Mortal Stakes

CHAPTER TWELVE

THIRTEENTH STREET WAS a twenty-five-minute walk downtown and 116 was in the East Village between Second and Third.

There was a group of men outside 116, leaning against the parked cars with their shirts unbuttoned, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer from quart bottles. They were speaking Spanish. One Sixteen was a four-story brick house, which had long ago been painted yellow and from which the paint peeled in myriad patches. Next to it was a six-story four-unit apartment building newly done in light gray paint with the door and window frames and the fire escapes and the railing along the front steps a bright red. The beer drinkers had a portable radio that played Spanish music very loudly.

I went up the four steps to number 116 and rang the bell marked CUSTODIAN. Nothing happened, and I rang it again.

One of the beer drinkers said, ”Don’t work, man. Who you want?“

”I want the manager.“

”Inside, knock on the first door.“

”Thanks.“

In the entry was an empty bottle of Boone’s Farm apple wine and a sneaker without laces. Stairs led up against the left wall ahead of me, and a brief corridor went back into the building to the right of the stairs. I knocked on the first door and a woman answered the first knock.

She was tall and strongly built, olive skin and short black hair. A gray streak ran through her hair from the forehead back. She had on a man’s white shirt and cutoff jeans.

Her feet were bare, and her toenails were painted a dark plum color. She looked about forty-five.

I said, ”My name is Spenser. I’m a private detective from Boston, and I’m looking for a girl who lived here once about eight years ago.“

She smiled and her teeth were very white and even.

”Come in,“ she said. The room was large and square, and a lot of light came in through the high windows that faced out onto the street. The walls and ceiling were white, and there were red drapes at the windows and a red rug on the floor. In the middle of the room stood a big, square, thick-legged wooden table with a red linoleum top, a large bowl of fruit in the center and a high-backed wooden chair at either end. She gestured toward one of the chairs. ”Coffee?“ she said..

”Yes, thank you.“

I sat at the table and looked about the room while she disappeared through a bead-curtained archway to make the coffee. There was a red plush round-back Victorian sofa with mahogany arms in front of the windows and an assortment of Velazquez prints on the wall. She came back in with a carafe of coffee and two white china mugs on a round red tray.

”Cream or sugar?“

I shook my head. She poured the coffee into the cups, gave me one, and sat down at the other end of the table.

”The coffee is wonderful,“ I said.

”I grind it myself,“ she said. ”My name is Rose Estrada. How can I help you?“ There was a very small trace of another language in her speech.

I took out the picture of Linda Rabb that I’d taken at her apartment. ”This is a recent picture of a girl named Donna Burlington. In nineteen sixty-six, from August to November, she lived at this address. Can you tell me anything about her?“

She thought aloud as she looked at the picture. ”Nineteen sixty-six, my youngest would have been ten… Yes, I remember her, Donna Burlington. She came from somewhere in the Midwest. She seemed very young to be alone in New York, far from home. She was with a boy for a little while, but he didn’t stay.“

”What happened to her when she left you, do you know?“

”No.“

”No forwarding address?“

”None. I remember she had no money and was behind in her rent, and I sent her down to the welfare people on Thirty-fourth Street. And then one day she gave me all the back room rent in cash and moved out.“

”Any idea where she got the money?“

”I think she was hustling.“

”Prostitute?“

She nodded. ”I can’t be sure, but I know she was out often and she brought men home often and she used to spend time with a pimp named Violet.“

”Is he still around?“

”Oh sure. People like Violet are around forever.“

”Where do I find him?“

”He’s usually on Third Avenue, in front of the Casa Grande near Fifteenth.“

”What’s his full name?“

She shrugged. ”Just Violet,“ she said. ”More coffee?“

”Thank you.“ I held my cup out, and she poured from the carafe. Her hands were strong and clean, the fingernails the same plum color as her toenails. No rings. Outside I could hear the portable radio playing and occasionally the voices of the men drinking beer.

”She was a very small, thin, little girl,“ Rose Estrada said. ”Very scared. She didn’t want to be here, but she didn’t want to go home. She didn’t know anything about makeup or clothes. She didn’t know what to say to people. If she was turning tricks, it must have been very hard on her.“

I finished my coffee and stood. ”Thank you for the coffee and for the information,“ I said.

”Is she in trouble?“

”No, I don’t think so,“ I said. ”Nothing I can’t get her out of.“

We shook hands and I left. The street seemed hot and noisy after Rose Estrada’s apartment. I walked the half block to Third Ave and turned uptown. At the corner of Fourteenth Street a man in a covert cloth overcoat was urinating against the brick wall of a variety store. He was having trouble standing and lurched against the wall, holding his coat around him with one hand. Modesty, I thought, if you’re going to whiz on a wall, do it with modesty. A few feet downstream another man was lying on the sidewalk, knees bent, eyes closed.

Drinking buddies. I looked at my watch, it was two thirty in the afternoon.

At the corner of Fifteenth Street was a bar with a fake fieldstone front below a plate glass window. The entry to the left of the window was imitation oak. A small neon sign said CASA GRANDE, BEER ON DRAFT. At the curb in front of the Casa Grande were a white Continental and a maroon Coupe de Ville with a white vinyl roof. Leaning against the Coupe de Ville was a man who’d seen too many Superfly movies. He was a black man probably six-three in his socks and about six-seven in the open-toed red platform shoes he was wearing.

He was also wearing red-and-black argyle socks, black knickers, and a chain mail vest. A black Three Musketeers’ hat with an enormous red plume was tipped forward over his eyes. Subtle. All he lacked was a sign saying THE PIMP IS IN.

”Excuse me,“ I said, ”I’m looking for Violet.“

The pimp looked down at me from on top of his shoes and said, ”Why?“

”I was told he could give me information about a girl.“

”Someone’s talking shit to you, man. I don’t know nothing about no girl.“

”You Violet?“

He shrugged and looked down Third Avenue.

”I’m looking for information about a girl named Donna Burlington,“ I said.

The Lincoln started up, backed away from the curb, U-turned, and drove away.

”You federal?“ Violet said. ”I ain’t seen you around.“

”I’m not anything,“ I said. ”Just a guy looking to buy some information.“

”Well, I hope you got a license for that piece on your right hip then.“

Violet paid attention to detail. ”Okay.“ I took a card from my breast pocket and gave it to him. ”I’m a private cop.

From Boston. But I’m still buying information.“

”Baaahston.“ Violet laughed. ”Shit. What Donna do, steal some beans?“

”No, she stole some teenybopper clothes from a ladies’ dress shop and I think you’re wearing some of them.“

Violet laughed again. ”Hey, man, you want me to dress like one of you tight-assed honkies?“ He slapped one hand down on the hood of the Cadillac and whooped with laughter.

”Look at that little mother-loving Buster Brown suit. Shit.“

Tears were forming in his eyes.

”Look, Violet,“ I said. ”I didn’t come down here to write a sonnet about your Easter bonnet. How about I buy you a beer and we talk a little?“

”Yeah, why not, man? You said something about buying information?“

We went in the Casa Grande and sat at the bar. There was a Mets game on television down the bar. The bartender, a middle-aged man in a clean white shirt who looked like Gilbert Roland, came down and wiped the bar off in front of us.

”What’ll it be, gentlemen?“ he asked, looking carefully at a spot between my head and Violet’s.

”Two drafts,“ I said.

Violet said, ”Be cool, Hec, he’s okay. We just talking a little business.“

The bartender looked at me then. ”Okay, Violet,“ he said and drew the beers.

Violet took his hat off. His head was stark bald and smooth. ”Hec figured you for fuzz too. I hope you don’t think you working in disguise, man.“

I shook my head. ”You either,“ I said. Violet whooped again.

”What you want to know, man?“

I took out my picture of Donna Burlington and showed it to Violet. ”Know her eight years younger?“

”You mentioned buying. How much you buying for?“

”Fifty bucks.“

”That’s not much bread, man.“

”You don’t have to work very hard for it,“ I said. ”It’ll cover your next tankful in that brontosaurus out front.“

Violet nodded, drank half his beer, and said, ”Yeah, I remember Donna. Remembered her when you said her name.“

”Tell me about her.“

”A shit kicker,“ Violet said. ”Come from somewhere out in the woods. Real young when she worked for me.

Worked for me maybe six months.“

”How’d you meet her?“

”Her boyfriend was pimping her on my turf, man. I chased him off and she stayed with me.“

”She have any choice?“

Violet grinned. ”Not in this neighborhood, man.“

”How come you remember her so well?“

”She was white, man. Most of my chicks are black.“

”What happened to her?“

Violet shrugged. ”Moved uptown, fancy stuff, appointment only.“ He finished the beer. The bartender brought us two more without being asked.

”She work on her own?“

”Naw, she work for another broad, a madame, baby.

Very classy. Probably screwed only Baaahston dudes, dig?“

And again the whooping laugh.

”Can you give me the name?“

”I can get it, but that’s extra.“

”Another fifty?“

”That’s cool.“ Violet got up and went to a pay phone by the door. He was back in five minutes. ”Patricia Utley,“ he said. ”Fifty-seven East Thirty-seventh Street.“

”Thanks, Violet,“ I took a $100 bill out of my wallet and handed it to him. ”If you’re ever in Boston…“

Violet laughed again. ”Yeah, baby, if I ever want some beans…“

I finished the beer and got up. Violet turned and leaned his elbows on the bar. ”Hey, Spenser,“ he said. ”Utley works for very heavy people, dig?“

”That’s okay,“ I said. ”I don’t mind heavy work.“

”Well, you built for it, I give you that. But you walk around Utley careful, baby, this ain’t Boston.“

”Violet,“ I said, ”I’m not sure this is even earth.“