'And if they don't choose to?'
'Our policy is very simple and it's part of our success. The member is always right. If there's a complaint about a girl, she is disciplined.'
'What kind of discipline?'
'It depends on the complaint, fines, dismissal, other things.'
'What other things?'
'I'm sorry again, Mr. Spenser. Specific company policy is confidential. I'm sure you understand.'
'Any complaints about Ginger Buckey?'
'None,' Gretchen said.
'How nice,' I said. She seemed to remember Ginger after all.
We were back on the first floor, in the Edwardian foyer.
'So what do you think of our operation,' Gretchen said.
'I think that if Walt Disney had been obsessed with sex and dominance, and was uncertain of his manhood and had grown up reading the novels of H. Rider Haggard and had the sensibility of a dung beetle he'd have founded a chain of clubs just tike this.'
The bones in Gretchen's face seemed more prominent. 'I see,' she said. 'Have you any further questions?'
'No,' I said. 'I'm going home and take a shower.'
22
It was Tuesday and an unassertive spring rain was coming straight down. I had picked up two corn muffins and an extra large coffee, black, no sugar, at the Dunkin' Donuts shop near the corner of Exeter Street and walked down Boylston to my office on the corner of Berkeley. I had eaten the muffins at my desk and I was standing at my office window looking down at the street and drinking the rest of the coffee when the door opened. I turned. In came Brutus.
He was out of uniform. His massive upper body straining inside a silver Porsche racing jacket. He had on designer jeans and Reebok track shoes.
I said, 'Tell me your name isn't really Brutus.'
'Jackson,' he said, 'Charles Jackson.'
'Where'd you play ball?' I said.
'Morgan State.'
'Step slow for the pros?' I said.
Jackson grinned. 'Step and a half,' he said.
'You enjoy being called Brutus by a twerp like Perry Lehman?'
Jackson grinned more. 'Shit,' he said, 'don't make no difference to me. Kind of money he pays me he can call me motherfucker, he wants.'
He took my card from the side pocket of his silver jacket. The jacket was half unzipped and I could see that he was shirtless. I didn't see any sign of a gun though he could have had an ankle holster.
'Picked this up off Perry's desk when he went for his nap,' Jackson said. 'He usually take one, 'bout two bottles a champagne.'
I nodded toward a chair. Jackson looked at it carefully, decided he'd fit, and sat gently. He stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed his ankles.
'Tell me 'bout Ginger,' he said.
'She was hooking in New York. Not very good. Street hooking around Times Square. I met her and talked with her. Couple days later she got shot to death. Nobody knows who shot her.'
Jackson nodded.
'She had a pimp named Robert Rambeaux, I talked with him. Couple of days later he got beat up and is now scared to death.'
'So if she's dead, how come you're looking for her?'
'I'm looking for a kid named April Kyle,' I said. 'She disappeared the same time Ginger got killed and Rambeaux got beat up. I haven't got a lead on her. I had a lead on Ginger. So I'm following Ginger, see if April turns up along the way. There's a connection, and eventually I'll find it.'
'She was from Maine,' Jackson said.
'Yeah, I know, I went up there, talked with her father.'
Jackson nodded. 'She was a good kid,' he said. 'Not smart as hell, but a lot of us ain't. Had a hard life. Artie Floyd brought her in couple of years ago, bought her from a place in Maine.'
'I know,' I said. 'Finder's fee, he called it. Father sold her to the Maine place in the first place.'
'Like I say, had a hard life. Broke her down pretty much, didn't have too much sass left by the time she come to the club. But they clean her up and dress her nice and she makes good money and nice tips fucking the members
