“Why?”
“I don’t know yet. Nancy just left a message on my machine. I’m meeting her in an hour.”
“Good. Call me if you hear anything else.”
“Where are you going to be?” she asked.
“I work nights at Chippendale’s,” Myron said. “Stage name Zorro.”
“Should be Tiny.”
“Ouch.”
An uncomfortable silence engulfed them. Jessica finally broke it. “Why don’t you come by the house tonight?” she asked, struggling to keep her tone level.
Myron’s heart pounded. “It’ll be late.”
“That’s okay. I’m not sleeping much. Just knock on my bedroom window. Zorro.”
She hung up. For the next five minutes Myron sat perfectly still and thought about Jessica. They had first started dating a month before his career ended. She stayed with him. She nursed him. She loved him. He pushed her away under some macho disguise of protecting her. But she wouldn’t leave. Not then, anyway.
Esperanza opened the door without knocking. She looked at him and snapped, “Stop it.”
“What?”
“You’re making that face again.”
“What face?”
She imitated him. “That repulsive lovesick-puppy face.”
“I wasn’t making any face.”
“Right You disgust me, Myron.”
“Thank you.”
“You know what I think? I think you’re more interested in getting back in Jessica’s pants than you are in finding her sister.”
“Jesus, what the hell is with you?”
“I was there, remember? When she left.”
“Hey, I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”
Esperanza shook her head. “Deja vu all over again.”
“What?”
“Take care of yourself. Bullshit. You sound just like Chaz Landreaux. Both of you have your head up your ass.”
Esperanza’s dark face reminded him of Spanish nights, golden sand, full moons against starless skies. There had been moments of temptation between them, but one or the other had always realized what it would mean and stopped it. Such temptations no longer came their way anymore. Aside from Win, Esperanza was his closest friend. Her concern, Myron knew, was genuine.
He changed subjects. “Was there a reason for your unannounced entrance?”
“I found something.”
“What?”
She read from a steno pad. Why she had a steno pad he could not say. She could not take dictation or type a lick. “I finally tracked down the other number Gary Grady called after your visit. It belongs to a photography studio called-get this-Global Globes Photos. Located off Tenth Avenue, near the tunnel.”
“Sleazy area.”
“The sleaziest,” she said. “I think the studio specializes in pornography.”
“Nice to have a specialty.” Myron checked his watch. “Any word from Win?”
“Not yet.”
“Leave the photographer’s address on his voice mail. Maybe he’ll finish in time to meet me.”
“You going tonight?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Esperanza closed the pad with a snap. “Mind if I tag along?”
“To the photography studio?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you have class tonight?” Esperanza was getting her law degree from NYU at night.
“No. And I’ve done all my homework, Daddy. Really I have.”
“Shut up and come on.”
Chapter 23
Hookerville.
There were all kinds. White, Black, Asian, Latino-a verifiable United Nations of prostitutes. Most were young, very young, stumbling on too-high heels, like children playing dress-up, which in a real sense they were. Most were thin, dried-up, needle tracks covering their arms like dozens of tiny insects, their skin pulled tightly around cheekbones, giving their faces a haunted skull look. Their eyes were hollow and set deep, their hair lifeless and strawlike.
Myron muttered, “‘Don’t they know they’re making love to what’s already dead?’”
Esperanza paused, thinking. “Don’t know that one.”
“Fontine in
“I can’t afford Broadway musicals. My boss is cheap.”
“But cute.”
He watched a blond girl in sixties hot-pants negotiate with a sleazeball in a Ford station wagon. He knew her story. He had seen girls (boys sometimes) just like her get off the bus at the Port Authority, a Greyhound bus that had originated in West Virginia or western Pennsylvania or that great, barren mono-expanse New Yorkers simply referred to as the Midwest. She had run away from home-maybe to avoid abuse, but more likely because she was bored and “belonged” in a big city. She had high-stepped off the bus with a wide smile, mesmerized, without a penny. Pimps would eye her and wait with the patience of a vulture. When the time was right, they would sweep down and claim their carcass. They’d introduce her to the Big Apple, get her a place to stay, some food, a hot shower, maybe a room with a Jacuzzi and dazzling lights and a cool CD player and cable TV with a remote. They’d promise to set her up with a photographer, get her a few modeling gigs. Then they’d teach her how to party,
But things would change. Someone would have to pay for all these good times. The modeling job would fall through, and she couldn’t just be a freeloader. Besides, the partying was more a need now than a luxury. Like food or breathing. She could no longer exist without a snort or a pinch from her favorite needle.
It didn’t take long to plummet and hit bottom. And once there she didn’t have the strength-not even the desire, really-to get up.
She ended up here.
Myron parked. He and Esperanza got out of the car silently. Myron felt his stomach churn. It was night, of course. Places like this existed only at night. They fled with the onslaught of sunlight.
Myron had never been with a whore, but he knew Win had engaged their services on plenty of occasions. Win liked the convenience. His favorite spot was an Asian whorehouse on Eighth Street called Noble House. Back in the mid-eighties, Win and a few friends would have what they called “Chinese night” in Win’s apartment-Hunan Garden would deliver food, Noble House women. The truth was, Win had no feelings for women. He didn’t trust them. Whores were what he wanted. It wasn’t just the lack of attachment. Win never let women attach. But prostitutes were throwaways. Disposable.
Myron didn’t think Win still partook in such events-not in this disease-ridden era-but he didn’t know for sure. They never talked about it.
“Pretty spot,” Myron said. “Scenic.”
