Never Too Rich

by Judith Gould

  Shirley began to cry.

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  Shirley shook her head vehemently and sniffed. “No,” she croaked, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.

  “Bet you got no place to go,” the girl said. “Come on, wipe your eyes. I know somebody who can help.”

  Shirley stared at her. “I don’t know ...” she began hesitantly.

  “You can’t stay here,” the girl told her. “You don’t look much more’n fifteen. If the cops don’t round you up, some crazy’s gonna stab you for whatever you got in them plastic bags.” She took Shirley by the arm and led her outside to Ninth Avenue.

  The “somebody” the girl knew turned out to be a fur-clad pimp in a mile-long Chrome-laden pimpmobile. He eyed Shirley with sloe-eyed interest and flashed a gold-toothed smile. “Hey, pretty mama,” he greeted her, “get in the other side and I’ll take care o’ you like a princess.”

  Shirley stood there on the sidewalk, indecisive. But there really was little for her to decide. She was cold, hungry, and penniless.

  Slowly she walked around to the other side of the car, and the pimp switched on the motor. She was about to climb in when she noticed him slipping the sweet-faced girl a little white packet through the window. “You find me some more pretty white meat for my stable and I’ll give you another fix,” he was telling her.

  That transaction woke Shirley up to reality. The pimp, sensing that she was ducking back out of the car, twisted around and made a grab for her wrist.

  She was too quick for him. Dropping her garbage bags, she took off across Ninth Avenue, straight into the oncoming traffic.

  Cursing, the pimp jerked open the driver’s door and jumped out to catch her.

  Shirley, momentarily blinded by four lanes of headlights, heard the raucous blare of car horns and froze in mid-street. She was certain that the end had come. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  Miraculously, the stream of swiftly moving yellow cabs parted and passed, missing her by mere inches, and all she could feel were the windy blasts of their slipstreams.

  The pimp caught up with her and grabbed her upper arm in a viselike grip. “You, come with me, lil’ mama.” His eyes shone like coals and his fingers dug cruelly through her sleeve.

  “Let me go!” Shirley said through her teeth, struggling to wrench her arm loose. “I don’t want to go with you!”

  “It’d be a pity to have to slice up that pretty white face o’ yours.” Abruptly a knife seemed to leap into his other hand, and he held the point of the blade to her throat, forcing her head way back. “You gonna come quietly, or you gonna make it hard on yourself?”

  It was then that the thundering roar of a motorcycle engine filled the air and a single bright headlight bore down on them. The big customized Harley screeched to a stop with bare inches to spare. “You need help, babe?” the hulk astride the bike called out above the throbbing idle of the engine.

  Shirley tried to nod without impaling her throat. The pimp looked over at the rider and his lips drew back across his teeth. “Get lost, muh’fucker,” he spat venomously. “This ain’t none o’ your business.”

  “Let her go,” the biker growled, “or your black ass’ll be smeared all over the street.”

  “Yeah? The big white muh’fucker wanna fight?” The pimp lowered the knife from Shirley’s throat and pushed her out of the way.

  Then, smiling hideously, he hunched over and danced around the motorcycle, the knife blade flashing and hissing as it slashed through the air.

  The biker raised his arm negligibly. Almost in slow motion a length of thick chain whipped snakelike through the air and sent the pimp sprawling. The knife flew out of his hand and clattered to the asphalt.

  “C’mon, babe,” the biker told Shirley. There was no mistaking the authority in his voice. “Let’s get outta here before that son-of-a-bitch gets back up.” Then he reached out and pulled her up behind him on the vibrating rear seat. “You all right?” he called back over his shoulder.

  And before she could reply, he had put the bike into gear and they took off down Ninth Avenue.

  That had been nearly three years ago, and Shirley had been with Snake ever since. After Brother Dan and the run-in with the pimp, the life he and the Satan’s Warriors offered her seemed almost charmed. Rowdy, cruel, and chauvinistic as the gang was, she nevertheless felt safe with Snake. He was big and brutish and fearless, and she felt protected around him. From the start, he’d made it understood that she was his “ole lady,” not just some “mama” to be passed around among his dope-smoking, beer-guzzling, hard-riding “bros.” And if he had a violent temper and beat her every now and then—well, it was still a better life than that which she’d known.

  Never once in all that time had it occurred to Shirley that any other kind of life might be possible—not until this morning, when Olympia Arpel had literally flown out of a cab and caught up with her in the middle of St. Mark’s Place, promising the sun, the moon, and the stars.

  Olympia, standing off to the side, chain-smoked in silence as she watched Alfredo fussing around Shirley. “That was fabulosa, baby!” he was crowing. “Simply fab-u-lo-sa!” He glanced at the watch on his wrist. “I’ve still got half an hour. What do you say we take some happy shots? Think you can laugh and smile half as well as you can look haunted?”

  Olympia puffed her cigarette angrily. Christ Almighty! she thought irritably. The way Alfredo was behaving, you would have thought he had discovered Shirley. Well, she’d make certain he didn’t get any ideas about that.

  “Miss Arpel!” Olympia was distracted by someone calling her name.

  She turned in the direction of the voice. One of Alfredo’s many assistants was hurrying toward her, waving a sherbet-pink cordless telephone. “It’s your secretary,” he said when he reached her. “She say it’s an emergency.”

  Olympia waved him away. “Later,” she said shortly as she lit another cigarette from the butt of the old one. “Tell Dolly I’ll call back in half an hour.”

  The young man didn’t move. “You’d better take it, Miss Arpel,” he advised softly. “Vienna Farrow’s been murdered.”

  Chapter 15

  When Olympia arrived at Vienna Farrow’s block, she felt as though she had wandered onto the midway of some macabre carnival. Cops swarmed all over the block, and news-media spies, listening in on the police-band radio, had alerted the local networks and newspapers. Crews from every local TV station had already set up their equipment on the sidewalk, and crime reporters were speaking earnestly into microphones while Minicams zoomed in. The usual bloodthirsty spectators, drawn by the activity like vultures to carrion, milled about in droves. Nor was the party atmosphere dampened by the neighbors glued to their windows or by the enterprising chestnut and hot-pretzel vendor who was doing sellout business.

  Olympia fought her way to the front of the crowd. Hampered from getting to the building by the yellow crime-scene tape that roped it off, she simply ducked under it.

  Instantly a hand gripped her firmly by the arm. “You get out, ma’am, and stay out,” the uniformed police officer warned her in no uncertain terms. “And don’t try to sneak back in, or else we’re gonna have to arrest you.”

  “Vienna . . .” Planting her feet immovably in a wide-legged stance, Olympia twisted her head around and looked up at the gray facade of the building. She could not bring herself to believe that what her secretary had told her over the phone had really happened. She was capable, barely, of accepting that someone had been murdered, but not Vienna. It must be someone they’d mistaken for her scintillating million-dollar butterfly of a cover girl.

  Yes, that had to be it.

  “Lady, you’ll have to move it,” the cop growled.

  “I ... I got a call that . . . that Vienna had been murdered . . .” she murmured.

  “Ma’am?” The steely fingers of authority loosened their grip just a hair.

  She drew a deep breath and turned to look up at him. Saw a youthf
ul, honest-looking face ruddy from the chill wind. His visored cap was almost a size too large for his head, and his breath was vapor in the cold.

  “My name is Olympia Arpel,” she said. “I was told to come and identify the . . . body.”

  Not to identify it as Vienna Farrow’s, of course. She just had to make certain that it wasn’t Vienna.

  The young policeman looked down at Olympia, seeing a small tweedy figure, all merciless angles and sharp, curveless planes. She looked ageless despite a wrinkled crepe face surrounded by a pageboy of sliced gray bangs. Determination burned in her startling sea-green eyes. Determination and . . . hope.

  “All right, lemme check it out.” Still gripping her by the arm, but with far less force, he took her to consult two other patrolmen.

  “Yeah, they’re expectin’ her,” one of them said, nodding and flapping a hand. “Let her go on up.”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” the young patrolman apologized. His hand came off her arm at once. “You wouldn’t believe the crazies who try to slip into crime scenes.”

  Nodding to let him know that it was all right, she turned and, tucking her head down, headed briskly into the building. She had to identify herself twice more, once right outside and then again at Vienna’s front door, where her name and the time of her arrival was entered into a log, as would be her departure.

  “What happened?” she demanded as she marched into the apartment. Glancing about the living room, she noticed at once that most of the action was concentrated in the bedroom. Before anyone could stop her, she blundered right in.

  Which was a terrible mistake.

  She halted abruptly in mid-step, her hand scrabbling spiderlike near her throat, and she let out a mewling little cry. She could not believe her eyes.

  There was dried blood all over the ghastly, contorted body on the bed.

  There was dried blood splashed all over the room.

  A great gout of arterial blood had even slashed a swath across the ceiling.

  There were blood trajectories everywhere.

  It was an abattoir.

  And then the horror of the corpse’s condition sank in, and her mind screeched out of orbit.

  What did you do to her? everything inside her screamed soundlessly. Killing her wasn’t enough, was it? You had to chop her and grind her and slice her!

  She felt a surge of immense heat, and the hellish room swirled around her like a demented merry-go-round. Then the merry-go-round ground to a stop, and the slaughterhouse bedroom reasserted itself as the stark reality of a living nightmare.

  Olympia pressed the back of a hand against her forehead. Then her narrow shoulders heaved sporadically and the sound of her gasp turned into heaving. “Oh, Christ,” she moaned, whirling around, her eyes searching desperately for the bathroom. “Oh, sweet Jesus.”

  After she came out of the bathroom, the detectives sat her down in the living room, positioning her on one of the modular sofa units so that she faced away from the open bedroom door. Detective Koscina, with the red W. C. Fields proboscis and white brush flat-top, sat directly opposite her; Carmen Toledo paced restlessly by the windows, telephone in one hand, receiver in the other. “Dig out all the files on slashers,” she was telling somebody. “That’s right. Slashers.” She slammed the receiver down in disgust. “Christ! Some people need everything spelled out twice.”

  Despite the open windows, the apartment was suffocating. Koscina kept dabbing his forehead and neck with a filthy handkerchief.

  Olympia felt as if she’d stepped into some kind of sick parallel universe. Although some of the color had returned to her cheeks, she still hadn’t regained her composure. No human being can do such terrible things to another human being, she kept telling herself. It just isn’t possible.

  But it was.

  She reached for her cigarettes, but her hands were still shaking so badly she broke two before she could dig one out of the pack. And then she couldn’t hold the damned lighter still enough. The big detective had to lean forward over the coffee table and light it for her.

  Olympia nodded gratefully. She sat hunched forward on the edge of her seat, quick-puffing, the jerky movements of her elbow spilling ash down the front of her suit.

  She didn’t notice.

  “Do you have any idea who could have killed her, ma’am?” Koscina asked unemotionally.

  She looked over at him vaguely, still too sick to speak. Forensics specialists were sliding in and out of her peripheral vision as they went over every square inch of the apartment in their relentless search for clues. Teams of them sifted through Vienna’s personal effects. Underwear. Address books. Boxes of tampons. Kitchen garbage. Vienna’s horrible death had opened her life to minute inspection.

  “Please, ma’am,” Koscina persisted politely. “You’ll have to pull yourself together. You do want us to find her killer, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” Olympia puffed shakily on her cigarette.

  “Good. Then we have something in common.” Sitting back, he flipped open a pocket-size ring-bound black notebook and pulled the cap off a ball-point pen without flourish.

  The questions came.

  For the next hour and a half she answered them tonelessly, with weary resignation.

  No, she did not have any idea who had killed Vienna Farrow.

  Yes, Vienna had dated.

  No, as far as she knew Vienna did not have a steady boyfriend. She’d been seeing some distillery heir, but that had fizzled out.

  No, she did not think Vienna had had any boyfriend troubles.

  Yes, Vienna had been very popular.

  No, to the best of her knowledge, Vienna had not received any threats against her life.

  Yes, Vienna had been listed exclusively with Olympia Models for just a little over two years now.

  As she murmured the answers, he logged her replies carefully in his little black notebook.

  He sprang the nasty one on her out of the clear blue. “Did Vienna Farrow at any time threaten to leave Olympia Models to sign up with another agency?”

  That knocked Olympia’s automatic pilot out of commission, all right. Her head jerked up and she looked at him sharply, her gray razor bangs swaying, as her outraged brain kicked back in. “Are you implying, detective, that I’m a suspect?” she asked incredulously.

  He stroked his lips with an index finger. “Murders have been committed for far less,” he said with equanimity. “But so far, all indications are that the perp is a man.”

  Despite her innocence, she felt relief flooding through her, as though tons of weight had been lifted off her shoulders. “Well, I’m glad to hear that,” she said acerbically.

  “Why?” His head was down but his eyes were looking up at her with deceptive benignity.

  “Why?” she shot back. “Because if you suspected me, then that clears me, goddammit. That’s why!”

  He didn’t speak.

  Her voice was hushed. “Doesn’t it?”

  She saw the merest flicker of his eyelids. “People have been known to hire killers.”

  She stared back at him. “You just don’t give up, do you?”

  “When it comes to finding a savage killer, no,” he said finally. His pale eyes seemed to turn into dark holes, bottomless pits that stretched through flesh, bone, and time to the blackest reaches of infinity. “And make no mistake, Miss Arpel. I don’t care whose feet I might have to tread on to get results.”

  His benign smile held no humor.

  It was then that Olympia had an inkling of brute doggedness, as though an unmanned steamroller was starting on a relentless downhill roll, ready to smash anything that stood in its path. She stared at him as though really seeing him for the first time. She was glad she was innocent. She wouldn’t have wanted him on her trail.

  When she spoke again, her voice was low and held a note of grudging respect. “I’m glad you’re on this case, detective.”

  If he heard her, he gave no indication.

  “How much money in comm
issions did Vienna Farrow make for your agency over the past year?”

  She was thrown off-balance by the renewed onslaught of questioning. “A hundred, maybe a hundred and twenty thousand.” She shrugged wearily. “Somewhere in that neighborhood. I’d have to check my records for the exact amount.”

  He scribbled something into his notebook. “We may have to check your office records to verify that, so it wouldn’t hurt for you to have your files ready.”

  Olympia sat up exceedingly straight, her electric vitality and bossiness returning. “Look,” she demanded, “is this going to take much longer? It’s getting late and I still have urgent business to attend to.”

  “Are you telling me, Miss Arpel, that you consider business more pressing than finding the butcher who made mincemeat of a young woman?”

  “I am not!” she snapped angrily. “Don’t try to twist my words around.” Then she said, more moderately, “Look, it’s not going to stop the investigation if I make a couple of quick phone calls before we continue, is it? For your information, Vienna had been booked to do a cosmetics shoot, and I’ve got to find a substitute—and fast. If I don’t, I’ll lose my biggest account.” She gave a bleak, sardonic smile. “You don’t think ad agencies and their clients care about little inconveniences such as death, do you?”

  She had risen to her feet halfway through the speech and stood, feet splayed and hands on hips, staring questioningly down at him. Her sagging shoulders had returned to their normal challenging set, he noticed, and every inch of her body quivered with impatient purpose. Her initial shock had worn off: life went on for the living.

  “Well?” she demanded. “Do I get to make my calls, or are only booked criminals allowed to do that?”

  Sighing, he made a motion with his hand. “All right,” he said. “Go ahead, make your calls. The phone’s already been dusted for prints, but don’t touch anything else.”

  Olympia nodded briskly, compressed her lips, and marched over to the little pine telephone table between the two south-facing windows. It was getting late in the afternoon, and outside, daylight was fast fading into winter’s purplish darkness. Quickly she got busy on the phone.