OnLexington we had a hotel we could use. I can't believe I used to do that, I used to live like that. God, I was green! I wasn't innocent. I knew what I came toNew York for, but I was green all right.'
'How long were you on the street?'
'It must have been five, six months. I wasn't very good. I had the looks and I could, you know, perform, but I didn't have street smarts.
And a couple of times I had anxiety attacks and I couldn't function.
Duffy gave me stuff but all it ever did was make me sick.'
'Stuff?'
'You know. Drugs.'
'Right.'
'Then he put me in this house, and that was better, but he didn't like it because he had less control that way. There was this big apartment nearColumbus Circle and I went to work there like you would go to an office. I was in the house, I don't know, maybe another six months. Just about that. And then I went with Chance.'
'How did that happen?'
'I was with Duffy. We were at this bar. Not a pimp bar, a jazz club, and Chance came and sat at our table. We all three sat and talked, and then they left me at the table and went off and talked some more, and Duffy came back alone and said I was to go with Chance. I thought he meant I should do him, you know, like a trick, and I was pissed because this was supposed to be our evening together and why should I be working. See, I didn't take Chance for a pimp. Then he explained that I was going to be Chance's girl from now on. I felt like a car he just sold.'
'Is that what he did? Did he sell you to Chance?'
'I don't know what he did. But I went with Chance and it was all right. It was better than with Duffy. He took me out of that house and put me on a phone and it's been, oh, three years now.'
'And you want me to get you off the hook.'
'Can you do it?'
'I don't know. Maybe you can do it yourself. Haven't you said anything to him? Hinted at it, talked about it, something like that?'
'I'm afraid.'
'Of what?'
'That he'd kill me or mark me or something. Or that he'd talk me out of it.' She leaned forward, put her port- tipped fingers on my wrist.
The gesture was clearly calculated but nonetheless effective for it. I breathed in her spicy scent and felt her sexual impact. I wasn't aroused and didn't want her but I could not be unaware of her sexual strength.
She said, 'Can't you help me, Matt?' And, immediately, 'Do you mind if I call you Matt?'
I had to laugh. 'No,' I said. 'I don't mind.'
'I make money but I don't get to keep it. And I don't really make more money than I did on the street.
But I have a little money.'
'Oh?'
'I have a thousand dollars.'
I didn't say anything. She opened her purse, found a plain white envelope, got a finger under the flap and tore it open. She took a sheaf of bills from it and placed them on the table between us.
'You could see him for me,' she said.
I picked up the money, held it in my hand. I was being offered the opportunity to serve as intermediary between a blonde whore and a black pimp. It was not a role I'd ever hungered for.
I wanted to hand the money back. But I was nine or ten days out ofRooseveltHospital and I owed money there, and on the first of the month my rent would be due, and I hadn't sent anything to Anita and the boys in longer than I cared to remember. I had money in my wallet and more money in the bank but it didn't add up to much, and Kim Dakkinen's money was as good as anybody else's and easier to come by, and what difference did it make what she'd done to earn it?
I counted the bills. They were used hundreds and there were ten of them. I left five on the table in front of me and handed the other five to her. Her eyes widened a little and I decided she had to be wearing contacts. Nobody had eyes that color.
I said, 'Five now and five later. If I get you off the hook.'
'Deal,' she said, and grinned suddenly. 'You could have had the whole thousand in front.'
'Maybe I'll work better with an incentive. You want some more coffee?'
'If you're having some. And I think I'd like something sweet. Do they have desserts here?'
'The pecan pie's good. So's the cheesecake.'
'I love pecan pie,' she said. 'I have a terrible sweet tooth but I never gain an ounce. Isn't that lucky?'
Chapter 2
