Hundred Dollar Baby

8

There is a walkway down the center of the mall on Commonwealth Avenue, and the city had kept it shoveled during the winter. They hadn't yet gotten to it this snowfall, and there was maybe an inch of dry snow beneath our feet as April and I walked down toward the Public Garden in the early evening. The snowfall had slowed to a light haze that created halos on the streetlights and made the expensive condos in their handsome brownstone look especially comfortable.

"You've not heard from the anonymous caller," I said.

"No."

"Business is okay?" I said. "Hawk isn't scaring the clients?"

"Business is as good as ever," April said. "Hawk has stayed pretty much in the background, and there haven't been any incidents."

The evening commuter traffic in this part of town was on Storrow Drive and the Pike. The traffic moving on Commonwealth was mostly cabs. The only other pedestrians on the mall were people with dogs.

"So," I said, "since I last saw you…"

"You mean when I was still a kid?"

"Yeah."

"After I left you and Susan, I went back to Mrs. Utley, in New York, and… she sort of brought me up."

"You worked for her," I said.

"Yes. She taught me how to dress, how to walk, how to speak. She showed me how to order in good restaurants."

"She did a lot of that before you ran off with Rambeaux," I said.

"My God, you remember his name."

"I do," I said.

"She taught me to read books, and go to shows, and follow the newspaper so I could talk intelligently. I still read The New York Times every morning."

"Any love interests since Rambeaux?"

"No," April said. "And she always gave me the best assignments. No creepy stuff-young men, mostly. Regular customers."

"But none you've met that matter to you."

"Oh God, you're still such a romantic," she said. "Whores don't fall in love. I learned that from Rambeaux."

"He was the wrong guy to fall in love with," I said. "Doesn't mean there isn't a right one."

She laughed. I heard no humor in the sound.

"Men are pigs," she said.

"Oink," I said.

"Except you."

"There may be another one someplace that isn't," I said. "I'm not even absolutely sure Hawk is or isn't."

She sighed loudly.

"Most men are pigs, okay?" she said.

"So what's your social life?" I said.

"Social life?"

"Yeah."

"I don't have much of a social life," she said. "Mostly I work."

"Friends?"

"I get along well with my employees," she said.

"Any free time?" I said.

"If I have free time I go to the gym. How I look matters in my work."

"Turn tricks anymore?" I said.

"Now and then, for fun, with the right guy."

"What would make him right?"

"He'd need to be interested in someone my age, for one thing."

"Anything else?" I said. "That would make him right?"

"Oh, leave me the hell alone," April said. "I almost forget what you're like. You're still working on me."

"Working on you?" I said.

"You're still trying to save me, for crissake. This is what I am. You can't save me."

"Except maybe from the anonymous caller," I said.

We paused at Clarendon Street and waited for the light.

"I guess I earned that," she said. "I came to you for help. But couldn't you just help me with that?"

"Sure," I said.