A half block up, a couple of working girls, one black and one white, were lighting smokes, standing on the sidewalk outside a row house. One of them, the young white girl with big hair, wearing white mid-thigh fishnets and garters below a tight white skirt, walked up the steps of the row house and through the front door. A portly black man in an ill-fitting suit got out of his car, a late-model Buick, and went into the same house shortly thereafter.
“These all Wilson’s?” said Quinn.
“Not all,” said Stella. “You got a few independents out here, out-of-pocket hos. Long as they don’t look him in the eye, disrespect him like that, then they gonna be all right. But those are World’s trick-pads over there. All his. He rents out the top two floors, got, like, six rooms.”
“What about the car action?”
“That’s okay for a quick suck. World gets money for the room, too, so he tells his ladies, Make sure you take ’em upstairs. Anyway, you don’t want to be fuckin’ a man in a car down here. Even the pocket cops, they see that, they got to take you in. This ain’t the Bronx.”
“That where you come from, Stella?” said Tracy.
“I’m from nowhere, lady.”
“We waitin’ on Jennifer?” said Quinn.
“You already saw her,” said Stella. “She was that white girl with the white stockings, went inside.”
“It didn’t look like her,” said Quinn.
“What, you think she’d still be wearing her yearbook clothes?” Stella laughed joylessly, an older woman’s laugh that chilled Quinn. “She ain’t no teenager now. She ain’t nothin’ but a ho.”
“We could have grabbed her off the street.”
“We got to do this my way. I told you I’d come along, but I don’t want nobody spottin’ me, hear?”
“Keep talking.”
“I called Jennifer up. Soon after I met her, I boosted her Walkman and a few CDs she had. She never went anywhere without her sounds. I told her when I called her, I found her shit in some other girl’s bag and I was lookin’ to get it back to her.”
“Where?”
“Told her I’d meet her at eleven-thirty, up in three-C. That’s the third-floor room nearest the back of the house. There’s a fire escape there, goes down to the alley. The window leads out to the fire escape, one of those big windows, goes up and down—”
“A sash,” said Quinn.
“Whatever. World always tells the girls, leave that window open, hear, case you need to get out quick.”
Quinn checked his watch: close to eleven by his time.
“Think I’ll drop in on her a little early,” said Quinn.
“I’m coming with you,” said Tracy.
“Who’s gonna drive the van?” said Quinn, head-motioning over his shoulder. “Her?”
Tracy looked out her window for a moment, then at Quinn. She reached back and pulled her leather briefcase from under the back bench. Her hand went into the briefcase and came out with a pair of Motorola FRS radios. She handed one to Quinn.
“Walkie-talkies?”
“That’s right.”
“These come with a decoder ring, too?”
“Quit fuckin’ around, Terry. You keep the power on, hear? There’s a call alert; you’ll hear it if I’m tryin’ to get through to you.”
“All right.” Quinn turned the power on so that Tracy could see he had done it. He slipped the radio into his jacket.
“How long you gonna need in there?” said Tracy.
“Jennifer’s where Stella says she is, I’d say ten minutes tops.”
“I’m gonna take the van back in the alley, but I’m gonna give you five minutes before I roll. I don’t like alleys. I’ve seen too much shit go wrong in alleys, Terry—”
“So have I.”
“I don’t want to get jammed up in there.”
“All right. I’ll bring the girl down the fire escape. See you in ten, right?”
“Ten minutes.”
Quinn got out of the van and crossed the street. Go-go music came loudly from the open windows of one of the double-parked cars. The girl outside the row house, black girl with red lipstick and a rouged face, her ass cheeks showing beneath her skirt, looked him over and smiled as he approached.
“You datin’ tonight, sugar?”
“I’m taken, baby. My girl’s waitin’ on me inside.”
