Thirteen Million Dollar Pop

54

A whore in the morning was rarely a pretty sight, and this one was no exception. In fact, she proved the rule. Behr had felt he should get in to the office and show his face, but leaving Payroll Place down in the wholesale district he realized the address Sunny had texted him for her friend Lori was close by. Unlike speaking directly to Barnes, he believed he could explore the connection of this “certain investigator” and Kolodnik’s camp without mentioning Potempa, or his daughter, and then make a retreat. Or maybe he was just telling himself that so he could go get what he needed. Either way, he reached McCrea Street and the old industrial building that had been converted to high-dollar loft apartments. He made his way inside as a food delivery kid exited, took the elevator to the fourth floor, and set to banging on the large steel door for a while before he heard a muffled female voice from inside.

“Keep it in your pants … Just a sec …” she said.

A deadbolt lock bar clanged open and the door rolled to the side, revealing a woman who wouldn’t look young for long. She’d slept in her makeup, and there’d been a lot of it. Her eyes were caked in black smudge, her lips smeared red, and concealer rubbed off in patches revealed purple blotches and acne pits. Whatever mask she’d applied the night before was long gone. She was rank with cigarette smoke, dead cherry perfume, and body sweat. It was a wonder people paid for this. But her body was shapely and her flesh looked firm, and she hadn’t hit thirty, which was a kind of magic elixir to some men.

“Hey. Can I help you with something?” she asked.

“Invite me in,” Behr said.

“Why?”

“Because I need to talk to you.”

“Oh shit, cop?” she wondered.

“Nope.”

“If you’re not a cop, you are some kind of law guy, no?” she said.

Behr nodded. “I could use your insights on something,” he said.

“Am I in trouble?”

“You’re not,” Behr said, “yet.” Then he went to a leverage point that worked on every prostitute he’d ever met. “But my partner is over at Lenny Barnes’s place with his foot on the scumbag’s head, and if you don’t help, my partner’s gonna squash him like a grape.”

She swallowed and stepped aside, letting him enter.

“Look, just be cool with Lenny. I’ll help you as much as I can,” she said. The pimp victimized his women-emotionally, financially, often physically-but the psychological bond was deep, and the women stood up for these parasites, even when it cost them everything. Sometimes even their lives. The door rolled and clanged shut behind him.

Her loft was cavernous, with high ceilings and casement windows, and was stylishly decorated in a modernist yet comfortable design. The furniture wasn’t custom-she wasn’t rich-but it came from a higher-end chain store. The place was clean. He imagined she did outcall, and doubted she entertained clients much at home due to the personal-sanctuary feel here.

“What’s it about?” she asked.

It was clear Sunny hadn’t warned her about him. Good girl, he thought.

“Well, it’s about a certain client of yours,” Behr said.

“I figured. Do you want some juice?” she offered, crossing around a divider into her kitchen.

“No thanks,” Behr said, following, and keeping a close eye on her. She poured herself a glass.

“You know we don’t talk about our clients,” she said. “It’s an unwritten rule.”

“Yeah, like doctors.”

“Or priests,” she said, flashing a smile.

“I’m not asking you to identify him. I already know this guy sees you. And I’m not looking for bedroom dirt.”

“So it’s like anyone I’d know, an acquaintance as much as a client …” she said, getting comfortable with it. “All right.”

“Shugie Saunders. When did you meet him?” Behr asked.

“Oh, Shugie,” she said cryptically. “When did I meet him … let’s see … a little less than two years ago.”

“Where?”

“Over at the lobby bar at the Conrad. I was drinking with some friends. He came out of a dinner at Capital Grille and swung through for a ’capper. He saw me and beelined it right over.”

“How’d it start-regular attempt at courtship?”

“Nah. He’s not stupid. He’d set it up with Lenny. After a minute, he asked quietly if I was the escort. I said yeah.”

“You hook up that night?”

“Uh-huh. We had a few rounds with my friends. He got loaded up. Acting all swag, putting an arm around me, calling me his ‘little cocksucking blonde.’ ”

Behr eyed her to gauge whether that was a problem for her. But she just laughed.

“He’s a pretty big deal in this town, you know? His political connections … But that bravado shit sure didn’t last long,” she said.

“How’s that?”

“We got a room and went upstairs and I rocked his world,” she said, with more than a little pride. “After that”-she snapped her fingers-“he was a regular. A regular regular. He pretty much paid for this place,” she said, and laughed again.

“Okay,” Behr said, hoping to steer toward the topics that mattered to him, “so about six months after that, you’re all regular together, did you ever hear about his dealings with Bernie Kolodnik?”

“Sure.”

“On anything outside of politics? A big construction project. A casino.”

“Come on, man, Bernie Cool and Indy Flats? I heard about it real time. Shug talked about it like it was his kid practically. It was his big plan for our future. What’d he call it? His thirteen-million-dollar play, something like that. Pop. His thirteen-million-dollar pop.”

“So he had some kind of profit participation. Did Kolodnik give him a piece?”

“I doubt it. I’m guessing it was under the table, because Shug was always telling me: you don’t talk about this.”

“How’d it sound to you?” Behr wondered.

“Pretty damn good, if he was gonna get that rich …” she started, but then just shook her head. “You hear a lot of apple-pie promises in my field. You learn to wait until they come true … Anyway, yeah, if he wasn’t telling me about the deal, he was talking about it on his cell.”

“All right,” Behr said. “Jump ahead to more recently. He had need for a detective or an investigator at some point, and you-”

“That’s right. And my manager-well I guess you know who I’m talking about, Lenny-knew someone, so I made the connect.”

Behr felt his pulse race the way it did when he was hitting pay dirt. “You made the connect.”

“Yeah. I told Shug I could help him out. We all met here-Shug, Lenny, and Pat.”

“Pat,” Behr, said, the word barely getting out of his mouth.

“Yeah, Pat the detective. He and Shug went out to Fogo de whatever-that Brazilian meat place. Lenny split. He didn’t go. He and Pat weren’t friendly. Pat was up his ass about something, so Len was throwing him the introduction as a favor.”

“This Pat the detective,” Behr said, tapping his pen on his notebook like it was just an afterthought hardly worth asking about, “he that burly fella, last name Teague?”

“Yeah, yeah. I guess. I think so. Something Irishy sounding.”

Behr heard a ringing in his ears, and was distracted by the sun glare coming through the windows. He didn’t know if he was even speaking English for the rest of the interview. He just wanted to get out of there, and go face-to-face with Teague. He needed to hear how Shug would get rich off his piece with Kolodnik out of the way. And that was just for starters.

“You gonna call the dogs off on Lenny?” the girl asked. “I did good for you, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, I’ll call ’em off,” Behr said, heading for the door. “You did good.”