Strega

'What question?'

'Don't my legs look good?'

'That isn't a question,' I told her. And this time I got a better smile.

64

SHE PULLED the BMW around to the back of her house and hit the button on a box she had clipped to the sun visor to open the garage. I followed her up the stairs to the living room, watching her hips switch under the green dress-it looked like a slip in the soft light. She carried the black mink like a dishrag in one hand, tossing it in the general direction of the white couch as she went by.

Strega passed through the living room to another flight of stairs, and climbed toward a light at the top, not saying a word. The bedroom was huge, big enough for three rooms. The walls were a dusky-rose color, the wall-to-wall carpet a dark red. A Hollywood bed, the kind with a canopy over the top, was in the precise middle of the room, standing on a platform a few inches off the carpet. It was all in pink-pink gauze draped from the canopy almost to the floor. The spread was covered with giant stuffed animals-a panda, two teddy bears, a basset hound. A Raggedy Ann doll was propped against the pillows, its sociopath's eyes watching me. A bathroom door stood open to my right-pink shag carpet on the floor, a clear lucite tub dominating the room. A professional makeup mirror was against one wall, a string of tiny little bulbs all around its border. A walk-in closet had mirrored doors. It was half yuppie dreamscene, half little girl's room. I couldn't imagine another person sleeping there with her.

'His bedroom is on the other side of the house,' she said, reading my mind. 'This is just for me.'

'Your husband works late hours?' I asked.

'My husband does what I tell him. I give him what he wants-he does what I want. You understand?'

'No,' I told her.

'You wouldn't,' she said. Case closed.

I patted my pockets, telling her I wanted to smoke. I couldn't see an ashtray anywhere.

'I don't smoke cigarettes in here,' she said.

'So let's go somewhere else.'

Strega looked at me like a carpenter checking if there was enough room for a bookcase.

'You don't like my room?'

'It's your room,' I replied.

Strega slipped the straps of the green slip over her shoulders, pulling it down to her waist in one motion. I heard the silk tear. Her small breasts looked hard as rocks in the pink light. 'You like my room better now?' she asked.

'The room is the same,' I said.

She took a breath, making up her mind. 'Sit over there,' she said, pointing to a tube chair covered in a dark suede-it looked like something growing out of the carpet. I shrugged out of my coat, holding it in one hand, looking toward the bed. 'Put it on the floor,' she said over her shoulder as she walked out of the room.

She came back with a heavy piece of crystal, kneeling in front of me to put it on the carpet. Whatever it was supposed to be, it was an ashtray then. She was as self-conscious about being topless as two dogs mating-you wanted to look, that was your problem.

'You want something besides that cigarette?'

'I'm okay,' I told her.

She was putting a smoke together for herself, loading a tiny white pipe-tiny brown pebbles mixed with the tobacco. 'Crack,' she said. Super-processed, free-based cocaine-too powerful to snort. She took a deep drag, her eyes on me. It should have lifted her right off the carpet, but she puffed away, bored.

'You wanted to talk to me?' she asked.

I watched her walk back and forth in front of me, the green slip now a tiny skirt just covering her hips, her heels blending into the carpet. The tube chair had a rounded back, forcing me to sit up very straight.

'I need the boy,' I told her. 'I need to have him talk to some people. Experts. He knows more than he told you-he might have the key in his head.'

Strega nodded, thinking. 'You're not going to use drugs on him?'

'You mean like sodium amytal-truth serum? No. It's too dangerous. It could get him to where it happened, but we might not be able to get him back.'

'Hypnosis?' she asked.

'Not that either,' I said. 'There's people who know how to talk to kids who've been worked over by freaks. It doesn't hurt-might make him feel better.'

'He's okay now,' she said. 'All he needs is that picture.'

'He's not in therapy…not getting treatment from anyone?'

'He doesn't need any of that!'

'Yeah, he does. Or at least someone who knows what they're doing should make the decision.'

'Not about this,' she said, her voice flat.

'Look,' I said, 'you don't know anything about this, right? Treatment could make all the difference.'

'I know about it,' she said. Case closed again.

I took a deep drag of my smoke. 'I need to have somebody talk to the boy, okay?'

'I'm going to be there when they do.'

'No, you're not. That's not the way it's done. Nobody's going to be there.'

She puffed on her little crack-laced pipe, flame-points in her eyes.

'He wouldn't trust you.'

'He would if you said it was okay, right?'

'Yeah. He'd do whatever I said.'

'You bring him to a place, okay? I'll meet you there. I'll have the therapist with me. You hand him over-tell him to be a good boy, okay? I'll bring him back in a couple of hours.'

'That's it?'

'That's it,' I said.

Strega rubbed her eyes as if she didn't like what she was seeing. 'What if I don't do it?'

'You do what you want,' I told her. 'But you're paying me money to get something done-you don't bring the boy, it makes it harder. And it's tough enough already. It's up to you.

She took a last drag on her pipe, came over to me, and sat in my lap. She put one slim arm around my neck and leaned down to drop the pipe in the ashtray. 'I'll think about it,' she said, grinding her butt deep into my lap. Heat flashed below my waist but my shoulders stayed cold.

'When's your husband coming home?' I asked her.

'He can't come back here until after midnight.'

'Can't?' I asked her, looking the question into her little face.

She buried her face in my chest, whispering so softly I could barely hear her. 'We have a deal. I do him good. I'm what he needs. I know his mind. On his last birthday I brought a girlfriend of mine