'Stupid little bitch. She had it easy and she fucked it up. Then you come poking around and now she in real trouble.' More gin. 'She fixed up in a nice house, nice call job, no street hooking, and she couldn't handle it. So Red gets her.'
I smiled slightly, encouraging, Yes, yes, my dear, tell me all about it, nondirective.
'You ain't gonna find her.'
'Probably not,' I said. Sad. Defeated. Winsome and childlike. 'You know why you ain't gonna find her?'
..No.' Velma smiled again. ' 'Cause she ain't even in the city,' Velma said. 'You got any cigarettes`'' I shook my head.
'There's some in my dress, you want to get them for me, honey-Lance.' She laughed, a bubbly choked laugh, as if she had a bad cold. I got up and found a package of NOW menthol 100's in her pocket and a book of matches. I took out a cigarette and lit it and handed it to her. She'd better be drunk if she was going to go for that one. She was. She did.
'Hey, Lance. You got a lot of class, honey.'
The taste of the cigarette was still in my mouth. How the hell had I ever smoked them? They were as bad as gin and ginger ale.
Velma took a long drag on the cigarette, a big pull at her drink, swallowed, and let the smoke ooze out through her nostrils.
'Providence,' she said.
'Providence.'
She smoked some more, another long drag that made the end of the cigarette glow. 'You know what a sheep ranch is?'
'No.' She was quiet. She smoked. She drank some gin. She refilled her glass and drank some more gin. She was older than 1'd thought. Her thighs had thickened and there was a suggestion of dimpling to them. The line where her buttocks merged with her upper thigh had blurred. Her stomach folded a little as she sprawled on the couch.
'Sheep ranch for people like it kinky. You a whore and you bad, you end up there.'
'And April's at a sheep ranch in Providence?'
'I never said that,' Velma said.
'You know where there's a sheep ranch in Providence?'
'Never been there,' Velma said. 'Never been nowhere. Never been out of Boston.' Tears filled Velma's eyes and spilled over and traced down her face. Her voice thickened. 'Never been nowhere,' she said. 'Never going.' She sprawled lower onto my couch, her legs sprawled across my coffee table. She spilled her drink and didn't notice.
'There an address for the sheep ranch?' I said.
She didn't answer. She was crying and snufing and mumbling things I couldn't understand. She slipped down farther and closed her eyes and stopped crying. She snuffled for another minute, then she was silent. Then she started to snore. I got up and went to the kitchen and got another bottle of beer and brought it back and sat down and stared at Velma while she slept.
It was two hours before she woke up, and when she did she was unfriendly. I got her dressed and into a cab and went back upstairs to drink beer and think about sheep ranches.
Chapter 14
Providence is an hour south of Boston on Route 95. It has Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design and a good-looking State House and a civic center and Federal Hill, a recycled Italian neighborhood with concrete arches at the entrance on Atwell Avenue.
I didn't go to Federal Hill this trip. I went to the Biltmore Plaza on the square by the railroad station and checked in.
'Where can a guy get a little action in this town'' I said to the bellhop when he showed me my room. I was wearing a white wash-and-wear shirt, red and white checked polyester jacket, and maroon double-knit flarebottomed slacks with white loafers and a white belt. I had spent nearly $100 on the outfit at Zayre's. When I go undercover I spare no expense. I wore a maroon tie with many small white horse heads on it, loosened at the collar. I had a pinky ring with a zircon set in onyx, and I reeked of Brut.
'We have music in our lounge, sir.'
I folded a five and tucked it into his hand. 'Uh-huh,' I said. 'You don't follow my drift. I mean action, broads, huh?'
'Sorry, sir,' he said. 'I really wouldn't know about that. He smiled and backed out and shut the door. I hung up my garment bag and went out to the front of the hotel and caught a cab.
'Ride down Dorrance,' I said. 'I want to look over the town.'
'Yes, sir,' the cabby said.
'I'm looking to have a little fun,' I said. I had another five folded between my fingers and I tapped it on the back of the seat as I leaned forward to talk with him. 'Anyplace in this town a guy can have a little fun?'
The cabby glanced back at me. 'What kind of fun, mister?'
'You know-wine, women, and song.' I grinned. Man to man. 'And I could do without the song, if I had to.
The cabby was a middle-aged black man with short graying hair and a salt-and-pepper mustache. 'You looking for whores?'
