Flood

26

AFTER I DROPPED off Margot I kept thinking about how her eyes didn’t look dead anymore. Maybe they were alive with hope, maybe with the joy of ripping off another sucker. There was only one sure way to find out, and that meant I had to find the Prof and Michelle both. There was only one place in the whole city where I might hit that exacta, a midtown joint called The Very Idea. So I stashed the Plymouth back at the office, walked a few blocks, and caught a cab uptown.

The Very Idea isn’t exactly closed to the public, but it’s not the kind of place where a citizen would stay very long. It’s supposed to be just for transsexuals and their friends-no transvestites, drag queens, fag hags, or hustlers-and most especially no tourists. It’s over near First Avenue, just a snort away from some of the heaviest singles bars. I heard that the folks in The Very Idea used to get together and practice their routines on each other before they tried them out on the citizens. They’re all supposed to do this while they get the hormone injections-Michelle told me you have to cross-dress for a year, stay in therapy, and get a clean bill of psychiatric health before they let you have the sex-change surgery. But the citizens are too easy to fool, and it’s not a good test. The club was the idea of a few of them, a private subscription deal. They didn’t expect to make money, just to have a place to hang out in peace. But somehow the joint caught on and now it does a good business. It’s not frantic like a gay bar, and I can see why folks like to just drop in to spend a few bucks and enjoy the quiet. But, like I said, most people aren’t welcome there.

I had the cab let me off a few blocks away, walked over to the river, and doubled back to the club. There was a middle-sized lunch crowd already in place and it looked more like Schrafft’s than a gay bar. Well, like Michelle said, it wasn’t a gay bar.

I didn’t see Michelle so I headed for the long counter. As usual, Ricardo was in place. He serves as sort of a maitre d’ and bartender at the same time, selected more for his courtly manners than anything else, I suppose. I know for damn sure they don’t need a bouncer in that joint. One time some jerkoff sailors found their way inside and started some trouble with Ricardo. He didn’t participate personally-just watched while his customers made short work of the sailors. I don’t know if the Shore Patrol declared the place off-limits after that or what, but I do know the sailors’ threats to return and demolish the place never came to anything. “Ah, Mr. Burke,” Ricardo greeted me, “a pleasure to see you again, sir. Will you have the usual?”

I said sure without the slightest idea of what he was talking about. Ricardo thinks questions like that add a lot of class to the joint. He put some silly-looking glass filled with dark liquid and a slice of lime in front of me. I didn’t touch it-I don’t drink. I put a twenty on the bar, Ricardo made it disappear and threw a bunch of bills back in the original spot. I let them ride and asked, “Seen Michelle?”

“Today?” A blank look on his face.

“Ricardo, you know me-what’s the problem?”

He let his eyes drift down to the money on the bar. Sure-if I was there as a friend, why would I have to bribe this guy just to find out where she was? Ricardo wasn’t as dumb as he acted. So I said, “For my drinks… and hers, right?”

He smiled. The man had about twice the normal allotment of teeth. “She’s in the dining room, sir.”

The dining room crack just meant she was around someplace, and that he would let her know I was here. I don’t know how they do that, and I never asked. But the system works-in less than five minutes Michelle swished through the door of the ladies room and took the stool next to me.

“Looking for company, handsome?”

“Actually,” I told her, “I’m looking for the Prophet.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“No, baby, I mean Prof, you know?”

“Oh, that Prof. He’ll be here. This place is on his regular rounds. But I guess you knew that.”

“Yeah. Look, I have to ask you something about your friend Margot.”

“Ask me what, honey?” said Michelle, her face calm but her eyes alert.

“Is she straight?”

“She’s a who-ah, sweetie, a pros-tit-tute.”

“That’s not what I mean, Michelle. She told me some things, and maybe she asked me to do some things. I don’t want to get it caught in a wringer.”

“One of my friends got it caught in a wringer. It cost a lot of money-she should have gone to Sweden. You know they don’t do the operations at Johns Hopkins anymore?”

“Yeah, I know. Do you know Margot’s pimp?”

“Dandy? Yes, I know the swine.”

“A swine because he’s running girls or-?”

“A swine, darling. A pain-freak-there’s a lot of them around nowadays. I don’t even think he’s a righteous pimp, you know? Like he marks the girls in the face-what kind of pimp does that?”

“What’s his weight?” I asked.

“Strictly fly, baby. He came from Boston where he was working some runaways. That’s his real thing, you know. He has some boys too. I heard he was even pimping when he was in the joint.”

“Why would he come down from Boston?”

“Baby, don’t you know the way it works? It’s harder to pimp in a small town. You have to be in good with the locals, and you can make enemies so easily. Here in the Rotten Apple there is room for everyone-you don’t have to be connected to work street girls, you don’t have to make payoffs, don’t even need a trick book. All you need is meat on the street, just some meat on the street. Maybe he had some trouble back in Boston-who knows?”

“You saying Margot is good people?”

“Honey, for a biological woman, she’s all right.”

“Okay,” I said, “now what about the message you gave her for me?”

Michelle leaned against me, put one hand on the back of my neck to bring me closer to her lips, and whispered, “I heard about a freak who did some kids, did them real bad. And when he got popped he dropped a pocketful of dimes, okay? I don’t know if he’s your man, but he sounds right. And one of the heavies he is supposed to have given up is this man who makes ugly movies. Burke, I won’t even say this man’s name-get it from someplace else.”

“Where?”

“Honey, I don’t know. I already said too much, even to you. This is the man you have to see if you want a snuff film, okay?” Michelle released her grip. “I love you, Burke,” and she leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. She swung off the stool and disappeared back into the club without another word.

I asked Ricardo for a roast beef sandwich and got some three-decker nonsense on toast with the crusts neatly trimmed off. I was eating and checking the paper when the Prof appeared in a floor-length raincoat and carrying an umbrella. The city was in for a long dry spell.

“It’s going to rain?” I asked the Prophet.

“It will rain,” he promised.

“What happened to seven-twenty-seven?”

“It was the wrong plane, my son. The number came seven-forty-seven. When you work with me, you have to think big.”

“So it was my fault?”

“God gives the word-mortals interpret the word of God. There is more than a single version of the Bible, and for good reason.”

“Do you think you might be persuaded to give the word to an individual here on earth?”

“This is always possible,” he said. “Are you going to finish that sandwich?”

“No,” I said, and shoved it across, signaling to Ricardo to give him whatever he wanted to drink. Ricardo appeared, looked questioningly at the Prophet, who asked, “Buttermilk?” smiling his sweet smile.

Ricardo served it up like he had a call for buttermilk every day. Maybe he did.

I turned to the Prof. “You know a halfass pimp named Dandy?”

The Prof handled the segue back to the prison yard without breaking stride. “I got the slant on the whole plant, Burke. He’s a new boy, green to the scene-talks a tough game but he hasn’t been with us long.”

“The word is he won’t be with us much longer if he doesn’t change his ways.”

“Talk to me,” said the Prof.

“Let me put it this way,” I said. “Sometimes you have to play the same hand you deal to other people.”

“What goes around, comes around-true enough. Who’s down on his case?”

“Among others, Max the Silent.”

“Max? Max the life-taking, widow-making, silent wind of death?”

“The same.”

“I got the message, Burke. The Prof will not be around when the shit comes down.”

“No, that’s not it, Prof. I want this fool to understand what he’s playing with, okay? I want to send him a message.”

“Which is…?”

“Clean up his act or take it on the road… alone.”

The Prof thought for a minute. “Leave his string behind, is that it?”

“As far as I know, he’s got no string-just one lady, and he’s working her too hard.”

“I got it. And I’ll give him the word. Can I tell him in public?”

“Why?”

“Look, Burke, I got to survive on these streets too. If I lay the message on him and he doesn’t listen, then Max moves on him, right?”

“Right.”

“So people connect me with Max-that’s a better insurance policy than Prudential.”

“Good enough. But he’s supposed to be a nasty bastard, Prof-he may not take the message too well.”

“If he wants to play, he’s got to pay,” said the Prof, and I put a pair of tens into his hand. He slid off the barstool, turned, and said: “What’s the word?”

“If there’s a reason, there’s a season?” I ventured.

“Yes, and if it’s truth, it can’t be treason,” he replied, and vanished into the daylight outside.

I left a ten on the bar for Ricardo and followed in the Prophet’s footsteps. At the rate this case was going I could end up on welfare-or veteran’s assistance, or disability, workman’s compensation, unemployment, or any of the other government paths to a regular income. I hoped not-it was a drag keeping track of all that paperwork.