Pimp for the Dead

by Ralph Dennis

  “I think you’d better speak to our bursar, Mr. Franklin.”

  “Might as well.”

  She led me down a hallway. All the doors were closed, except for the one directly at the end of it. Just outside the door, she waved me to a stop and went in and closed the door behind her. I edged up to the door, but it was a short conversation and she must have been whispering. I watched the doorknob and, when it turned, I backed away.

  “Mr. Franklin will see you now.”

  It was a big office. The walls had started out white, like the rest of the place, but somebody had done a sort of Peter Max all over the walls in ropes of red and black and yellow. The man behind the desk was slim, very slight, and deeply tanned. He was wearing a red blazer with huge silver buttons, a silver gray shirt, and a polka dot red–and–white ascot. He looked dwarfed by the desk, and I made my guess that he probably wore elevator shoes.

  “Yes, Mr. …?”

  “Barrow,” I said. “John Barrow.”

  He offered his hand and I got a clammy touch of it. It was like a girl’s was supposed to be, creamy and tender as a baby’s. “Miss Hunter said you have some mistaken belief that your daughter is or was enrolled at our school.”

  “If it’s a mistake, it’s not mine.”

  “She said our records …”

  “I’ve got the check to prove it,” I said. I got out the check again and gave him a slow look at both sides. Franklin didn’t seem as bothered by it as the girl out at the desk had been.

  “You saw Miss Hunter look in our files?”

  I nodded.

  “Then it’s probably quite simple.” He pushed back his chair and stood up. I gave myself the prize. He was wearing elevator shoes. “If she is not in the front file, it is quite possible she never matriculated.” He reached a file cabinet and unlocked and drew out the top drawer.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means she dropped out without ever really attending a class,” he said. “You said Barrow, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  His face away from me, he worked through a thin stack of folders. His fingers stopped. “Joy Lynn?” he asked.

  “That’s her.”

  He pulled the file out and held it so that I couldn’t see the tab on it. He opened it and read for a few seconds before he nodded to himself and lifted his eyes. “I remember now. Your daughter did make application and she was accepted. On June 12th, two days before her classes were to begin, she came by to see me. I don’t remember her, but my notes say that I talked to her. She’d changed her mind and she wanted her tuition back. She was given a check for four hundred and fifty dollars. The other fifty dollars we held back to cover our expenses.” He closed the folder. “That would explain why she isn’t in the file in the lobby. She never really entered the school.”

  “You mail the check to her?”

  “What?”

  “You have an address?”

  “We gave her a check that same day,” he said.

  “Is that usual?”

  “No, but she insisted.”

  I took a step toward him. “You mind if I see that folder?”

  “These files are not open to public inspection.” He leaned over quickly, jammed the file into the drawer, and slammed it shut. He slammed in the lock with the palm of a tiny hand.

  “I’d like some real proof that my daughter received her refund.”

  “Your daughter will verify that,” he said.

  “Your canceled check would, too,” I said.

  “That is a matter for our bookkeeper … and she is on vacation.” He returned to his chair and sat down. “Is that all, Mr. Barrow?”

  “For the time,” I said. “Unless I find you’ve been lying to me.”

  “Good day, then.”

  I went back down the hallway and into the lobby. The girl behind the desk looked at me like she couldn’t remember exactly where she’d seen me before. Or if she had ever seen me before.

  “And you didn’t believe him?”

  “Maybe,” I said, “and maybe not.”

  “It sounds possible. Girl comes to town, this pimp meets her and starts chewing on her and sucking her blood. He tells her she don’t need any beauty and charm school, so why don’t she get her pretty ass on down there and get that tuition money back?”

  We’d left the car in the parking lot and walked down a block or two, and down the steps into Underground Atlanta. At the Crêpes de Paris, we’d had a martini and, after that, a fresh mushroom salad and the crepes with shrimp and a creamy sauce, and a bottle of a dry white wine.

  “I’d like to kick his ass. I didn’t like his fucking attitude.” I sipped at my coffee. “Maybe it was because he was a midget. You know how little men act.”

  Hump smiled and broke it off in me. “To me, you’re a little man, too.”

  “You got plans for the evening?”

  “Nothing much,” he said.

  “I thought we’d do some whore-hunting. That cocksman friend of Barrow’s said he saw Joy Lynn at North Avenue and Peachtree. It might be worth a try, cruising by there a few times tonight.”

  “It’s Friday,” Hump said, “and they’ll be out after the weekend dollar.”

  I drove home and dropped him next to his car. I said I’d pick him up at eight. After he drove away, I walked around the house and up to the terrace, where the garden plot was. It was pretty badly grown over, and there were dead limbs from the winter. Grass and stinking weeds. Just looking at it made me tired. I decided I’d take another day to think about it and, if I got any more static from Marcy, I’d hire somebody to clear it and break up the ground and turn it.

  That decision made and off my back, I went into the house and took a three-hour nap.

  It was a couple of minutes after eight when I pulled up in front of Hump’s apartment house. He was standing out by the steps, smoking a cigarette and watching the traffic go by. He tossed his smoke in the gutter and headed around the front of my car for the passenger seat.

  “You drive,” I said.

  He got behind the wheel. “For any good reason?”

  “In case we see Joy Lynn. I want to be able to step out in a hurry and have my few words with her.”

  For the next hour or so, we made a circuit from Linden Avenue, where Crawford Long Hospital is, down to Peachtree Place. Peachtree Place is the old 9th Street, so we were covering a good part of the Strip. There was a lot of whore action but no sign of Joy Lynn. Unless we’d missed her. That was possible, if she’d done something with her hair or was wearing a wig. I just hoped she hadn’t. Barrow’s friend had recognized her right away, and I guess that meant there hadn’t been any disguise that he’d had to work his way through.

  It must have been the fifth or sixth time around … with time out for a couple of beers … when I thought I’d spotted her. It was in front of the Aetna Loan Company. That’s at the corner of Ponce de Leon and Peach-tree, across from the Hotel Georgian Terrace.

  “There,” I said.

  It did look like her. The same wispy hair, the long, thin face. She was wearing white hot-pants and a red blouse and clogs. She carried a huge shoulder bag that was about the size of a beach bag. God knows what she needed to carry in it. Maybe everything from a change of underwear to an inflatable mattress.

  “Not alone,” Hump said.

  It was a brief look, and I’d been spending most of it on the girl I thought might be Joy Lynn Barrow. I had, I guess, seen the girl with her. And I was shaking my head, trying to throw all the ghost images out. The girl with her was a dwarf. Either that, or she’d been standing on her kneecaps.

  We were headed toward the Linden Avenue turn on our circuit. “You see it the way I did?” I asked Hump.

  “Both of us can’t be crazy at the same time,” he said.

  He did his turn onto Linden, and then jogged right onto West Peachtree. We followed that until we reached 3rd Street. At 3rd, he took another right to Peachtree and hooked right one more time,
and we were heading for the corner where we’d seen them. He stayed in the curb lane and slowed when we passed the Fox Theater. At the corner, right in the bus-stop lane, he touched the horn and stopped near the two girls. The girls were backed against the Aetna Loan Company window. They didn’t move. Hump touched the horn again, and I rolled down the window on the curb side. The girl I thought was Joy Lynn said something to the dwarf girl and pushed away from the window. She reached the car and leaned over to look at me.

  “You girls want to take a ride with us?”

  “I don’t want you to misunderstand us,” the girl said. That was her way of telling me it was play for pay, without saying anything that could be used in court if we turned out to be vice squad.

  “I understand,” I said.

  Up close, I was pretty certain it was Joy Lynn. She looked right, and the accent was right, too. I looked over at Hump, and both of us watched her walk over to the dwarf girl. Good body, and she was showing almost more than was legal. Long, slim legs with a slight bow, and a tight, hard ass.

  “Nice,” Hump said. “She’s got something to sell.”

  Behind us, some of the cars in our lane started honking at us, wanting us to move on, now that the light had changed again. Hump put out an arm and waved them around us. They were still honking when they passed.

  The girls got into the back seat. Hump pulled away and headed up Peachtree. I put an arm on the back of the seat and turned to face the girls. “I’m Jim and this is Hump.”

  “I’m Linda,” the blonde girl said. Next to her, the dwarf girl perched on the edge of the seat, her feet not touching the floor. In the light of the street lamps, I could see that she seemed in good proportion, and her face was regular and attractive in a childlike way. “And this is Carol.”

  “Hi,” the dwarf girl said.

  The light ahead went red, and Hump stopped. He turned and looked at Carol. “Lord, you’re a short drink of water.”

  “But worth it all,” she said.

  “You say,” Hump said.

  “Try me,” Carol said.

  The blonde, Linda or Joy Lynn, or whatever, leaned forward, and I could see her wetting her lips. “It’s forty,” she said.

  “I don’t want to waste much of your time,” I said. It was time to get on with it. “You’re Joy Lynn Barrow, aren’t you?”

  She leaned away. “What do you want?”

  The light changed, and Hump pulled away. I turned to him and said, under my breath, “Keep it moving.” I was just in time. She grabbed the door handle and then found we were moving too fast. She released the handle and leaned back in the seat.

  “What do you want?”

  “Your father wants to know what you’re up to. He tried to reach you at the school and couldn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did he want to reach me?”

  “Your mother’s had an operation. It might be serious. From what he said, it sounded like breast cancer.”

  “All right,” she said.

  “All right what?”

  “You’ve told me. Now you can drop us back on our corner.”

  “He’s got a funny idea that the white slavers got you,” I said.

  “He would. God, how stupid and country can you be?”

  I grinned at her. “And the white slavers don’t have you?”

  “I’m fine. Nobody forced me. I like it. I like sleeping all day and screwing all night. You tell him that.”

  I nodded at Hump. “Take us back.”

  “Who are you?” Joy Lynn asked.

  “A friend of the sheriff back in Anson.”

  “A cop?”

  “Not any more,” I said.

  The dwarf girl, Carol, said, “This is some shit, wasting our time like this.”

  “It don’t have to be a waste,” Hump said, “if you’re giving free samples.”

  “Baby, there ain’t no such thing.”

  “You freelancing, or you got a pimp?” I asked of Joy Lynn.

  “It’s not much of your business, either way.”

  “I’d guess a pimp.”

  “And a damn good one, too,” Joy Lynn said. “If he knew you’d been bothering me, he’d kick your fat ass.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I never thought much of the balls on a guy who lives off women.”

  “I’d like to be there and hear you tell him that,” she said.

  “A lot of interesting things never happen.”

  Hump worked his way back into the same circuit, though an elongated one now, and a few minutes later we were back in the same bus-stop lane. As soon as the car stopped, Joy Lynn had the door open and was out on the pavement. Carol followed her. Joy Lynn waited until she was clear and slammed the door.

  Hump was ready to pull away when I touched his shoulder.

  “Wait one.” I got out and walked over to Joy Lynn.

  “What now?” The hard go-to-hell was in her voice.

  “What you do is your business, and I’ll talk to your father and try to make him see it. Maybe I can get him to give it up. But I’ve got a price.”

  “What price?”

  “Give your mother a call at the hospital, and tell her you’re all right.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all,” I said.

  “I’ll call her in the morning.”

  “And I’ll talk to your father.” I turned and walked away.

  “I’m not going to thank you,” she yelled after me.

  “I didn’t expect it.”

  I should have seen it then. I was heading back to the car, and I looked up at the light and it changed. Hump had the red now, and the green was for cars coming out of Ponce de Leon, toward me. A black Fury was in front, and it gunned its engine and took a leap over the crosswalk lines. It headed toward the corner where I was, in the lane that would bring it near the curb. The window in back was down and, as it got close to me, I saw something sticking out and braced against the window ledge. At first I didn’t read that it was the barrel of a pump shotgun. Then it was too late. My first thought was that it was for me, and then I didn’t have time to worry about it.

  I yelled over my shoulder, “Get down!” and then I hit the pavement on my knees and belly, and rolled toward my car.

  Behind me I heard the crump, crump, crump, and I thought I heard one of the girls scream, but I couldn’t be sure. I heard breaking glass and, across the street, in front of the Hotel Georgian Terrace, a woman started screaming a long, high scream that didn’t have any pauses in it for breath.

  I heard the Fury gun its engine again and rubber squealed, and I turned over and looked in the direction of the girls. Both of them were down. I got up and ran for them. Down the street, the tail lights of the Fury winked once at me, and then it took a right and was gone out West Peachtree.

  Joy Lynn was a mess. She’d caught a full blast in the upper chest, neck and face. Her chin was gone, just mush. I tried for a pulse and couldn’t find one. I duck-walked away from her, over to the dwarf girl, Carol. She’d caught it in the chest and shoulder, and I could hear a low moan out of her. Looking up, I saw Hump standing over me.

  “Call the police and tell them to send an ambulance,” I said. “I think this one is still alive.”

  Carol lived only a couple of minutes more. She wasn’t alive when the ambulance arrived. Messed up as she was, I was amazed that she lasted as long as she did. I guess it was being a dwarf, being used to adversity, that kept her alive the extra time.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Art Maloney, his flat Irish face thoughtful, watched the detachment from the fire department hose down the sidewalk and try to blast the pooled blood and tissue from the pavement and lower wall. The water didn’t get it all. A brush might have helped, but they didn’t bother. I knew if I passed the corner the next day, there’d be the ghost of the stain still there.

  “So you were out cruising whores?” he said to me.

  “I told you,” I said
.

  “What does Marcy think of all this?”

  It was his way of needling me. Art thought a hell of a lot of Marcy, and he was a Catholic, and he kept nibbling around the edges, trying to find out when we were going to get married. Since there never was an answer he liked, he always tried to make me out the biggest asshole in the world. Aside from that he was a good friend, and our friendship went back to our time on the force. I’d left, but he’d stayed on.

  “Marcy approves,” I said. “She read somewhere that a man is not naturally monogamous.”

  “You got money to spring for a drink?”

  I looked over at Hump, who was standing next to my car, still in the bus-stop lane. “I don’t want to be towed.”

  A uniformed cop stood next to the shattered window of the loan office. He was waiting for the team of carpenters to arrive and board over the window until morning.

  Art said, “Keep an eye on that car.” And then, to me, “How about across the street?”

  We crossed the street to the Hotel Georgian Terrace. The hotel had been an Atlanta landmark in its time. Enrico Caruso had said it was his favorite hotel in the whole world when he’d come to town with the Met, but that was a long time ago. Now it was held together by new wallpaper and paste.

  The lounge at the front corner had changed names a number of times. It had been the Purple Poodle for a year or so, and now it was the Venetian Lounge. It was about the same inside. It was easier to change the name than spend huge amounts on renovations. Art motioned toward a table away from the jukebox.

  The drinks came a few minutes later, and the waitress looked at, the change from a five like it was black plague germs I was offering her. Art waited until she did her angry march away from the table. “You going to call the father?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll call Hubie. He can break the news in person. I don’t think he’s going to like it.”

  Art sipped his Irish over the rocks and opened a note pad. “Who was the dwarf girl?”

  “All I got was the first name. Carol.”

  “You check the purses?” Hump asked.

  “Not much in there. Almost nothing with a name on it. No home address, either.” He nodded at me. “There was one thing. A letter without the envelope, addressed to Carol, from somebody named Edwin Spinks, and with an A.P.O. number. We’ll check it out.”