Gone, No Forwarding

Twenty-One

Bart Heslip opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. He could feel the weight of Corinne’s head against his bare chest, could feel her feather-soft exhalations against his skin. He cupped his hand around her head, his fingers thrust through her frizzy hair.

He was suddenly out of bed, looking back at it. Corinne didn’t have frizzy hair. And sure as hell not that strange shade of orange that very black hair takes when it is hennaed. The girl grunted and sat up. She looked at Heslip from big soft eyes in a funny little monkey face. “You’re a strange dude, you know that? You could have made it with me last night, and you didn’t even try.”

Heslip, scratching his hard fighter’s belly through his T-shirt, mumbled something unintelligible. When he’d accepted her five-in-the-morning invitation to use her bed, she’d been in a chair across the room in a bulky nightgown, saying she’d roust him out when she got tired. Now she’d been nude in bed beside him.

Fleur said, “We could make it now, if...”

Heslip shook his head. She was sitting up nude, watching him. “You gay or something?”

“Something,” said Heslip. “You seen my pants?”

“Hanging over the oven door.” She was up on her knees, careless of her nudity, a puzzled look on her face. “Married? Steady fox?”

“Steady fox.”

“She’s back in San Francisco, right? You’re here in New Orleans. So how she ever know if you an’ me do a little number here on the bed?”

“I’d know.” Heslip was in pants and shirt now, sitting on a dinette chair and lacing his shoes. Abruptly, she was off the bed in a flash of warm brown flesh, and into the bathroom. She stuck a freckled brown face around the edge of the doorway. “Man, a long time ago in my life I wish I’d said no to me.”

She was gone. Water started to run. Then she stuck her face around the doorjamb again. “If I can’t seduce you, can I at least feed you?”

They ate facing one another across the tiny formica breakfast table, talking mostly about her life: six nights a week dancing topless in a sidestreet joint, occasionally peddling her butt to a live one when the money was right.

“Think you’ll ever get out of it?” Heslip asked.

“Ain’t got a whole lot of choices.” She buried her teeth in her slice of toast and an eighth-inch of peanut butter, and brought up the subject before Heslip could. “Sorta like Verna, after she was sure.”

“Sure of what?” Heslip drank coffee. Hadn’t had a bad cup yet. He was going to end up like Ballard if he wasn’t careful.

“About the baby.”

“You mean she...” Heslip dropped back in his chair to cast his eyes to the ceiling. “A baby. Oh, that’s terrific.”

“I don’t see nothing so wrong with it. She wanted that baby, worst way, cause it would be the first thing she’d ever had was hers alone. Wouldn’t have no abortion. That was murder, she said.”

“A trick baby?” Heslip used the term for babies born to prostitutes who have no idea of whom the father is.

“Or johnny Mack Brown’s. Maybe that’s why he stuck with her even after she got hooked on smack.”

Heslip asked casually, “Still mainlining when she left here?”

“Ain’t that shit so easy to get off of, man.”

“Anybody ever point out to her that babies use the same bloodstream as their mother while she’s carrying ’em? So if the mother is a junkie, the kid’s hooked before he’s born. They have to cold-turkey it right there in the hospital. How far along is she?”

Fleur counted on her fingers “Was over two months gone in February, when she quit flat-backin’ cause some dude knocked her around and hurt the kid. Quit dancing cause it was startin’ to show—”

“So she’s had it by now,” said Heslip. “She ever find her own father?”

“You know ’bout that?”

“Guessed.”

She went back into the bathroom to put on a face. “She sure knew a lot ’bout findin’ people. Wrote away to Baton Rouge for his auto registration and driver’s license, stuff like that...” By the shape of her words, they were spoken around a lipstick being applied. She came out pressing a Kleenex between her lips to get off the excess. “Let’s go talk to him.”

Heslip was on his feet, draining the last coffee from his cup.

“So she found him.”

“She found him. I went with her when she went to see him. Was a mean, ugly dude in a fancy house. Told us to leave.”

“Maybe we’ll do better with him,” said Heslip.

Down in the street, he unlocked his rental car, then stopped to drum thoughtful fingers on the roof as Fleur got in. He was sure he’d left it unlocked, because that way kids wouldn’t break a window to get in and boost it. Would a kid relock it afterwards?

To hell with it. Fleur directed him to Magazine Street and then over to Jackson Ave which eventually put them on the I-10 expressway. Heslip listened to her chatter, as bright and pleasant as rain on the roof, and wondered what Corinne was doing just then at the travel agency under the Sutter-Stockton Garage.

Corinne was getting a breather on the phone. The heavy voice said, “Fleur. The broad’s name is Fleur.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The one in New Orleans. The topless dancer.”

Corinne held the receiver away as if expecting it to squirt water at her like the fake boutonnières that used to be advertised in comic books. She returned it to her face. “This is a travel agency,” she said, “not a massage parlor.”

“Heslip. He slept with her last night,” said the husky, half-whispering voice. The breathing got heavier. “Lemme tell you what he did to her. First he...”

She was so astounded that she actually listened for several seconds before slamming down the phone.

“What’s the matter, Corinne?” asked Toni, the other girl in the office. “You sick or something?”

Corinne waved a hand rather weakly. “Just... a weird call.”

“An obscene call?”

“Uh... something like that.” Then she added very quickly, “Just a breather.” Toni was an ardent libber and very behind self-defense: thirty-seven ways to geld a man with bare hands, feet, or sarcasm. “I hung up on him, he won’t call back.”

She put the incident from her mind, only it wouldn’t stay put. Bart was in New Orleans, after all. Looking for a hooker. And a lot of hookers hung around topless bars. Fleur. The caller had used a specific name. Would he do that if it was just a crank call?

But it was silly to think that way. What she would do, she would call Giselle at DKA and tell her about it. The call probably had something to do with the license thing. Only when she called, Giselle wasn’t there. Nor were Kearny, Larry, or O’B. Probably all over at those licensing hearings...

At which Hec Tranquillini was putting Simson on the grill at last, starting gently, hoping to pry him open by careful manipulation. Because that was the only way in the world he was going to be able to keep excluding that damned letter.

“For the record once again, please, what is your name?”

“Jeffrey L. Simson.”

“Have you gone by any other names?”

“Yes, sir.” Simson obviously had been well-briefed. “Jackson J. Jacoby, that’s J-A-C-O-B-Y, and Jeffrey J. Jacuzzi, that’s J-A-C-U-Z-Z-I.”

“What a lot of names. How old are you, Mr. Simson-Jacoby-Jacuzzi?”

“Objection. Those were professional pseudonyms, not—”

“I withdraw the question in that form. Your age, Mr. Simson?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Where do you live?”

“One-four-seven-two Fort Point, Los Angeles.”

“How long have you lived there?”

“For I guess a month or something like that?” Tranquillini saw his opening, but did nothing to show he was going through it. “And before that?”

“Avenue Fifty in Eagle Rock. Near Occidental College.”

“What number on Avenue Fifty?”

“Um... Gee, I’m not sure...”

“How long were you at number um Avenue Fifty?”

Delaney was on his feet. “Your Honor, counsel’s sarcasm is neither witty nor necessary. The witness is responding as best—”

“I apologize to the witness,” said Tranquillini meekly. “How long were you at the Avenue Fifty address?”

“Well, I guess it must have been... maybe four or five months.”

“And before that?”

“In San Francisco for two years.”

Tranquillini took a chance. “Most of that at a single address, I believe?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Could you give us that address, please?”

Delaney had another objection. As Tranquillini had hoped, he obviously was trying to keep Simson’s homosexuality out because he thought that was what Tranquillini was trying to get in. “I fail to see the relevance of this line of questioning.”

“Is that an objection?” asked the Hearing Officer.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Overruled.”

“Do you remember the address, Mr. Simson?”

“Not the street number — thirty-three-hundred something. It was just a block off Mission Street.”

“You had a roommate there, did you not, who—”

Delaney was up. “Objection.”

“I withdraw the question. Do you remember which street it was, Mr. Simson?”

“Ah... Sure! It was Twenty-fourth Street.” He smiled in relief. “Thirty-three, uh... Yes: Thirty-three ninety-six.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Simson,” said Tranquillini in a suddenly significant voice. He looked up from his papers. “When did you work for Kearny Associates?”

“From some time last year until—”

“What was the specific date you started working for them?”

“I believe it was... ah... September? October?”

Delaney was on his feet again. “Does counsel plan to take this man through the last year of his life minute-by-minute?”

“This does seem rather extended, Mr. Tranquillini.”

Tranquillini avoided saying what he was doing: establishing

I the witness’s obvious difficulty in remembering detail. Instead, he said, “I request the utmost latitude with this witness because his is the only direct evidence against my client which the State has yet produced. Therefore I feel—”

“Counsel is stalling, Your Honor.” Delaney was advancing on the bench. “He has no direct evidence of his own...”

“If the State would quit interposing objections, I could proceed with my interrogation. But since we are discussing motions, Your Honor, I am still waiting for a ruling on mine of Monday afternoon concerning a subpoena for Mr. Pivarski...”

Delaney was shouting. Tranquillini covertly checked his watch. Oh yes. Old time was yet afleeting. Every minute spent this way gave Bart Heslip extra time to look for Verna Rounds.