by Ed McBain
"Where is she?" Ernesto said.
"Jenny? She's in L.A.," Alice said. "I told you."
"No," he said.
"I'm telling you that's where she is," Alice said.
"You're full of shit," Ernesto said, and nodded at Domingo, and Domingo cut her.
Not a serious cut. Just a touch with the blade. Feather light, burning for an instant, and then wetness on her cheek, her hand coming up to touch the wetness, fingers coming away red, and all at once she felt a loosening of her bowels and thought she had soiled herself.
"Listen," she said.
They looked at her.
There was blood on the knife blade.
"Listen, really," she said. "Jenny's a hooker, the last time I heard she was in L.A., I mean it. If she's back here in Florida, this is the first I'm hearing, I mean it. I talked to my sister yesterday, she didn't mention nothing about Jenny being back, either. So, I mean it, I'm telling you the truth, put away the flicking knife, okay? I'm telling you the truth. I swear to God. Put away the knife, okay?"
Domingo did not put away the knife. He kept looking at her. There was a very sad expression on his face, as if it had pained him to cut her.
"Please put it away," she said. "Okay? Please? You make me nervous with that knife, I mean it."
"You want to get cut again?" Ernesto said.
"No," she said quickly, "no, I don't. Really." She put her hands up defensively, fingers widespread, palms out. "Really, you don't have to cut me," she said.
"We don't want to cut you again," Ernesto said.
"I know you don't," she said, "So don't, okay?"
"Where is she?" Ernesto said.
"I don't know where she is, I mean it," Alice said. "If she's in Florida, that's news to me. Look, if I knew where she was I'd tell you in a minute, why wouldn't I? I never liked her, I'd tell you in a minute. I just don't know, that's the truth. So, guys, you know, I'm supposed to meet somebody, I'm late now, I'm overdue, you know what I mean? So if we're finished here…"
"The sister in Orlando," Ernesto said. "Where?"
"Aw, come on, guys," Alice said.
"Her address," Ernesto said.
"She don't know, either," Alice said. "You don't want to bother her."
"Cut her," he said to Domingo.
"No, don't!" Alice said. "She lives near Disney World, I'll get you the address, I've got it in my book, put the knife away, okay?"
"Get the address," Ernesto said.
***
David Larkin didn't like fags. They made him nervous. He always suspected they were trying to touch him. Or stand too close to him. He believed all the stories people told about homosexuals, that if you didn't watch your eight-year-old son, they would take down his pants and bugger him. He believed there was a great homosexual conspiracy to turn the whole world gay. Homosexuals were worse than Communists in that respect.
The worst thing about Larkin's fears was that he could never be absolutely sure who was gay and who wasn't. He'd get a bead on some guy he thought was a fairy, and next thing you knew he'd see the guy in a restaurant and the guy was with a gorgeous blonde whose tits were spilling out the front of her dress. Down here, the girls wore next to nothing, it drove a man crazy. It was Florida did it to them. The sun boiled their brains, they right away ripped off all their clothes.
Once, Larkin met a guy he thought was as straight as an arrow, tried to fix him up with a girl who would fuck a sea slug, the guy said, "Thanks, I dress to the right." Meaning he wore his cock on the right-hand side of his pants. Meaning he was a fairy. Not that all fairies wore their cocks that way, this was just the guy's way of speaking. At least, Larkin didn't think they wore their cocks that way, he sure as hell didn't know. But maybe they did. Maybe that was a way all the fairies of the world had of identifying each other, the way they dressed their cocks, right or left. Who the hell knew? It was all very complicated.
Vincent Hollister was a fag, no doubt about that. This was only the third time he'd cut Larkin's hair-well, he'd only been working here at Unicorn since the beginning of April- but Larkin knew definitely that Hollister was a fag. Still, he was the kind of fag Larkin could get along with. Not the flouncy type, you know? Not mincing. No limp wrist Talked like anybody would, no lisp. Dressed like a normal human being. No jeans tight across the buns. A very interesting person, too. The things he talked about were very interesting. Like which hotel to stay at in Positano, Italy. Or where to buy good amber in London, England. Also, if he'd been a woman, Vincent had what a man would consider a very pretty mouth. Larkin wondered if he ever dressed up like a woman. He wondered what fairies did when they got together, other than blow each other and fuck each other in the ass. He was almost tempted to ask. He felt he knew Vincent well enough to ask. But then Vincent might take it the wrong way. You never knew with fags.
"So," Vincent said, "what have you been up to?"
"Oh, I been busy," Larkin said.
"Always busy, busy, busy," Vincent said and smiled, and began combing out Larkin's hair, his eyes on each separate strand as it passed through the comb, searching each strand the way Larkin's mother used to search her fine tooth comb when he was a kid growing up in New York City. Larkin was fifty-three years old. When he was growing up, you'd go to school in the morning, come back that afternoon with a head full of lice. His mother used to fine comb his hair, looking for nits. Every time she found a nit, she'd squash it against the comb with her thumbnail. Vincent was maybe twenty-six, twenty-seven years old, he didn't know about nits. Christ knew why he studied the hair that way.
Maybe it was an act.
Make the customer think you were paying great attention to the way the hair fell or whatever. Fags were great actors. In fact, some of the best actors in the world were fags. It always came as a shock when somebody told Larkin this or that actor was a fag. Last month sometime it must've been, he told this girl he had in bed with him-she was nineteen years old, this juicy little girl down from Atlanta, ass like a brewer's horse and an appetite for coke that was astonishing-he told her Burt Reynolds was a fag. She almost started crying. She should have realized he was lying, Burt Reynolds used to have that big thing going with Dinah Shore, didn't he? And then Sally Field. So unless every woman in Hollywood was a beard, then how could Burt Reynolds be a fag? Her eyes going big and round, misting over, he really thought she was going to start crying. Hey, I was only kidding, he said. It's Clint Eastwood who's the fog. Had to smile even now, just thinking of it.
"What's comical?" Vincent asked.
"Oh, just remembering something," Larkin said. "Just remembering something."
***
In Miami Beach, Domingo thought Alice Carmody wasn't getting the address fast enough to suit him.
He cut her again, on the arm this time.
She said, "Hey, come on, I'm dancin' as fast as I can."
A minute later, while she was opening the top drawer of the dresser across the room, he cut her again, over the eye this time. She said, "Shit, what's the matter with you?" and angrily threw her address book on the dresser top and stamped off into the bathroom to get a towel. There were only two rooms, the bathroom and the other room with the daybed and the dresser in it. As she turned on the water in the sink, Ernesto and Domingo began talking in Spanish about whether or not they had to kill her. It was Ernesto's contention that Domingo had now cut her a few more times than were necessary to scare her, and she might go to the police once they were gone. Alice didn't know what they were talking about out there, jabbering away in Spanish. She was trying to stop the flow of blood from the cut over her left eye. It didn't occur to her for a minute that they might try to kill her. She had already given them her sister's address, hadn't she? All she was thinking was that she had to get out of there fast because her connection sure as hell wasn't going to wait on Collins Avenue and Lincoln Road forever.
In the other room, they decided they had to kill her.
When she came out of the bathroom with a Band-Aid over he
r left eyebrow, Domingo had the knife in his hand again. There was a funny look on his face.
Ernesto was standing just inside the door to the apartment, blocking it. He had a funny look, too.
She ran right back into the bathroom, and locked the door.
It was very quiet out there.
All she could hear was the sound of her own heart.
And then, all at once, they began whispering in Spanish.
What she had to do was get the bathroom window open. Get through it and jump down to the street. She was on the second floor, she knew she'd hurt herself if she jumped, but not as much as they were going to hurt her if she didn't. The lock on the door was one of those push-button things on the knob, a Mickey Mouse lock, they could kick open the door in a minute if they wanted to. She figured if they hadn't done it already they were afraid it would make too much noise. She once had a dealer kick in her door because she owed him money, man, it woke up the whole building. So she figured that's why they weren't doing it. Just whispering outside there in Spanish instead.
The window was painted shut.
She looked around for something she could work the paint with.
Nothing.
She looked around for something she could smash the window with. She had to get the fuck out of there!
Nothing.
She heard a sound at the door behind her.
A scraping sound.
They were trying to loid the door. They were sliding a credit card between the doorjamb and the door, working the spring lock, trying to force back the bolt with the card. She picked up the towel she'd used earlier to stanch the flow of blood over her eye. She wrapped the towel around her right hand. She hit out at the window with it, smashing the glass, and just then the door behind her opened. She screamed even before she turned.
Domingo was standing there with the knife in his hand.
***
Hair fell on Larkin's shoulders, on the faded blue smock they gave you when you came in, it was impossible to figure out how to tie the thing, you had to be a magician. Same kind of smock they gave the women on the other side of the salon. He wondered if Vincent ever wore women's clothes. Some of these fairies, Larkin bet they dressed up like girls when they were alone together. Wore lipstick and everything. Larkin looked at himself in the mirror and wondered how his mouth would look with lipstick on it. Brown hair, dark eyes, wide forehead, prominent nose, strong mouth-an overall impression of rough-hewn good looks. Put lipstick on that mouth, it'd be like painting a gorilla's toenails. Vincent's face was more delicate. A pale oval. Hazel eyes. High cheekbones. The pouting feminine mouth. Black hair done like a fairy's, though, that was the clue.
"Been hot enough for you?" Larkin asked.
"Please," Vincent said, and rolled his eyes. "Don't ask."
Sounded like a fag, too, sometimes.
"You still plan on going to Europe this summer?"
"I may leave Calusa permanently," Vincent said.
"Oh? How come?"
"Just tired of it."
"Where would you go? You just got here."
"Oh, I don't know."
(In Miami Beach at that moment, a medical examiner leaning over the body of the blood-smeared woman lying on the bathroom floor ventured the learned opinion that she was the victim of multiple stab and slash wounds and that the cause of death was severance of the carotid artery.)
"Profession like yours, you can settle anywhere, I guess."
"Oh, sure."
"Just take a pair of scissors with you," Larkin said, and smiled.
"Sure. Actually, though, I may leave the business altogether. I just don't know yet."
"Quit being a barber?" Larkin said.
"A stylist, yes," Vincent said.
"What would you do?"
"Live the good life," Vincent said. "Become a degenerate. Who knows?"
"Takes money to live the good life," Larkin said.
"Well… I've saved a bit," Vincent said.
"Where would you go?"
"Asia maybe," Vincent said.
Larkin could just imagine him in Asia. Bunch of hairless Chinese fags smoking dope, Vincent in the middle of them wearing a long blue gown, ice-blue gown like the one Cinderella was wearing at the Jacaranda Ball. He could never get used to saying it the way the Cubans did-Hacaranda. To him it was Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack Aranda. Listen, what's in a name? His own maiden name was David Largura. All his wop cousins had names like Salvatore and Silvio and Ignazio and Umberto, his mother comes up with David, a Jewish name. Largura meant "space" in Italian. Changed it to Larkin back, oh, thirty years ago must've been. You called him Mr. Largura now, he wouldn't know who the fuck you meant. He'd been Larkin longer than he'd been Largura.
How do you do, my name is David Larkin.
Hi. I'm Angela West.
Want to have your picture taken, Angela?
Sure, why not?
"Sri Lanka," Vincent said. "Or Goa. Or Bali in the South Pacific. Lots of places a person can go."
(In Miami Beach at that moment an ambulance was carting away the body of the knifing victim. A man picking his teeth outside the hotel said the lady who got juked was Alice Carmody, the junkie who lived in 2A.)
"Lots of places to go if you've got the money," Larkin said.
Want to come home with me, Angela?
Sure, why not?
All so simple. Gorgeous girl in her twenties, he's fifty-three, it never occurs to him she might be a pro. Well, listen, he kept himself in good shape, jogged on the beach, worked out at Nautilus. He'd even been to bed with teenagers who said he looked terrific, two of them together one time, took care of them both very nicely, thank you, no complaints. Pizzichi e bad non fanno buchi-his mother used to say that. It meant you could kiss and pinch all you wanted, it wouldn't leave scars. Pizzichi e bad no fanno buchi. Wrong, Mama.
Want your picture taken? Sure, why not? Watch the birdie, click, click, click.
Want to come home with me? Sure, why not? Pinches and kisses. But plenty of scars later, Mama. Molti buchi.
Angela West, my ass.
Catch up with her, he'd give her Angela West.
"Or Thailand," Vincent said. "Lots of places."
As Vincent's scissors snipped away, the men continued talking about Asia. Neither of them had ever been there, and they were full of speculations about it.
In Miami at about that time, Ernesto and Domingo were just entering the Sunshine State Parkway, driving a red Chrysler LeBaron convertible on their way north to Orlando.
Domingo confessed that he had found Alice Carmody quite charming and attractive. What he said, actually, was "Me gustarfa culiarla."
4
During the summer months, the weather forecasts in Calusa were the same day after day after day. Temperature in the nineties. Humidity in the nineties. Showers in the afternoon. Clearing before evening. Temperature in the nineties again. Humidity the same as it was before the showers. There was, Matthew supposed, something to be said for dependability. On the other hand, there was nothing quite so boring as predictability.
He had put on a tan tropical-weight suit when he'd left for the office that Tuesday morning. By two o'clock that afternoon, as he started the drive out to Sabal Key from downtown Calusa, the suit was rumpled and limp. He drove with the windows of the Karmann Ghia closed tight, the air-conditioning up full blast. To his left was the Gulf of Mexico, the water still green under broken clouds close to shore, the sky much darker to the west where thunderheads were already building. By three, three-thirty-four at the very latest-it would rain.
Visitors, of which there were only a handful during the summer months, always thought the rain would mean a break in the humidity.
He had already driven past most of the Gulfside condos; the remainder of Sabal Key, running northward, was virtually as wild as when it had been inhabited by the Calusa and Timicua tribes of Indians back in the good old days. Flanked on the west by the Gulf and on the east by Calusa Bay,
the key here at the northern end narrowed to a tangle of mangrove and pine and sabal palm in which only a few isolated houses nestled. Carla Nettington lived in one of those houses.
A woman in her thirties, not spectacularly beautiful-what a discreet journalist might have called "handsome"-she had come to the offices of Summerville and Hope on the twenty-third of May, elegantly dressed, slender and tall, somewhat flat-chested, and wearing a telltale sorrowful look that had nothing to do with preparing a will. There had been something very old-fashioned, almost Victorian, about Carla Nettington. At the time, Matthew had found it difficult to visualize her in a swimsuit.
She was, nonetheless, wearing a swimsuit when he arrived at the house that afternoon. She expected him, he had called first. In fact, she had told him on the phone that she'd probably be out back. Matthew rang the front doorbell. When he got no answer, he started around back, past a garden lush with red bougainvillea and yellow hibiscus. As he came around the corner of the house, Carla rose from a lounge chair and walked toward him with her hand extended.
The swimsuit was a black bikini, a bit more than nothing in its bra top, its black panty bottom snugly brief below her angular hips. She looked tall and leggy, her skin very white against the patches of black, the whiteness totally unexpected here in Florida, a stark paleness of flesh that caused her to appear somehow fragile and vulnerable and inexplicably sexy. He had not supposed she would look more exciting with her clothes off than she had with them on. With most women, in fact, the opposite was usually the case. But undeniably sexy she was, in spite of her virtually adolescent figure, the angular hips and collarbones, a coltish look-well, boyish to be more exact-dark hair cut close to her narrow face, eyes hidden behind overly large sunglasses, no lipstick on her generous mouth, lips wide in a smile now as she came closer.
