Eight Million Ways to Die

Chapter 12

"I didn't know her all that well. I met her a year or so ago at the beauty parlor and we had a cup of coffee together, and reading between the lines of her conversation I figured out she wasn't the Avon lady. We exchanged numbers and we would talk now and then over the phone, but we never got close. Then whenever it was, a couple weeks ago, she called and wanted to get together. I was surprised. We'd been out of touch for months."

We were in Elaine Mardell's apartment on Fifty-first between First and Second. White shag carpet on the floor, bold abstract oils on the walls, something inoffensive on the stereo. I had a cup of coffee. Elaine was drinking a diet soda.

"What did she want?"

"She told me she was leaving her pimp. She wanted to make the break without getting hurt. Which is where you came in, remember?"

I nodded. "Why'd she come to you?"

"I don't know. I had the feeling she didn't have too many friends. It wasn't the sort of thing she could talk over with one of Chance's other girls, and she probably wouldn't have wanted to discuss it with someone who was out of the life altogether. And she was young, you know, compared to me. She may have seen me as a sort of wise old aunt."

"That's you, all right."

"Isn't it just? What was she, about twenty-five?"

"She said twenty-three. I think it said twenty-four in the papers."

"Jesus, that's young."

"I know."

"More coffee, Matt?"

"I'm fine."

"You know why I think she picked me to have that little conversation with? I think it's because I don't have a pimp." She settled herself in her seat, uncrossed and recrossed her legs. I remembered other times in this apartment, one of us on the couch, the other on the Eames chair, the same sort of unobtrusive music softening the room's hard edges.

I said, "You never had one, did you?"

"No."

"Do most girls?"

"The ones she knew did. I think you pretty much have to on the street. Somebody's got to defend your right to a particular corner and bail you out when you get arrested. When you work out of an apartment like this, well, that's different. But even so, most of the hookers I know have boyfriends."

"Is that the same thing as a pimp?"

"Oh, no. A boyfriend isn't running a batch of girls. He just happens to be your boyfriend. And you don't turn your money over to him. But you buy him a lot of things, just because you want to, and you help out with cash when he hits a rough spot in life, or if there's some business opportunity he wants to take advantage of, or because he needs a little loan and, gee, it's not like you were giving him the money. That's what a boyfriend is."

"Sort of a one-woman pimp."

"Sort of, except every girl swears her boyfriend's different, her relationship's different, and what never changes is who earns the money and who spends it."

"And you never had a pimp, did you? Or a boyfriend?"

"Never. I had my palm read once and the woman who did it was impressed. 'You have a double head line, dear,' she told me. 'Your head rules your heart.' " She came over, showed me her hand. "It's this line right here. See?"

"Looks good to me."

"Damn straight." She went back for her glass of soda, then came and sat on the couch beside me. She said, "When I learned what happened to Kim, the first thing I did was call you. But you weren't in."

"I never got the message."

"I didn't leave one. I hung up and called a travel agent I know. A couple hours later I was on a plane for Barbados."

"Were you afraid you were on somebody's list?"

"Hardly that. I just figured Chance killed her. I didn't think he'd start knocking off all her friends and relations. No, I just knew it was time for a break. A week at a beachfront hotel. A little sun in the afternoon, a little roulette at night, and enough steel-drum music and limbo dancing to hold me for a long time."

"Sounds good."

"Second night out I met a fellow at the poolside cocktail party. He was staying at the next hotel over. Very nice fellow, tax lawyer, got divorced a year and a half ago and then went through a tough little affair with someone too young for him, and he's over that now, and who does he meet but me."

"And?"

"And we had a nice little romance for the rest of the week. Long walks on the beach. Snorkeling, tennis. Romantic dinners. Drinks on my terrace. I had a terrace looking out at the sea."

"Here you've got one looking at the East River."

"It's not the same. We had a great time, Matt. Good sex, too. I thought I'd have my work cut out for me, you know, acting shy. But I didn't have to act. I was shy, and then I got over my shyness."

"You didn't tell him-"

"Are you kidding? Of course not. I told him I work for art galleries. I restore paintings. I'm a freelance art restoration expert. He thought that was really fascinating and he had a lot of questions. It would have been easier if I'd had the sense to pick something a little more humdrum, but, see, I wanted to be fascinating."

"Sure."

She had her hands in her lap and she was looking at them. Her face was unlined but her years were beginning to show themselves on the back of her hands. I wondered how old she was. Thirty-six? Thirty-eight?

"Matt, he wanted to see me in the city. We weren't telling each other it was love, nothing like that, but there was this sense that we might have something that might go somewhere, and he wanted to follow it up and see where it led. He lives in Merrick. You know where that is?"

"Sure, out on the Island. It's not that far from where I used to live."

"Is it nice out there?"

"Parts of it are very nice."

"I gave him a phony number. He knows my name but the phone here is unlisted. I haven't heard from him and I don't expect to. I wanted a week in the sun and a nice little romance, and that's what I had, but once in a while I think I could call him and make up something about the wrong number. I could lie my way out of that one."

"Probably."

"But for what? I could even lie my way into being his wife or girlfriend or something. And I could give up this apartment and drop my john book in the incinerator. But for what?" She looked at me. "I've got a good life. I save my money. I always saved my money."

"And invested it," I remembered. "Real estate, isn't it? Apartment houses in Queens?"

"Not just Queens. I could retire now if I had to and I'd get by all right. But why would I want to retire and what do I need with a boyfriend?"

"Why did Kim Dakkinen want to retire?"

"Is that what she wanted?"

"I don't know. Why did she want to leave Chance?"

She thought it over, shook her head. "I never asked."

"Neither did I."

"I've never been able to understand why a girl would have a pimp in the first place, so I don't need an explanation when somebody tells me she wants to get rid of one."

"Was she in love with anybody?"

"Kim? Could be. She didn't mention it if she was."

"Was she planning to leave the city?"

"I didn't get that impression. But she wouldn't tell me if she was, would she?"

"Hell," I said. I put my empty cup on the end table. "She was involved someway with someone. I just wish I knew who."

"Why?"

"Because that's the only way I'm going to find out who killed her."

"You think that's how it works?"

"That's usually how it works."

"Suppose I got killed tomorrow. What would you do?"

"I guess I'd send flowers."

"Seriously."

"Seriously? I'd check tax lawyers from Merrick."

"There's probably a few of them, don't you think?"

"Could be. I don't suppose there's too many who spent a week in Barbados this month. You said he stayed at the next hotel down the beach from you? I don't think he'd be hard to find, or that I'd have much trouble tying him to you."

"Would you actually do all that?"

"Why not?"

"No one would be paying you."

I laughed. "Well, you and I, we go back a ways, Elaine."

And we did. When I was on the force we'd had an arrangement. I helped her out when she needed the kind of hand a cop could provide, whether with the law or with an unruly john. She, in turn, had been available to me when I wanted her. What, I wondered suddenly, had that made me? Neither pimp nor boyfriend, but what?

"Matt? Why did Chance hire you?"

"To find out who killed her."

"Why?"

I thought of the reasons he'd given. "I don't know," I said.

"Why'd you take the job?"

"I can use the money, Elaine."

"You don't care that much about money."

"Sure I do. It's time I started providing for my old age. I've got an eye on these apartment houses in Queens."

"Very funny."

"I'll bet you're some landlady. I'll bet they love it when you come around to collect the rent."

"There's a management firm that takes care of all that. I never see my tenants."

"I wish you hadn't told me that. You just ruined a great fantasy."

"I'll bet."

I said, "Kim took me to bed after I finished the job for her. I went over there and she paid me and then afterward we went to bed."

"And?"

"It was like a tip, almost. A friendly way of saying thank you."

"Beats ten dollars at Christmas time."

"But would she do that? If she was involved with somebody, I mean. Would she just go to bed with me for the hell of it?"

"Matt, you're forgetting something."

She looked, for just a moment, like somebody's wise old aunt. I asked what I was forgetting.

"Matt, she was a hooker."

"Were you a hooker in Barbados?"

"I don't know," she said. "Maybe I was and maybe I wasn't. But I can tell you this much. I was damn glad when the mating dance was over and we were in bed together because for a change I knew what I was doing. And going to bed with guys is what I do."

I thought a moment. Then I said, "When I called earlier you said to give you an hour. Not to come over right away."

"So?"

"Because you had a john booked?"

"Well, it wasn't the meter reader."

"Did you need the money?"

"Did I need the money? What kind of question is that? I took the money."

"But you would have made the rent without it."

"And I wouldn't have missed any meals, or had to wear the panty hose with the runs in it. What's this all about?"

"So you saw the guy today because that's what you do."

"I suppose."

"Well, you're the one who asked why I took the job."

"It's what you do," she said.

"Something like that."

She thought of something and laughed. She said, "When Heinrich Heine was dying- the German poet?"

"Yeah?"

"When he was dying he said, 'God will pardon me. It's His profession.' "

"That's not bad."

"It's probably even better in German. I shtup and you detect and God pardons." She lowered her eyes. "I just hope He does," she said. "When it's my turn in the barrel, I hope He's not down in Barbados for the weekend."