto till the end of the month. How come?”

“I was thinking it over,” Larkin said.

Domingo said since the mother wasn’t home they should go to the beach. Ernesto said the beach could wait. Neither of the men were terribly impressed with Venice, which was where Mrs. Santoro lived, in a cinderblock development house not too far off US 41. Domingo said he liked Miami Beach better. He said Venice looked “crommy.” That was one of the few English words he liked, crommy. He didn’t think Miami Beach was crommy. Miami Beach was like a small province in Cuba, and therefore gorgeous.

The men were waiting outside the house in the red LeBaron convertible. They had decided on a high profile here because all these crommy little houses were very close together and they couldn’t risk a break-in. Otherwise, they’d have preferred being inside the house when she got home. As it was, they had gone to the front door, and rung the bell and a neighbor next door had told them Annie wouldn’t be back from Miami till later today. They had not anticipated that high a profile, being talked to by a nosy neighbor who should’ve been inside watching a soap opera. A moment before Mrs. Santoro drove up — at about twenty after three that Wednesday afternoon — Domingo was complaining that there were no Spanish-speaking radio stations in this crommy town. Ernesto nudged him in the ribs as her car, a brown Dodge Caravan, pulled into the driveway. They got out of the convertible at once, and were walking toward her as she unlocked the kitchen door at the side of the house.

“Mrs. Santoro?” Ernesto said.

She turned, surprised. Mother of the two other women, Ernesto thought, no question about it. Same eyes, same mouth, bleached blonde hair trying to hide the gray, yes, but no doubt the mother. Same firm breasts, well they were somewhat heavy, true, but she had to be fifty, fifty-five, something like that, a bit thick in the waist, also, but good legs like the two daughters, she was the mother, no question.

“Miami Police Department,” he said, snapping open his wallet and flashing his driver’s license, and then snapping the wallet shut again. “We have some questions about your daughter.”

Annie heard an accent like a tortilla, words that came out as “Miami Polee Deparm, we ha’ some question abou’ you’ door,” but she supposed there were a lot of Hispanic cops in Dade County, and anyway he’d just shown her his ID card, hadn’t he?

“Yes, come in,” she said.

They went into the kitchen behind her.

She put her parcels down on the kitchen table and then led them into the living room. Venetian blinds closed, the room dim and cool, Florida in the summertime, up the street the sound of a lawn mower. You could smell mildew. Almost taste it.

“I just got back from there,” she said. “Miami.”

“Yes, we know,” Ernesto said.

“I went over to identify the body,” Annie said.

“Yes, that’s required,” he said.

The other one, the big one with the slick little mustache and the darting eyes, said nothing.

“It was horrible,” Annie said, and shook her head. “Have you ever been in a morgue? Well, of course you have,” she said.

“Yes,” Ernesto said.

“Horrible,” she said. “The smell in there.”

“Yes,” he said. “Mrs. Santoro, can you...?”

“Excuse me,” she said, “I didn’t get your names.”

“Oh, excuse me,” Ernesto said. “Detective Garcia.” His true surname was Moreno. “And my partner, Detective Rodriguez.” Domingo’s surname was Garzon. “I was wondering if you could tell us where we can locate your stepdaughter?”

“Jenny? Why do you want her?”

“Mrs. Santoro,” Ernesto said, “we want to make sure nothing happens to her like happened to your poor daughter in Miami Beach.”

“Was this drug-related?” Annie asked.

“Your daughter?”

“Yes. Did her death have something to do with drugs?”

“Perhaps,” Ernesto said.

“I thought so. But I don’t think Jenny’s into drugs. I mean, she’s into enough, believe me, but—”

She suddenly cut herself off.

“Yes?” Ernesto said.

“Nothing,” Annie said.

“We know she’s a prostitute,” Ernesto said.

“You do?”

“Yes. That’s not why we want to find her. We want to protect her, Mrs. Santoro.”

This all came out in Señor-Wences English.

“Thass nah why we wann to fine her. We wann to protec’ her, Meez Santoro” — well, the Santoro came out beautifully, of course, but everything else was dipped in guacamole. She thought Miami must be really overrun with them if they were hiring policemen who couldn’t even speak English.

“Who told you Jenny was a prostitute?” she asked.

Ernesto almost said “Alice,” forgetting for a moment that unless he had talked to the Miami daughter before she got killed, she couldn’t have told him anything. “Your daughter in Orlando,” he said, and then realized that was a mistake, too. The daughter in Orlando was also dead. The only difference was that Mrs. Santoro didn’t know about her yet. Chances were, not even the police knew about her yet. They would know about her when the body began stinking. Which in this heat should be very soon.

“I spoke to her yesterday,” Annie said. “She said she’d call back, about meeting me in Miami, but she never did. Well, Katie. Always unreliable,” she said, and made a dismissing gesture with her hand.

Ernesto knew they had spoken. That was why the daughter would soon be stinking up the neighborhood. “She was the one who gave us your address,” he said. Which was the truth. “Because she is concerned about your stepdaughter.” Which was a lie.

“Really?” Annie said. “That’s a surprise.”

Which is the bad thing about lying, Ernesto thought.

“Those two never got along,” Annie said. “Katie hates her, in fact. And you tell me she’s concerned about her? That’s hard to believe.”

“Well, people’s feelings sometimes change,” Ernesto said, and thought Lady, please don’t make this hard for us, okay? “Anyway, we’d like to know where she is,” he said. “Your stepdaughter Jenny.”

He said it “Henny.”

She almost laughed.

Instead, she said, “Last I heard, she was in Calusa.”

Good, Ernesto thought.

“Where in Calusa?” he said.

“I don’t know,” Annie said.

Ernesto looked at her. He glanced at Domingo. He was hoping she was not going to make this difficult for them. There had been enough blood.

“Why don’t you know?” he asked.

“Why don’t I know?” she said. “What do you mean, why don’t I know? If I don’t know, I don’t know.”

“You said she’s in Calusa...”

“Yes.”

“...but you don’t know where.”

“That’s right.”

“How can that be?”

“She called me when she got there. She hadn’t found a place yet, she was just calling to say she was okay. I haven’t heard from her since.”

“Ah,” Ernesto said. “When was this, please?”

“When she called me?”

“Yes, when she called you to say she was okay.”

“Early in April,” Annie said.

Ernesto nodded. He was thinking that was about right, she had disappeared around the end of March. She had probably gone straight to Calusa from Miami. While they were still trying to find her in all the hotel bars on the beach. So. Calusa. That was near Tampa, wasn’t it?

“Where’s Calusa?” he asked.

“Not far from here. Near Sarasota.”

“Tell me,” Ernesto said. “Does she still go by the name Jody Carmody?”

“Well, she uses a lot of names,” Annie said. “I never heard that one before, though, Jody Carmody. Why would she have used that, she hates her sisters, hates the Carmody name. I know she was using Angela West and Cheryl Blake, but Jody Carmody? That was my first husband’s name, Carmody. Not Jenny’s father, Jenny’s father was my second husband, he’s dead now, he died of a heart attack four years ago. I always thought it was him finding out about Jenny gave him the heart attack. That she was a prostitute, you know.”

Ernesto nodded impatiently. He did not want to hear this bullshit.

“Write down the names for me, please,” he said. “All the names she goes by.”

“Well, there’s just the ones I told you,” Annie said.

“Write them down, por favor. Please.”

She went into the kitchen, took a pad and pencil from where they were resting near the phone, and carried them back into the living room. She switched on a floor lamp near the couch, leaned over onto the coffee table, and began writing. As she wrote, she spoke. Ernesto had always admired that, people who could talk and write at the same time.

“She may be a redhead by now, who knows?” Annie said. “Or back to her real color, which is brown. Well, more like... well, yeah, brown I guess you would say. She was a blonde the last time I saw her. But who knows what she is now? Did I mention Virginia Darrow? Did I give you that name?”

“No,” Ernesto said.

“That’s one of the names she uses. Virginia Darrow. I like that one a lot. That and Melissa Blair. The last time I saw her, she was Virginia Darrow and she was a blonde. She looked terrific. Well, she’s a beautiful girl, would you like to see some pictures of her?”

“That would be helpful,” Ernesto said.

“These are all the names I can think of,” Annie said. “Oh wait, there’s one more she used to use, but that was when she first went to Los Angeles. When she was still trying to get in pictures. She used this very young name, it was Mary Jane Hopkins. But I don’t think she’s used that in a long time. Do you want me to put it down?”

“Put it down, please,” Ernesto said.

Annie wrote down the name, and then tore the sheet of paper from the pad and handed it to Ernesto. “Here you are, Detective Gomez,” she said, and then frowned. “I’m sorry,” she said, “is that what you told me?”

Ernesto had forgotten what he’d told her.

“Yes, that’s right,” he said, “Gomez.”

Domingo looked at him sharply.

Lady, Ernesto thought again, please don’t make this hard for us.

“Would you like to see the pictures?” she asked.

“Por favor,” he said, and remembered that he’d told her Garcia.

They went into the bedroom. She opened the closet door, and reached up onto the shelf. “Can you help me here?” she said. “It’s the gray box.”

Ernesto hefted the box down from the shelf. They went back into the living room again, and she began leafing through the pictures, proudly displaying them.

“These are my two daughters when they were little girls,” she said. “And this is my first husband. And this is when we used to live in New Jersey. And this is the four of us in Vero Beach, which is the first time we came to Florida. That was when Al decided he wanted to come live down here. My first husband. And this is—”

I don’t want to hear this bullshit, Ernesto thought.

“—my second husband, Dom. Well, Dominick Santoro. Do you know Santoro Brothers Construction in Miami? That used to be my husband. Ah, here’s Jenny,” he said.

Por fin, Ernesto thought, and almost sighed in relief.

He looked at the picture of a six-year-old girl.

“Have you got anything more recent?” he asked.

What it sounded like was, “Ha’ you gar anytin’ more rissin?”

“Oh sure, just a second,” she said, and began rummaging in the box. “The thing is, you know, there aren’t very many because she left home so young, she was only sixteen when she left for California. Wanted to be an actress. Well, she was very good, you know, ask anybody. She was the star of The Crucible, do you know that play? By Arthur Miller? When they did it at the school. She was the star. The dramatics teacher said she was a very talented young lady. Those were his exact words. A very talented young lady. Still, it broke her father’s heart when she went out there. Well, you know, he had a heart attack two years later. Here she is, look, she must be fifteen in this picture, isn’t she beautiful?”

She showed them a photograph of a girl in a bikini, good breasts in the skimpy top, wide hips, long legs, standing on tiptoe like a model, a grin on her face, dark hair blowing in the wind.

“I’ll tell you the truth,” Annie said, “she’s my stepdaughter and all, but she’s my favorite. Of all the three. The others are my natural daughters, but I like Jenny best. Is that a terrible thing for me to say? I’m supposed to be the wicked stepmother, I know, but I always thought of myself as her real mother, and I loved her better than my own daughters, still do. Here’s another one of her on the beach, this was taken in Florida, too, we were living in Bradenton at the time. She was very well developed at an early age, so beautiful. And smart, too, she used to get A’s even in mathematics, which is difficult for a girl. I don’t know what happened out there, I’ll never be able to understand how she became a prostitute, never. Well, listen, Alice, poor thing, was a drug addict, you know. And Katie’s been divorced twice, who knows what she’ll make of her life. She sent this from Los Angeles, this is fairly recent. It was a party at a producer’s house. In Hollywood. They give big parties, the producers out there in Hollywood.”

Ernesto looked at the photograph.

Blonde, good, that was more like it. Sexy chiquita grinning into the camera, silky low-cut dress, tits spilling over the top, one hand on her hip, the other holding a drink, long legs in high-heeled sandals.

He handed the picture to Domingo and then said, “Have you any more like this?”

“I think she sent some from Seattle when she was up there, let me see.” She began rummaging through the box again. “Is that wrong of me?” she asked. “To love her the most?” She turned to look into Ernesto’s face. “Detective Garcia?” she said. “Is that wrong of me?”

Domingo suddenly tensed.

“One cannot dictate to the heart,” Ernesto said, and tapped his chest.

“I’m sorry,” Annie said, puzzled. “You did say Garcia, didn’t you?”

Domingo was perched on the edge of the couch now, the picture of Jenny Santoro at a Hollywood party in his left hand, like Fay Wray in King Kong’s huge paw.

“Gomez,” Ernesto said, and placed his hand gently on Domingo’s right arm.

“Gomez, yes,” Annie said, and smiled. “I have a terrible time with names.”

“If you can find those other pictures,” Ernesto said, and returned the smile. “Por favor.”

In his pocket, Domingo loosened his grip on the switchblade knife.