Hell To Pay

Strange didn’t know what to say to that one, so he let it ride.

“What about you?” asked Bagley. “What do you think about it?”

Strange’s eyes darted from Bagley’s and went to nowhere past her shoulder. “I haven’t thought on it all that much, tell you the truth.”

Bagley and Tracy stared at Strange. Strange turned his head, looked toward the grill area. Where was that burger? All right, thought Strange, I’ll have my lunch, listen to these Earnest Ernestines say their piece, and get on out of here.

“You come recommended,” said Bagley, forcing Strange to return his attention to them. “A couple of the lawyers we’ve worked with down at Superior Court say they’ve used you and they’ve been pleased.”

“Most likely they used my operative, Ron Lattimer. He’s been doing casework for the CJA attorneys. Ron’s a smart young man, but let’s just say he doesn’t like to break too much of a sweat. So he likes those jobs, ’cause when you’re working with the courts you automatically got that federal power of subpoena. You can subpoena the phone company, the housing authority, anything. It makes your job a whole lot easier.”

“You’ve done some of that,” said Bagley.

“Sure, but I prefer working in the fresh air to working behind a computer, understand what I’m saying? I just like to be out there. And my business is a neighborhood business. Over twenty-five years now in the same spot. So it’s good for me to have a presence out there, the way—”

“Cops do,” said Tracy.

“Yeah. I’m an ex-cop, like you two. Been thirty-some-odd years since I wore the uniform, though.”

“No such thing as an ex-cop,” said Bagley.

“Like there’s no such thing as a former alcoholic,” said Tracy, “or an ex-Marine.”

“You got that right,” said Strange. He liked these two women a touch more now than when he’d walked in.

Strange turned the glass of ginger ale so that the smudge was away from him and took a sip. He replaced the glass on the table and leaned forward. “All right, then, now we had our first kiss and got that over with. What do you young ladies have on your minds?”

Bagley glanced briefly over at Tracy, who was in the process of putting fire to a cigarette.

“We’ve been working with a group called APIP,” said Bagley. “Do you know it?”

“I read about it in that article they did on you two. Something about helping out prostitutes, right?”

“Aiding Prostitutes in Peril,” said Tracy, blowing a jet of smoke across the table at Strange.

“Some punk-rock kids started it, right?”

“The people behind it were a part of the local punk movement twenty years ago,” said Tracy, “as I was. They’re not kids anymore. They’re older than me and Karen.”

“What do they do, exactly?”

“A number of things, from simply providing condoms to reporting violent johns. Also, they serve as an information clearinghouse. They have an eight-hundred number and a Web site that takes in e-mails from parents and prostitutes alike.”

“That’s where you two come in. You find runaways who’re hookin’. Right?”

“That’s a part of what we do,” said Bagley. “And we’re getting too busy to handle all the work ourselves. The county business alone keeps us up to our ears in it. We could use a little help in the District.”

“You need me to find a girl.”

“Not exactly,” said Bagley. “We thought we’d test the waters with you on something simpler, see if you’re interested.”

“Keep talking.”

“There’s a girl who works the street between L and Mass, on Seventh,” said Tracy.

“Down there by the site for the new convention center,” said Strange.

“Right,” said Tracy. “The last two weeks or so a guy’s been hassling her. Pulling up in his car, trying to get her to date him.”

“Ain’t that the object of the game?”

“Sure,” said Bagley. “But there’s something off about this guy. He’s been asking her, Do you like it rough? Telling her she’s gonna dig it, he can tell she’s gonna dig it, right?”

Strange shifted in his seat. “So? Girl doesn’t have to be a working girl to come up against that kind of creep. She can hear it in a bar.”

“These working women get a sense for this kind of thing,” said Bagley. “She says there’s something not right, we got to believe her. And he doesn’t want to pay. Says he doesn’t have to pay, understand? She’s scared. Can’t go to the cops, right? And her pimp would beat her ass blue if he knew she was turning down a trick.”

“Even a no-money trick?”

Strange stared hard at Tracy. Her eyes did not move away from his.

Tracy said, “This is the information we have. Either you’re interested or you’re not.”

“I hear you,” said Strange, “but I’m not sure what you want me to do. You’re lookin’ for me to shake some cat down, you got the wrong guy.”