Hundred Dollar Baby

25

My last serious talk with April had ended badly, so this time I talked with her in the front parlor of the mansion, with Hawk and Tedy Sapp present in case she attempted to seduce me again. She had been sulky since I'd rejected her, and she was sulky now.

"I've located Lionel Farnsworth," I said.

She had no reaction.

"You know him, don't you?" I said.

"No."

"He was with you twenty-three times in the year before you came up here," I said.

She shrugged.

"They're all johns," she said.

I nodded.

"I've had a talk with Ollie DeMars," I said.

"Who?"

"The gentleman who's been managing the harassment," I said. "He tells me that he was hired to do that by a gentleman he once knew in Allenwood prison, a man from New York named Lionel Farnsworth."

"I thought it was someone with an offshore bank account," April said.

"Ollie made that up," I said. "It was his old prison pal Lionel."

April didn't say anything.

"What we have here," I said, "is a remarkable coincidence. The guy who is extorting you is a guy you have known professionally at least twenty-three times."

She shrugged again.

"I have prevailed upon Ollie to leave you alone," I said.

"You think he will?" April said.

"Yes."

"Then I don't need you anymore," April said.

"That depends on how earnest Lionel is," I said.

"I told you I don't know Lionel."

"April," I said. "What the hell is going on?"

"Nothing," April said. "This Ollie person has been stopped. Thank you. That's all I need."

Hawk stood up.

"Our work here is done," he said to Tedy Sapp.

Sapp grinned.

"Ollie was no match for us," Sapp said.

He turned to April.

"I'll pack and be gone in an hour," he said. "Nice doing business with you."

"Say good-bye to the ladies," Hawk said.

April nodded. She didn't say anything. Hawk and Sapp left. April and I sat. The silence continued.

She cannot have lived the life she's led, Susan had said, without suffering a lot of damage. Under stress, she had said, the damage usually surfaces.

"There's nothing so bad I can't hear it," I said.

She nodded.

"There's nothing so bad I won't help you with it," I said.

She kept nodding.

I stood.

"Okay, Toots," I said. "No lectures. If you find that you need me again, you know where I am."

"Yes," she said.

I went to where she sat and bent over and kissed her. She stiffened slightly. I stepped back and pretended to shoot her with my forefinger, and turned and left.