'You got it, man. You got my message. Can you help me out?'
The cabby shook his head. 'I'm not a pimp,' he said. 'You got an address, I'll take you there.'
'I was hoping you'd know.' I flourished the five a little. 'Nope.' He pulled over at a corner. 'Whyn't you try another cabby.'
I got out without saying anything and he drove off. I flagged another cab and we went through the routine again. I rode around Providence in a succession of cabs for about three hours with the worst collection of prudes I'd ever seen. It was twenty minutes to four when I finally scored. The cabby I scored with looked like a toad.
'I might be able to put you in touch with a guy,' he said. He was fat and short and he seemed to have settled seatwards from years of driving a hack. He didn't turn around as we drove along Fountain Street past the Providence police and fire headquarters. In Providence the cops wore brown uniforms and drove brown-andwhite cruisers. I was pretty sure you could never solve a crime wearing a brown uniform. Maybe it was in honor of the university.
'Appreciate it,' I said. 'There's a sawbuck in it for you.' I had upped the ante after hour two.
'Cost you twenty dollars for me to put you in touch with this guy,' the cabby said. 'Plus the fare.'
'Just to meet a guy? Hey, that's pretty stiff.'
'Take it or leave it.' The cabby had a hoarse voice. The folds of his neck spilled over his collar.
'Aw, what the hell,' I said. 'It's only money, huh? You can't take it with you.'
The cabby put his hand back over the seat without looking. I put two tens in it. He tucked it into a shirt pocket, turned right, and in two minutes he pulled in at the curb on Dorrance Street in front of the Westminster Mall. Without looking back he said, 'That'll be three- eighty.' I gave him a five and he put that in a different pocket.
I said, 'How about my change.'
'Tip,' he said. Then he handed me back a plain white sheet of paper. 'Roll that up in your left hand and walk down the mall,' he said. 'Guy's name is Eddie. He'll find you.'
I took the paper, made a tube out of it, and got out of the cab. The toad pulled away. To my left was the flossiest Burger King in the world; ahead stretched a paved pedestrian way among a bunch of stores in the process of restoration. Some very classy fronts were mixed in with some very sleazy ones, but the place had the nice live feel that open city space has if a lot of people are bustling around in it.
I started up the mall. A squat red roan horse was tethered to an information booth in the middle of the mall and a Providence cop was in getting warm with the civilians. Near a soon-to-be-rented-but-not-fullyrestored storefront a guy in a down vest said, 'How ya doing? I'm Eddie.'
I said, 'Hey, how are ya?'
He walked along beside me. 'What can I do for you?' he said.
'Fella in a cab told me you could find me a little action,' I said.
Eddie nodded. He had pale blond hair parted on the left and gold-rimmed glasses and pale skin. Under the down vest he wore a plaid shirt. 'Sure,' he said. 'What kind of action you looking for'''
'Well'-1 scowled and looked embarrassed-”I hear you might have something a little different around here.' Eddie stopped with his hands in his back pockets and looked at me.
'Unusual?'
I spread my hands, 'Yeah, a little kinky, you know. Sometimes you like a change.'
'What kinda bread you ready to pay?' 'Oh, I got money. Listen, that's not a problem. I can pay.' Eddie nodded again. Then he nodded and winked. 'Yeah, I can fix you up. Cost you two bills-one to me, one to the manager of the place. You got that?'
'Sure.'
'After that it depends what you want, you understand. You want more than one broad, that's extra, you want S and M, that's extra. Get the idea?'
I nodded.
'And you want to tip any of the broads, that's between you and them.'
I nodded.
'Gimme two hundred,' he said. 'I'll drive you up.'
I took a hundred and five twenties from my wallet and gave them to Eddie. He counted them and. put them away and led me down a narrow cross street to a Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. We got in and headed up the hill toward the university. We went past the School of Design and Brown University, past some of the most elegant Victorian houses anywhere. In ten minutes Eddie parked the Trans Am on Angell Street near the corner of Stimson, in front of a deep blue three-storied Victorian house with a vast mansard roof. Over the windows was an ornamental sunrise design in yellow and black.
'This is it,' he said, and got out of the car. I followed him. We went up three wide wooden stairs and across a deep veranda and Eddie rang the doorbell. A husky young man wearing a green Lacoste sweater over a white shirt opened the door. He had a health club tan, a bushy mustache, and dark hair blown dry.
Eddie said, 'Fella to see Mrs. Ross.'
The man nodded. Eddie gave him my hundred-dollar bill. The man smiled at me and said, 'This way, sir.'
He showed me into a high-ceilinged living room with a marble fireplace and bow windows on two walls. I sat on a hard sofa with claw-and-ball feet, and the man went away. In maybe a minute a woman came in. She was a small woman, middle-aged, with her gray hair in a frizzy perm. She wore a black turtleneck sweater and a pleated red plaid skirt and black boots. There was a gold medallion on a chain, and large hoop earrings, and rings on most of her fingers. She came in and stood in front of me. She had no makeup except for some red color on her cheeks that stood out against her white skin.
