A dream in a glittering cocktail dress materialized before us. “This way, please, gentlemen.”
Barry grinned as we followed her along the twisting path between crowded tables. “Regular guy from the auto club got sick and the one who took his place showed up stoned. Column he submitted would’ve closed the joint, and incidentally cracked the guide’s legal defense budget when the case went to court. Editor’s an old friend. It just happened I’d eaten here earlier in the week. Word got out, as it will. It isn’t really a five-star place, but you wouldn’t know it when you’re dining with me.”
“What’d you get from the auto club?”
“Free roadside assistance for five years. Here we are. Just far enough away from the kitchen and not too close to the bandstand. Loud music spoils my appetite.” He sat down at a table draped in cloth-of-gold and stuck up a hand without looking. Emily forked a gold-leafed menu between his thumb and forefinger and handed me another.
We ordered single-malt Scotch, a rib eye for me, and duck for Barry. For a while we just ate and drank and talked about spring training. Someone hooted over toward the blackjack tables, an alarm went off indicating that someone else had scored a big jackpot. Over our drinks I filled him in on the job, without the names of the principals. He can be a vault when he wants to be, but he’s a reporter through and through and can be an awful pest when he smells an exclusive. I didn’t want to find out the hard way if Alec and Cecelia Wynn were good press.
“I’ve had dealings with Multi-Urban,” he said, when I petered out. “The service industry is one of my best sources. Don’t know any Ann Fosters. Place is on the up-and-up so far as I know. No escort work on the side, and unlike our local schools they screen their clients beyond last week.”
“What about Elysian Fields?”
He turned over a duck breast with his fork—looking for birdshot, probably. He’s the only man I know who can turn a meal into a postmortem. “Nope, nor Olympic Gardens either. But I’m suspicious of cash-only enterprises on principle. Best way to launder money this side of the place we’re sitting in.”
“I thought you said the Mafia’s kaput.”
“Yeah, and I miss it, all except that bombing-reporters business; I miss my leg, too. But those paisans had a code of protection. They never went after cops, and when one of the crowd got out of line and threatened the status quo, they recycled him into fish food. These new guys from Mexico and Colombia mow down border guards, kidnap governors, and slaughter tourists just for their motor homes. A whole village can retire on a Winnebago load of Asian heroin. But one in ten deals involves an undercover agent spending marked bills. If Pedro or Pancho wants to spend the profits in this here land of freedom and prosperity, he can’t afford to pass a recorded serial number, so he doles it out in change through legitimate fronts and skims the top off every clean dollar that crosses the counter. Out in general circulation, a dirty buck can change hands dozens of times before it shows up on a DEA list.”
“But it’s only worth it if it’s done in volume. I was in the place ten minutes and didn’t see a customer.”
“These muchachos can afford to run a string of one-horse places and spread it out. It’s better that way. A big operation that only accepts cash would draw too much fire. These days even Ma and Pa Kent take Visa.”
“The place deals in vitamin pills. Would they be passing drugs?”
“Got a sample?”
I passed him the bottle I’d gotten from Cecelia Wynn’s new maid. He opened it and sniffed at the inside, replaced the lid.
“Asian cinnamon. Takes me back.”
“It did me, too. It’s stronger than the variety they sell in supermarkets. You can cover up a lot of smells with it.”
“In theory. I doubt it. They’ve got a whole industry for distribution. No sense jeopardizing their laundry department with a penny-ante bust that could split the place wide open. But I’ll check it out. Keep it?” He rattled the pills.
“Sure. I get my vitamins from barley.” I washed down my steak with Scotch.
He slid the bottle into a side pocket. “Any reason to think your Jane Doe’s a user?”
“Nothing solid, not even a hunch. I’m just looking for a toehold. Who’s your contact at Multi-Urban Services? I don’t expect anything from the carrot and the stick I waved over the phone there. I’m jonesing to talk to this Foster person.”
He grinned his kid’s grin. “You talked to the ice queen in reception?”
“I got frostbite on my ear.”
“That’s Rosalind. Wouldn’t give you the time of day if you were defusing a time bomb. I’ll talk to Harry Boston, the owner. Three generations of his family took the hats of visitors to the Dodge mansion. Not a lot of call for butlers after the old lady went to the great charity ball in the sky. He founded Multi-Urban on what she left him in her will.”
“How much was it?”
“Just enough to cover his business license. She spent fifty grand on the staircase runner and made her great-grandchildren tiptoe up and down the bare ends of the treads to keep from wearing it out. I’ll give him your number.”
“What’s he owe you?”
The grin evaporated. “He’s a friend, Amos, not like you. Not everyone I hang out with has his palm up.”
I let him have that one. Friendship means never having to say go to hell. “So are the druglords your bread and butter now?”
“God, no. Those animals would blow up a city block just to get one of their own out of a holding cell. All the dons ever did was throw money at the problem. In my line, if you don’t have a certain amount of respect for the enemy, you go around all the time breathing through your mouth. I had a longer and warmer relationship with old Sam Lucy than most marriages, including the six years he served in Milan after my five-part series on him ran in the Wall Street Journal. Which is where I’m working now, Wall Street. The worst thing those white-collar crooks do when they get nailed is fake their own deaths.”
“Not much flash, though.”
“I miss the sharkskin suits.”
Just then Emily appeared with our bill. He pointed at me.
*
“Is this Amos Walker?”
I’d been sitting in the uneasy chair in my little living room playing with a drink when the phone rang. The voice in my ear sounded like a mouthful of kippers and kidney pie. I thought my invitation to the royal wedding would come by mail. When I told the owner of the voice he had the right party, he said, “I’m Harry Boston. Barry Stackpole said you wanted to know about Ann Foster. He wouldn’t say why.”
“She’s not the target of my investigation.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Pardon me, but you didn’t exactly ask a question. I want to talk to her about a former employer.”
“Our people do not disclose clients’ information.”
“That’s not what Barry said.”
“My association with Mr. Stackpole is not at issue.”
“What does ‘not a tissue’ mean?”
A throat cleared. “I believe you were informed that Miss Foster is no longer with the firm.”
“Yeah. I didn’t set up this call for a second opinion. I just wanted to know where she’s working now. She can tell me to go climb a rope in person.”
“Very well. When she terminated her employment she gave us an address where we could send her final paycheck. Stormy Heat Productions, on Mount Elliott.”
“Doesn’t sound like a place for a maid.”
“Not one that does much dusting, I daresay.”
“Well, thanks and cheerio.”
That got me a click and a hum. His stiff upper lip had spread like a rash.
I looked up the place in the directory, but the listing only gave me a telephone number. In the Yellow Pages I found a quarter-page ad under Adult Entertainment among the massage parlors, escort services, and 900 numbers with its name scripted diagonally across a silhouetted couple in a tight embrace, framed by a heart. Yo
u could apply for an audition by phone or e-mail.
I almost called, even though it was after six and most businesses were closed; I figured the place put in as many hours after dark as before. But my ear was sore from all the time I’d spent on the airwaves, and anyway a place called Stormy Heat was bound to be more interesting in person.
EIGHT
Detroit woke to another oatmeal sky. My tires crunched through frozen slush past a clothing consignment shop with a gay yellow SPRING SALE banner slung across its front, hammocked with snow. I cranked my window down and up to scrape away frost and caught a whiff of mothballs and complimentary coffee.
The outfit worked out of an extinct gymnasium across from Mt. Elliott Cemetery, a scorched-brick building as old as the eight-hour day, with factory windows checkered with weathered plywood where panes had fallen out. Its name was painted in cursive on a sign stuck perpendicular to the street in a strip of acid-washed grass.
A little cracked parking lot contained a polyglot assortment of vehicles foreign and domestic. I nosed in between an old bread truck that would carry a lot of equipment for location shooting and a green 1989 Cadillac Eldorado with a brown left front fender. A dozen or so tired-looking pizza boxes stuck out at all angles behind the front seat like fossilized species in a tar pit. That seemed to be what was left of Stormy Heat Productions after it had splurged on its Yellow Pages ad.
The door, beige fire-resistant steel with a thumb latch, was locked. I pushed a sunken button that grated in its socket. No sound issued from within. I was about to knock when a rectangular panel opened in the door at eye level and a scowling black face filled the gap. A beard grew to a point on the end of its chin. It startled a grin out of me.
“Aren’t you supposed to be doing your huffing and puffing on this side?”
He looked me up and down, didn’t approve of what he saw. I get a lot of that. “We don’t do tours.” The panel banged shut. I rang again. The panel shot back. He looked surprised to see it was me. “Who’re you?”
I showed him the sheriff’s star with my ID folded back out of sight.
“We got a license to operate,” he said.
“I’m looking for Ann Foster.”
“What for?”
“Conversation.”
“This ain’t a chat room. Come back with paper.”
Staring again at the panel I lit a cigarette, smoked a third of it, and crushed it out on the concrete stoop with my foot. Blowing a stuttering plume of smoke I used the button again. When the panel shot back I grabbed a fistful of beard and yanked. His forehead struck the door with a noise like a sledge striking an iron bell. His eyes crossed, then drifted back into position. “You mother—”
I gave the beard a twist. He ground his teeth and his tear ducts squirted.
“Motherfuckers have their place,” I said. “Where’d you and I be if they didn’t?”
“Leggo! Jesus!”
I hung on. “The goose flies high. Klaatu barada nikto. Have you any Grey Poupon? Pick any password you like, but open the goddamn door.”
“Who—?”
“Jerk Root, the Painless Barber. Open.”
“Okay, okay.” Metal snapped on his side. Still hanging on to his whiskers, I reached down with my free hand and worked the latch. I let go and opened the door. He was standing just inside the threshold, a big man in jeans wearing through where jeans don’t wear through naturally and a white shirt open to the navel Byron-fashion, smoothing his beard with thick fingers. He had a Colt Python in his other hand pointed at my belt buckle.
“Nice. The nickel plate matches your eyes. Got a permit?”
“Gimme another look at that badge.”
“One’s all you get.”
“I don’t think you’re a cop.”
“I’m not here to raid the place. I just want to talk to Ann Foster.”
“I said I don’t—”
“Stop with the compliments. You’re turning my head. Do I have to call for backup, get everybody all in a lather? In this economy, it’s cheaper just to send the wagon without waiting for the order.”
He bounced the deep-bellied revolver in his hand, the way they do in the movies when it’s a prop and won’t go off. My innards contracted.
“Okay.” He reached back and jammed it in a hip pocket. “Okay. I don’t need no beef with the law. You didn’t have to get so rough.” He stroked his hairy chin.
“You’re lucky you didn’t meet me a couple of years ago. Back then I wouldn’t have waited till you slammed the door the second time.”
“Couple of years ago I’da brought out the piece the first time.”
“Just a pair of mellow seniors. Start the tour.”
“You don’t see nothing on the way, deal?”
“Relax. This isn’t an election year.”
There was a lot not to see. Films produced by Stormy Heat weren’t interested in the Academy Award or even feature billing at the Tomcat Theater downtown, where the patrons supplied their own refreshments in paper sacks. You found them in hourly rate motels and behind saloon doors at the back of the local VideoMart, both institutions endangered by the Web. We passed thin, ferret-faced actors and hollow-eyed actresses standing around in robes, smoking and watching the butt-crack brigade monkeying with lights suspended above foamboard platforms dressed up to look like beds. The cameras and fixtures were strictly surplus, their cables frayed and patched all over like garden hoses. We walked past a couple of scenes in progress, all undulating tattoos and stretch marks, smelling sweat and semen and cannabis. It was like walking through a factory with only a couple of shifts standing between it and termination.
Whiskers jerked open another scuffed steel door, releasing a gust of gym socks and mildew. The showers had been shut off years ago and the lockers sold for scrap, but the smell was as durable as cat pee.
“What’s the matter, they don’t teach you to knock in the jungle?”
I’d had a flash of a naked youthful brown body, and then it was covered by a red silk kimono that left a pair of long legs bare to the tops of the thighs. She had her hair cut very short and her face, with its upturned nose and full lower lip stuck out, was boyish. I’d seen enough to know she wasn’t a boy.
Whiskers twisted his face. “I gonna see nothing I ain’t already seen out on the floor? You got a visitor. From the Machine.”
Ann Foster looked at me. The whites of her eyes had a bluish tinge against her dark skin. “Cop?”
I stared at the guy with the beard until he left us, letting the heavy door suck itself shut behind him. The room had been converted into a community dressing room, but without much conviction. The walls were a palimpsest of old graffiti under a light application of tan paint. And a row of twisted pipes remained where the urinals had been yanked out. A trestle table littered with combs and brushes and Foundation in a Drum stood in front of a long mirror, but the bench on our side had come with the place, and maybe even the pair of dirty man’s underpants that hung on the end. You could catch a bad case of athlete’s foot just looking at a picture of the place.
She folded her arms across her breasts and spread her bare feet. The toenails were rounded and painted a frosty pink. “Show me you’re a cop.”
“I’m private. I let Lothar out there think different. It saved time.”
“Well, you’re wasting it in here. I don’t like rental heat any more than the other kind. I don’t even like men.”
“You picked a swell business not to like them in.”
She smiled, not unpleasantly. Her teeth were bluish white, too, and straight. “I work with an all-female cast.”
“It pay better than cleaning house?”
“About as much. But when I get on my knees it’s not to scrub floors.”
I grinned. “You know, in a couple of years we’ll both be exhibits in a museum. Google and CGI win.”
“Same thing in the service industry. Jobs aren’t going out of style. People are. First species in the history of the world m
anaged to make itself obsolete.”
“Quite an education you have there,” I said.
“Can’t cash a check with just a diploma. What do you want?”
“Cecelia Wynn.”
“She’s taken, sorry.”
“You don’t seem surprised it’s her I’m here about.”
“She’s missing, right? She never seemed permanent. Some things you just know about people. Not comfortable in their skins. Mister, I know that feeling.”
“Her husband wants her back. You had a fight with her just before you got fired. What started it?”
“I bet you talked to William. Chauffeurs have too much time on their hands when they’re not driving. Say what you like about the skin trade, folks in it know how to keep a secret.”
“What makes it a secret?”
“What happens if I don’t answer?”
“Nothing. Now. But if it turns out she doesn’t want to be missing, the cops get it. I could save you a trip downtown.”
“Hell, she’s probably off with her lawyer boyfriend like last time.”
“No, he’s accounted for. Also she left almost all her clothes behind, along with the herbs she spent a small country buying and a lot of time stuffing into capsules. It’s starting to look like it wasn’t her idea, or that where she was going she wouldn’t need those things. What was the fight about?”
“I wouldn’t do windows.”
I stuck out my leg, hooked her behind the ankle, and dumped her off her feet. She sat down hard on the concrete floor and yelled. The door swung open. Whiskers stuck his face inside. Farther down the magnum glittered. “What?”
I looked at him, looked down at the woman, sitting with her hands braced on the floor. Her robe had fallen open to expose her left breast. She saw the angle of his gaze and adjusted the robe to cover it. “Nothing.”
“You just got tired, decided to sit down in the dirt?”
“I slipped, okay?”
The man with the beard slid his eyes past mine and took his face and gun out of the way of the door. It drifted shut. I reached down to give the woman a hand. She took it and when she had her feet under her swung her other hand around in a long loop. I moved my head with it, but she caught my ear and a bell rang.
Don't Look for Me: An Amos Walker Novel (Amos Walker Novels) Page 6
