Strega

but didn't have a referral from someone I knew, I was gone.

'Julio Crunini,' she offered, her face close to mine now.

'I don't know anybody named Julio, lady. Whatever you're selling, I'm not buying, okay?' And I reached past her to open the Plymouth 's door and get the hell away from her and whatever she wanted. Julio's been out of prison too long, I was thinking-his mouth was getting loose.

She put her hand on my arm. Her hand was shaking-I could see the wedding ring on her finger, and the diamond sparkling in the sun next to it. 'You know me,' she said.

I looked into her face, and drew a blank. She must have seen what I was thinking-one hand went to her face and the sunglasses disappeared. Her face meant nothing to me. Her mouth went hard, and she pulled away the scarf-her flaming red hair fired in the sun.

'You know me now?' she asked bitterly.

It was the jogger from Forest Park.

21

NOTHING CHANGED in my face-I was raised in places where it isn't a good idea to let people know what you're thinking-but she wasn't looking for recognition.

'I don't know you, lady,' I told her, 'and I don't want to.'

'You don't like my looks?' she challenged me. A real Mafia princess all right-she was used to this.

'I don't like your smell, lady. You stink of trouble, and I got enough of my own.

I pushed past her like I had someplace else to go. Her hand reached out and grabbed my forearm-I gave her the same look I'd given Julio in the garage, but she didn't have enough sense to know what it meant. Her hand was aristocratic-dark-red polish over manicured nails.

'If you don't talk to me here, I'll just come to Murray Street, Mr. Burke-to your hotel.'

It was a good, hard shot-she thought. Julio must have opened up like the Red Sea. Only a few people knew I lived at the Deacon Hotel. Of course, those people were all wrong. The front desk would take a message for me from force of habit-the only force any junkie recognizes-but I hadn't lived there for years, ever since I got off parole. It didn't matter now-this broad was making word sounds from her mouth, but all I heard was 'tick, tick, tick…'

Her face had the smug look of a woman with lots more cards to put on the table. Uncle Julio's halfass omerta was the modern version-rock-solid until it got a better offer.

'Get in the car,' I told her, holding the Plymouth 's door for her to slip past me.

'My car's right over there,' she told me, gesturing toward the inevitable BMW sedan. 'It'll be more comfortable-it's air conditioned.'

'I don't care if it's got a waterbed, lady. You get in here, or you get in the wind.'

She hesitated for just a second-the script wasn't going like she'd planned. Then the same tight-set look she had on her face when she'd started jogging around Forest Park appeared-she'd made up her mind.

Her reconstructed nose turned up at the Plymouth 's interior but she slid across the vinyl bench seat without another word. I pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward the West Side Highway. I needed to find out what she knew, but I wasn't doing any talking until I was sure she was the only one listening.

I grabbed the highway at Chambers Street and turned uptown. The environmentalists had lost the first round-the old elevated structure was gone and along with it the shadows that provided the cover for the working whores. Michelle wouldn't be on the piers this time of day, and I needed her help. The new construction site on Eleventh Avenue a few blocks south of Times Square was my best bet.

The redhead opened her purse and started to rummage around. 'Is it all right if I smoke?' she asked, still in that nasty-edged voice.

'As long as it's cigarettes,' I told her.

'You have some religious convictions against marijuana, Mr. Burke?'

'Marijuana is against the law, lady,' I told her, my voice toneless so the audience could get the sarcasm without the evidence to go with it. 'If you have any illegal substances or objects on your person, I insist you remove them from this vehicle.'

'Who're you trying to kid? After what you did in the…?'

'Shut your fucking mouth!' I snapped at her. 'You really want to talk, you'll get your chance, okay? You want to make some tapes for the federales, you make them someplace else. Got it?'

She got it. Her face got hard again, like I'd insulted her, but she didn't say another word. Two hard dots of red stood out on her cheeks-not her makeup.

The big Plymouth worked the city streets the way it was created to dopassing through traffic as anonymously as a rat in a garbage dump, eating the potholes, smoothing the bumps, quiet and careful. The tinted windows were up on both sides, the air conditioner whisper-quiet, watching the streets.

I spotted the first bunch of working girls on 37th. Business was always slow this time of day, but the girls who worked the trucks and cabs for a living had to try harder than their sisters across town. On Lexington Avenue, the girls wore little shorts-and-tops outfits-over on the West Side, they worked the streets in bathing suits and heels. Even that was more subtle than you'd find elsewhere in the city-over in Hunts Point, they work in raincoats with nothing underneath.

Nothing but hard-core pros over here-black women who hadn't been girls since they were twelve, white ladies too old or too out of shape for the indoor work. The pimps kept the baby-faces for the middle-class trade farther east-the runaways worked Delancey and the Bowery or strictly indoors. I love the words some of the jerkoff journalists use in this town…like 'call girls.' The only thing these ladies ever used a phone for was to call a bail bondsman.

I slid the Plymouth to the curb. A tall black woman with a silky wig swivel-hipped over to the window, wearing one of those spandex suits, the green metallic threads shimmering in the sun. Her bright smile never got near her eyes.

'Looking for something, honey?'

'For someone. Michelle. She around?'

'You her man, baby?' the whore wanted to know, casting a sly glance at the Plymouth -it wasn't exactly your standard pimpmobile.

'Only if someone gets stupid with her,' I told her, just so she'd know.

'Honey, I'm out here in this heat about some money, you understand?'

'You find her and bring her back over here, I'll pay one trick's worth-deal?'

'I don't work blind, man,' she said, all business now.

'Tell her Burke needs to talk with her.'

She seemed to be thinking it over-looked past me to where the princess was sitting, nodding her head like she understood what was going on. Traffic was slow-her sisters strolled the sidelines, bored but watchful. It had been a long time since they'd seen anything new-or anything good. Finally, she made up her mind. 'I get a half-yard for a trick, baby. That's the price for bringing Michelle around, okay?'

There was no trick in the world this woman could get fifty bucks for, but insulting her wasn't going to get the job done.