Hard Candy

'No, I won't. If you'll do something for me.'

A knowing smile on her little face. 'Whatever you want.' Her mother's voice.

'I'm going to give you a phone number. You call it. In one week. And you meet me where I tell you to. And you don't tell anyone.'

'And then?'

'You answer some questions.'

'That's it?'

'Yes.'

She took a breath. 'I'll do it. I keep my word. You'll see. Can't you drive me home yourself?'

'I got things to do,' I said to the girl. Danielle never told me about the basement, but she'd said she had a younger sister. I wondered which part was true.

73

THERE WAS nobody I could ask. Elvira was partly right. Candy wasn't a whore. Not a real stand-up, pussy-for- cash whore. I knew one once. Never knew her real name. Everybody called her Mercy. She said she got into the business when she mercy-fucked some poor shlub and he bought her a pearl necklace. She was maybe forty years old. An old lady to me then. 'It's show business,' she told me. 'Mind games. Mystery. There's no old whores, honey. Flesh sags. But money earns interest.'

I was sitting in her kitchen, sunlight washing the room. Watching her drink her coffee, listening to her story. Even then, I knew how to listen.

'I just want somebody to talk to him,' she said, her voice husky and soft. Thick hair pulled back from her face, held there with a rubber band. Cigarette in her long fingers. A housewife in the morning.

'What do I say?'

'Whatever works. He's an old trick- I've been dating him for years. The difference between a good whore and just an experienced one is repeat customers. Now he wants an exclusive, you understand? He wants me to move into an apartment in this building he owns. Be there when he shows up. Hold dinner for him.'

I shrugged. 'It doesn't sound so bad to me. One trick instead of a lot of tricks. And he'd pay the same?'

'Sure. But when he changes his mind, I'm out. I don't have a pimp- I don't want an owner.' She walked over to the sink, her hips churning under the faded bathrobe. Washed out her coffee cup, talking at me over her shoulder. Patted herself on the butt. 'This is mine. I rent it out- it's not for sale. Money lubricates me- it doesn't own me.'

'You told him?'

'I'm his toy. I do what he wants. It's not inside his head that a toy makes up its own mind. He thought he was my dream coming true.'

'I'll fix it,' I told her.

When I went back to see her, she had the money ready for me. 'He called me,' she said. 'He won't be coming back.'

'That's what you wanted, right?'

'One of my tricks is a champion bridge player. You know how to play?'

I nodded. I knew how to play chess too. And dominoes. Prison.

'This trick, he told me any game you play with a partner, there's a difference between the best result possible and the best possible result. You understand?'

'What I did… it was the best result possible, right?'

'Yeah.' She kissed me on the cheek. 'You're a good man. Solid, keep your word. I thought they didn't make them like you anymore. In a few years, you ever get to Phoenix, you look me up, okay?'

' Phoenix?'

'I'm buying a little motel out near there. My retirement. Been saving for years. You get too old, the mystery wears thin…it gets too hard to do the act.'

'You'll never be too old, Mercy.'

Her smile mocked my lie. She kissed me again. Goodbye.

Candy was a different breed. That didn't mean her little daughter wasn't a liar too.

74

I FELL ASLEEP in my office later. On the couch, the little TV set flickering at the edge of my consciousness, Pansy snoring on the floor next to me. When I woke up it was dark again. A piece of light sat like a candle flame in the corner of the room, reflected from someplace past the window. I didn't move, watching it, letting it take me. Splitting off from this mess, disassociating. It works sometimes- you let go, it comes to you. But only if it's out there.

No use asking questions if you don't care what the answer is.

The cops wouldn't just walk away, but they'd find something else to do.

I blew smoke at the ceiling, wondering if I would.

75

THE NEXT morning, I grabbed a tip sheet from the newsstand and went back to the office. None of the horses spoke to me. I didn't dream about having one of my own one day- the way I used to all the time.

I spent a lot of time thinking about who I could steal from next.

76

Ib DRIFTED BACK to Mama's. White dragons in the window. She told the waiter something. He brought me a plate of fried rice, beef in oyster sauce. No soup.

'Everything okay now?' she asked, leaning forward, watching.

'Sure.'

'You wait for something?'

'You mean…here?'

'No. For something, okay?'

'I don't think so.'

'I think so.'

I didn't answer her. After a while, she went back to the cash register at the front.

I was walking out when the pay phone rang. Mama walked past me. I waited.

'Man say tell you watch the papers tomorrow. Sutton Place.'

'Anything else?'

'No.'

'He say his name?'

'Man who called before. One time. Dead-man sound when he talk.'