Taming a Sea Horse

18

The Salem waterfront was in the early throes of restoration chic. Run-down buildings were being rehabbed and condo-ized, people were buying jeeps and BMWs, the bars were serving nachos and potato skins, there were Vietnamese and Mexican restaurants, and it was only a matter of time before nouvelle cuisine was vying for position with Cajun cooking. Looming over all were the twin stacks of the 'power plant, which gently dusted the new condos with a fine black grit.

I drove down Derby Street past the Pickering Wharf development, full of restaurants, and shops that sold things like teddy bears and silk flowers, past the old custom house where Hawthorne had worked, past a barroom called In a Pig's Eye, and turned right onto Grey Street behind the House of Seven Gables.

Grey Street was very short and ended in a boatyard. Just before the boatyard was a five unit condominium development that hinted at having once been a warehouse. Floyd lived in unit five. He answered my second ring smoking a pipe, wearing Top-Siders and white duck pants and a short-sleeved khaki safari jacket. His hair was blond and longish and his mustache was thick and shagged over his upper lip. He was flawlessly tanned and was probably thought a hunk by sexually liberated young women.

I said, "Art Floyd?"

He smiled. "Absolutely," he said.

"My name is Spenser, and I want to talk with you about a kid named Ginger Buckey."

Floyd squinted at me, his bright blue eyes narrowing effectively. "Gee," he said, "I'm sorry, but I don't think I know anyone by that name."

"Oh, darn," I said. "I was so hoping you would. How about Perry Lehman?"

Floyd held the squint, his cheeks dimpling engagingly as he smiled in honest puzzlement, "Gee, mister," he said, "are you sure you've got the right guy? I don't know any of these people."

I put the flat of my hand against his chest and pushed him back into his living room and closed the front door behind us.

"Take your goddamned hands off me," Floyd said.

"Hand," I said. "It was only one hand."

Floyd was tall and slender and soft. He looked hard at me for a moment and then dropped his eyes.

"You're going to get yourself in real serious trouble," Floyd said.

"I'm used to it," I said. The living room was sunken and the dining room was two stairs up. I went and sat on the edge of the dining level. "You are a pimp, Arthur. A while ago you went up to Portland, Maine, and bought a young woman named Ginger Buckey from a whorehouse called Magic Massage. I want to know what you did with her."

Habit is hard to break. Floyd gave me his upward-mobile smile again. "Well, damn," he said. "I just don't know what to tell you."

I sat on the edge of the dining room and rested my weight on my hands and didn't say anything.

Floyd glanced at the front door. Somewhere in the house there was music playing; the Beatles' "Penny Lane." Floyd glanced at the phone behind me, through the dining room, in the kitchen. He looked back at me.

"Listen, guy," he said. "Let's get this straight before you get in so deep over your head that you can't get out. I can push some buttons and pull some switches on you that'll make your head spin."

"Excessive," I said. "Buttons, or switches. Either one would have been enough."

"I'm not joking," Floyd said. He frowned seriously. "I know some people who will swat you like a fly."

"Name one," I said. .

Floyd opened his mouth and closed it.

I smiled. "If you threaten me with your big connections you'll be answering my question."

"You'll find out," he said.

"Yes," I said, "I will."

The Beatles were now singing "Maxwell's Silver Hammer." It was okay but it wasn't the Ink Spots. Floyd looked at the door again. Then back at me. He put his hands in his side pockets. His pants were the kind that didn't have back pockets. Don't want to ruin the bun line.

"One phone call and I can have you killed," Floyd said.

"If the people you call feel like doing it," I said, "or can."

Beyond Floyd's front window, behind a gray rustic fence, the boatyard was busy. An apparatus like a mobile dry dock was being used to shuttle yachts to the water. Everything moved very slowly but without surcease.

Floyd moved away from me slightly, toward the door. I got up and went past him to the door and leaned against it. He looked at me. I looked at him. The Beatles moved into "Hey Jude." They weren't the Mills Brothers either.

"What do you want?" Floyd said.

"I want to know what you did with Ginger Buckey after you brought her back from Portland."

"Why do you care?" I didn't answer.

"I don't know anything about you," Floyd said. "You push in here, ask me a bunch of questions, block my way when I try to leave. I don't know anything about you. Why don't you get out of here."

I smiled at him. He walked across the room and sat on the edge of the dining level, as I had, then he stood up and walked back and leaned against the wall opposite me. He tilted his head to the side a bit and stared at me. The Beatles were still singing "Hey Jude."

"Okay," Floyd said. "You want to know what happened to her when I brought her down."

I nodded.

"I got her a job," Floyd said. "Good job at the Crown Prince Club."

"Hostess," I said.

"Sure. Chance to meet some class people and make some real money."

"And share it with you," I said.

Floyd shook his head. "No. Absolutely not. I took a finder's fee on this. I don't live off the earnings."

"The minute I saw you I knew you had the right stuff," I said.

"Well, I don't live off the earnings," he said. He looked a little sulky.

"We're proud of you back home, Artie."

"You want anything else?" he said.

"Nope."

"Then why don't you just leave," he said.

"It's just that I was breathless with admiration there for a minute," I said. "Hard to tear myself away."

"Try," he said.

The Beatles were singing "Michelle." They weren't the Platters either. Or the Ravens. Too bad.

"A thing is what it is," I said to Floyd, "and not something else."

He looked blank and pointed to the door and I departed.