“Louise? I honestly don’t think—”
“Not Louise. The late date, the woman around the corner. Maybe she’s in the game.”
“But he was just with Louise.”
“So?”
“From what she said—”
“He screwed her brains out?”
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“Not the words she used,” I said, “but that was the general impression I got, yeah.”
“Maybe the earth moved for her but not for him. Or maybe he was going for the hat trick. That’s what, hockey?” I nodded. “When one player scores three goals in a game.”
“I knew it was three goals, I just couldn’t remember if it was hockey or soccer.”
“It’s migrated into other sports, but it’s a hockey term.”
“I wonder where it comes from. Anyway, if he knows a working girl right around the corner from Louise, why not drop over and see her?” I summoned up the image of him in front of Louise’s brownstone, phone in hand. “He didn’t have to look up her number,” I said. “But he’d have it on his speed dial, wouldn’t he?”
“Probably. That’s what people have nowadays, instead of a little black book.”
“If he was still in the mood,” I said, “why didn’t he just stay upstairs a little longer?”
“Gee, I don’t know,” she said. “Do you suppose it could be that Y
chromosome he’s been carrying around all his life?”
“In other words, he’s a guy.”
“When I was working,” she said, “I’d have johns who would get themselves off before they came over, so they could last longer. I had one who was the opposite, he wanted me to keep him right on the edge for like an hour or more and not let him get off at all, so he could go home and give his wife a bounce she wouldn’t forget. That one baffled me, I’ve got to say. I felt like a picador at a bullfight.” I glanced at TJ to see what he made of her remembrance of things past. If it had any impact on him, it didn’t show on his face. He knew about her career history, he and Monica were about the only people we saw regularly who did, but she rarely talked about it in his presence as she was dong now.
TJ had never known his own mother. She’d died when he was less than a year old, and his grandmother had raised him until her own death. Things she’d told him had led TJ to speculate that his mother had been a working girl, and that he himself might have been a trick 96
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baby, an unplanned bonus from an unwitting client. No way to tell, he’d said, and he seemed comfortable enough with not knowing.
But the conversation had lost its way, having essentially abandoned David Thompson for a dissertation on the Men Are Strange theme. I said, “I’m not convinced he went into that building.”
“It might have been another one?”
“Or no building at all. Maybe he knew he was being followed.”
“He wouldn’t,” TJ said, “ ’less he was suspicious to start with. You think he picked up something from Louise?”
“Not if he used a condom,” Elaine said.
“If he’s married,” I said, “he might have suspected his wife was having him followed. That could have made him wary enough to sense us.”
“Way he stood there lighting that cigarette,” TJ said. “Like he wanted a minute to figure out what to do as much as he wanted that nicotine hit.”
“So he turned right instead of left,” I said, “and turned right again at West End, turned against traffic. Then he ducked into a building, or found a doorway or an alleyway to hide in.”
“Why would he do that? To shake the two of you, obviously, but why? Wouldn’t it be suspicious behavior, and wouldn’t you think the last thing he’d want to do if he thinks his wife is having him followed is act suspicious?”
“ ’Less it’s more important that she don’t know where he’s going next.”
I said, “Maybe there was a cab there. Around the corner on Eighty-eighth.”
“He had a cab waiting for him?”
“No, but there could have been one standing there, discharging a fare. And he could have grabbed it and been on his way by the time I turned the corner.”
“Wouldn’t you have seen a cab driving away?”
“If I was looking for it. If it was already halfway down the block, and I was looking around for a man on foot, well, I might not have noticed it. Or he could have had a car parked there.” All the Flowers Are Dying
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“And started it up and pulled out without being seen? Only if you was limpin’ round the corner.”
“He could have parked there,” I said, “and got in and pulled the door shut, but not started up. Because he didn’t want to be spotted.”
