“You T. P. Pollinger?” Kelly said.
“Yes.”
“It would be better if we came in,” Kelly said.
“Excuse me, I have to close the door to take the chain off.”
“Sure,” Kelly said.
The door closed. The chain slid back, and the door opened.
“I’m Trip Pollinger,” the man said. “What is this about?”
He was slender and white-haired. His face was young and evenly tanned. He wore a dark brown silk tweed jacket over a light tan silk tee shirt, tan linen trousers and coffee-colored loafers and no socks. On a Tuesday morning? Jesse thought. At home? I normally sit around the house in sweatpants.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t talk in the hall,” Kelly said.
“Oh, excuse me. Where are my manners,” Pollinger said. “Please come this way.”
The room was long and narrow and brightened by a floor-to-ceiling window at the far end. There were two skylights in the ceiling. It was furnished with the kind of angular modern furniture that Jesse had seen in showroom windows, but never in a home. A Picasso hung over the sofa. It showed a man/bull having his way with a woman. Jesse assumed it was a reproduction copy. Pollinger didn’t look that affluent.
“Would you like coffee?” Pollinger said. “Something to drink? A Coke? Perrier? I assume I can’t offer you anything hard while you’re on duty.”
Kelly said, “No thank you,” and nodded at Jesse.
“Mr. Pollinger,” Jesse said. “Yesterday afternoon I followed a very young woman to your apartment and waited outside for an hour and twenty minutes until she came out. She then walked over to Copley Square and caught a cab and I lost her.”
“A young woman?”
“A girl,” Jesse said. “Maybe fifteen.”
“You followed her?”
“Yes, sir. She rang your bell, and went in, and stayed for eighty minutes.”
“I don’t know anything about it,” Pollinger said.
“I want to find that girl,” Jesse said.
“There wasn’t any girl,” Pollinger said.
“She was sent by Alan Garner.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“I’m not after you, Mr. Pollinger, I’m after the girl.”
“I don’t know anything about a girl,” Pollinger said.
Jesse sighed. He looked at Kelly. Kelly shrugged.
“Easy or hard,” Kelly said. “Doesn’t matter to me.”
“What do you mean?” Pollinger said.
He looked at Jesse.
“What does he mean by that?”
Jesse didn’t answer for a time, letting the question hang in the quiet.
“Here’s what I think,” Jesse said finally. “I think that the girl, who is almost certainly underage, came here to have sex with you. I assume for money.”
“Could be charm,” Kelly said. “He’s very charming.”
“I don’t think he’s charming,” Jesse said.
Kelly shrugged. “No accounting for taste,” he said.
“And,” Jesse said to Pollinger, “I bet it’s not the first time. And I bet if we start asking all your neighbors, and everybody where you work, if you are having paid sex with underage girls, sooner or later I bet we’ll prove it.”
“No,” Pollinger said.
Kelly pulled a straight-backed chrome chair from the dining table and pushed it toward Pollinger.
“You wanna sit down?” he said.
Pollinger sat.
“I don’t want you asking around about me. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“So tell us about the girl?” Jesse said.
“Maybe I should have a lawyer,” Pollinger said.
“If you think you need one,” Jesse said.
“No… I… if I tell you, will you leave me alone?”
