Robert B. Parker’s Someone to Watch Over Me

7

Later that afternoon, Mattie and I met Chloe Turner at Joe Moakley Park on a green park bench overlooking Carson Beach. The rain had stopped and the sun returned, but most of the park and beach remained empty. Puppy Pearl romped and played across the wet grass while I sat down on a concrete retaining wall.

Pearl had taken to Chloe immediately, lapping her face with a thousand kisses, causing her to relax her shoulders and take in deep breaths.

“Thank you,” Chloe said, sifting through her backpack. “But I don’t want the money. I don’t want to have anything to do with that man. I agreed to five hundred to show up. But this makes me feel dirty. I don’t like it.”

“Who told you about meeting this guy?” Mattie said. “About making money from massages?”

“This girl at school,” Chloe said. “Can we not talk about it? I’ll split the five hundred with you like I promised. But I don’t want any more trouble. If my mom found out. Christ. She’d kick me out of the house.”

I smiled at Chloe. She was a cute girl who looked much younger than fifteen. She was as gangly as Pearl, with a chubby little girl’s face. Lots of baby fat and wide-set innocent eyes under blond bangs and shoulder-length hair. She had on khaki shorts and a blue-and-white boatneck shirt like French sailors used to wear.

“What this man did was a crime,” I said. “He should be arrested and go to jail.”

“Taking the T to the Common to go to some fancy men’s club,” Chloe said, shaking her head. “What the hell was I thinking? I got what I deserved. He probably thought I was a whore.”

“Don’t talk like that,” I said. “That’s what he wants you to feel like. People like that feed on power and making others feel weak and useless.”

“Can’t we just let it go?” Chloe said. “Please.”

Pearl had taken to running figure-eight patterns, bits of clipped grass across her brown flank. She seemed possessed of a demon or an adrenaline shot, looping and looping until she ran back to us and flopped on her back. Her small pink tongue lolled from her mouth. Pearl made Chloe smile as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

“I don’t want to quit,” Mattie said. “I’m not good at it. Who’s the girl?”

“Come on, Mattie.”

“If you don’t speak up,” Mattie said, “he’s gonna do it again to someone else. Some other kid. Only this time, that girl might not get away.”

Chloe looked to me. I nodded.

“I can’t pay you,” Chloe said.

“What if we take this man’s money as a down payment,” Mattie said, sounding much more entrepreneurial than me. I wouldn’t have asked for the money. But I wasn’t Mattie. And this wasn’t my case.

Chloe shrugged and reached down and pulled Pearl up into her arms. Pearl lapped at her face, kissing her nose and cheek. The tear stains disappeared instantly.

She looked to me. And then back to Mattie. She let out a long breath.

“Debbie Delgado.”

Mattie nodded.

“You know her?” Chloe said.

“I know Sandy Delgado,” Mattie said. “She was in my class.”

“Debbie is Sandy’s little sister,” Chloe said. “She’s a senior. I don’t know her, really. She came up to me at a basketball game and said I was cute. Wondered if I thought about being a model.”

“And how’d that get to a massage?” I said.

“She said this woman she knows is tied in with big people in New York,” Chloe said. “Said this woman discovered some top models from Boston. And that she’s always on the lookout for fresh faces.”

“This was the woman you met?”

“Yeah,” Chloe said. “Debbie said this woman wanted me to start networking. She didn’t say, but I figured this was the guy who ran the agency or had something to do in that business.”

“Foot Fetish Weekly?” I said.

Mattie shot me a very Mattie look. I remained quiet. Pearl looked content, lying on her back like an infant, in Chloe’s arms. She looked at me with sad brown eyes, letting me know her heart still belonged to me.

“What’s her name?” Chloe said.

“Pearl.”

“You just get her?”

“I’ve had her since I was a kid,” I said.

Chloe looked to Mattie. Mattie shrugged.

“Don’t ask,” Mattie said.

Chloe set Pearl back onto the sidewalk, and the adrenaline shot kicked in again, Pearl running figure eights until she plopped down again with exhaustion. Her rib cage rising and falling with exertion.

“Does Debbie know what happened?” Mattie said.

“Yes,” Chloe said, biting her lower lip. “She called me right after and said I’d embarrassed her. She said I screwed up.”

“Wow,” I said.

“Did she know about the backpack?” Mattie said.

“No.”

“Did you tell her about what the man did?”

“No.”

I crossed my legs at the ankles and leaned forward in a half-hearted stretch. Hawk and I had performed many walking lunges that morning, and it felt good to hang there for a moment.

“Can you ask her to meet you?” Mattie said.

“No.”

“Can you ask her to meet us?” I said.

“I don’t want to get in trouble,” she said. “I just want all this to go away. When I think about that man and what he was doing, I want to throw up. I got a boyfriend. I didn’t even tell him. He’d probably think I was a whore, too.”

“Please don’t say that,” I said.

Chloe nodded.

“Can you tell Debbie you know another girl who’s interested?” Mattie said.

I looked to Mattie and shook my head. Mattie, being Mattie, ignored me. I reached for Pearl and slipped the harness around her skinny brown body. She rewarded me with more kisses and a healthy dose of puppy breath.

“I know she’s got a summer job at an ice-cream shop at the bottom of Pru Center. That’s where we first talked about giving massages and how much it would pay. I tried to get on at the food court but they weren’t hiring.”

“Tell her you’re sorry you got nervous, but you have a friend who’s ready to make some fast money,” Mattie said. “And tell her I’m seventeen.”

“I don’t know, Mattie,” Chloe said. “What if she recognizes you?”

“It won’t matter,” Mattie said.

Chloe placed her hands on her hips and stared out onto the beach, where some kids had started a pickup game of volleyball. They laughed and played, someone setting up a large speaker beside some beach towels. Endless summer.

“Okay,” Chloe said, nodding. “But watch yourself, Mattie Sullivan. Something about this man. I don’t know. He was friendly at first. But something in him changed. He had a look, watching me as he took the towel off. I don’t know. It was weird. Like an animal. It looked as if he wanted to hurt me. Hurt me real bad.”

“No one’s hurting you,” I said. “Ever.”

Chloe looked to me and then back to Mattie. “This guy really do all those things you said?”

“Leaping tall buildings in a single bound?” I said. “Outracing locomotives?”

Mattie shrugged. “Yep,” she said. “I don’t want to say too much. It always goes to his head.”