She poured a little oil in a fry pan and put the potatoes and scallions in. 'Depends on your definition,' she said. 'By the standards you and Hawk are used to, he's Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. But for Smithfield, he's pretty bad.' The potatoes began to sizzle in the pan. 'Would you pour me a little wine, please, cutie pie?'
'Sure,' I said. 'You shouldn't add the scallions at the same time you do the potatoes. By the time the potatoes are done the scallions will be burned.' Susan smiled at me. 'Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling donut,' she said.
I handed her the wine. 'Do I hear you saying you can get on okay without my instruction?' I said. She stirred the potatoes and scallions around with a spatula.
'Only your body,' she said, 'is indispensable.'
'Everyone tells me that,' I said.
'I assume you can find April,' Susan said.
'Does a cat have an ass?' I said.
'Ah, the poetry of it,' Susan said, 'the pure pleasure of your discourse.'
'But,' I said.
'Yes,' Susan said, 'I know. But once you find her, then what?'
'I would guess that if she'll come home with me, she won't stay.'
'I don't know,' Susan said. 'It depends on too many things. On what her options are, how bad it has been in Boston. How bad it is at home. Perhaps if you bring her back she'll run away to someplace better.'
'There are a lot of places better,' I said, 'than Harry Kyle's house.' Susan and I ate her potato and scallion omelet and drank two bottles of Great Western champagne with it. The scallions were a little overcooked, but I managed to down two portions and four hot biscuits that Susan had made from a package.
'Domestic champagne,' I said.
'I don't use Dom P6rignon as a table wine,' she said.
'The sparkle from your eyes is all I need, honey bunny,' I said.
'How much trouble is she in,' Susan said, 'if she really is a streetwalker?'
'In terms of whores,' I said, 'it's unskilled labor, the pay is lousy, the clientele is not top drawer. You gotta turn a lot of tricks to make any money, and a pimp usually takes most of it.'
'Is she in physical danger?'
'Sure.' I buttered another biscuit and put on a small dab of boysenberry jam. 'It's not inevitable, but some of your clients could be uncivilized.'
Susan sipped at her champagne. We were eating in the kitchen, but Susan had put candles on the table, and the moving light from them made her face seem animated even in repose. It was the most interesting face I'd ever seen. It never looked quite the same, as if the planes of it shifted minutely after each expression—-even when she slept she seemed to radiate force.
'However gratifying it may be to flaunt at her parents,' Susan said, 'ultimately it must make you feel like somebody's rag toy.'
'I imagine,' I said.
'The best we can do is find her,' Susan said. 'Once we've done that, we'll worry about what to do with her.'
'Okay.'
'You shouldn't do it for nothing.'
I shrugged. 'Maybe she can split her earnings with me,' I said.
Chapter 3
I was sitting in the front seat of a Smithfield patrol car talking to a cop named Cataldo. We were cruising along Main Street with the windshield wipers barely keeping up with a cold, hard rain. As he drove, Cataldo's eyes moved back and forth from one side to the other. It was always the same, I thought-big cities, little towns mops were cops, and when they'd been cops for very long, they looked both ways all the time.
'Kid's hot stuff,' Cataldo said. 'Queen of the burnouts. I've hauled her home four, five times now, puking drunk. Usually the old lady will take her in and clean her up and get her into bed so the old man won't know.'
'During the day'?'
'Sometimes-sometimes middle of the afternoon, sometimes later at night. Sometimes one of us will find her on some back road five miles from anywhere and pick her up and bring her home.'
'She get left?' I said.
Cataldo slowed and looked at a parked car and then moved on. 'She never says, but I'd say so. Some guys pick her up in the old man's car, take her for a ride, get their ashes hauled, and drop her off.'
'Guys?'
'Yeah, sure-queen of the gang bang, that's old April.'
'She always drunk?' I said.
Cataldo took a right. 'Nope. Sometimes she's stoned. Sometimes she's neither, sometimes she's just goddamned crazy,' he said.
