“Sure. So he keeps her. Well, this is heaven for Aimee, you know? I mean, he's not Mr. Universe, but he's only one guy, and Aimee just doesn't like to do a lot of guys. And by then anyway she's not feeling so good. She's got stomachaches and her hair is falling out a little bit. Maybe she's got the clap too, which would be pretty funny for old Warner, who's got a wife and eight or ten kids somewhere.”
“She was sick?” I said.
“Sure. You can only live on catsup for so long, no matter what McDonald's says. She's got, like, you know, scurvy or something. All she wants is a bed and some oranges.”
“What happened?” I said. “Did you split up?”
“What else could I do?” Donnie sat upright, spooked by something I hadn't heard, ready to run, and I started toward him. Then the garage door suddenly squealed open behind me, and I turned to see the little girl standing there, staring at me with frightened eyes. Before I could move, she backed away into the darkness.
“It's okay,” Donnie called. “It's okay. They just want to know about Aimee. Look,” he said, waving the hundred in the air. “They're even paying.”
There was a long moment, and then she stepped back into the light. Her long matted hair hung in ropes over her oversize sweater. “Are you sure?” she said in a tiny voice.
Jessica got up. “Come in,” she said. “I think I'm sitting on your bed, but there's room for both of us.”
The two girls looked at each other and then Donnie's girl came slowly into the garage and shut the door behind her. Keeping her eyes fixed on me, she went to Donnie, fishing in the pockets of her sweater. “Look,” she said, “fifty. We can go to the Sleep-Eze.”
“We can go to the fucking Executive Suite,” Donnie said. “You can take a two-hour bath and wash your hair. Hell, we can have room service. These guys are going to pay me two hundred.”
“I don't have any shampoo.” She lifted a tress of hair and sniffed at it.
“They got shampoo at the Executive Suite, stupid.”
“Did you know Aimee?” I asked.
She turned the scared, luminous eyes to me. “No,” she said, “but Donnie always talks about her.”
“Apple knows all about Aimee,” Donnie said proudly. “I told you I loved her.”
“Apple?” Jessica said.
“It's Nora, really,” Apple said. “But Donnie says I should never use my real name.”
“Which you just did,” Donnie said with some exasperation.
“But they're your friends,” Apple said, bewildered. “Aren't they?”
“Yes,” Jessica said, sitting down and plumping the sleeping bag with one hand. “Sit down.”
“I didn't do anything wrong?” Apple asked Donnie.
“Forget it,” Donnie said magnanimously. “Executive Suite, here we come.”
Apple sat next to Jessica, giving her a microscopic smile. “The man was very nice,” she said to Donnie.
“Listen,” I said. “I know you two are anxious to get to the motel, so let's finish up. Tell me what happened with Warner.”
“He got fired,” Donnie said. “For about a week they slept every night in Robinson's. They chose a different room every night. They were all over the furniture department. Finally they had a party. He bought some red wine, and Aimee got drunk and spilled it all over this Santa Fe couch. It was white, naturally. It couldn't have been red, could it? That would have been too much to hope for. So he went to find something to clean it with, only it didn't work. He got real scared and threw her out. Next day he got fired. Aimee showed up at about four the next afternoon and slept here, and told me the whole thing. The day after that she packed up her stuff and left. And that was the last time I saw her.”
I sat silent for a moment, trying to figure out the calendar.
“Can we go now?” Apple asked. “I'm all itchy.” Jessica moved a fraction of an inch away from her.
“In a second,” I said. “I don't suppose,” I asked Donnie with no hope at all, “that you've got Warner's phone number?”
“Sure,” Donnie said instantly. “When you meet a jerk that big, you get everything you can.” He gazed at me, weighing his chances. “For another hundred,” he said, “I'll send him to you.”
11
The Sleep-Eze was a two-story stucco excrescence, air conditioners protruding from the windows of the rooms like technological tumors. Most of them were off, in deference to the wintry Easter climate, but a few pumped valiantly away. The motel was arranged in a U around the parking lot, and as we pulled Alice into a spot I looked up. Three of the twelve doors were open. In each of them, a very large man sat. Two of them were black and one was white. Dealers, waiting for business.
Jessica and I got out of the car and headed for the front office. You couldn't get into the front office. From behind a window made of about three inches of bulletproof Lucite, the old dame behind the counter accepted my credit card, took one look at Jessica, and demanded her I.D. I produced a twenty and handed it to her.
“Twenty,” the old dame said, studying the bill. “She doesn't look that old.”
“I've led a sheltered life,” Jessica piped up.
The lady looked from her to me and back to her again, then made a clucking sound with her mouth. “Suit yourself, dearie,” she said, “but I've had guys, they showed I.D.'s that said their girlfriend was a hundred. Name your price and get the cash first, if you know what's good for you, which I doubt.”
“He's my godfather,” Jessica said. “I trust him. Golly, he's friends with my daddy.”
I summoned up a grin from some dim subterranean depth.
“And you,” she said to me with a fearsome squint, “you oughta be ashamed of yourself.” She was wearing what had to be the world's last muumuu.
“I'm going into therapy tomorrow. In the meantime, can I have a key?”
She shoved it through the little hole and snatched her hand back as though mine were Germ Warfare Central. “One-oh-five,” she snarled, “all the way to the left.” To Jessica she said, “If anyone knocks in the middle of the night, it'll be the cops.”
Jessica wrapped both arms around herself. “Oh, good,” she trilled. “I feel so safe.”
I grabbed her by the sleeve of her blouse and yanked. “That's what I like,” she said. “Forceful. Young guys are such wimps.” She rolled her eyes. Lillian Gish couldn't have done it better.
“Someone's going to ask for her,” I said to the old dame. “Her name is Aimee.”
“Better and better,” the gorgon said nastily.
“Just make sure he gets the right room,” I said. I held up another twenty, and she started to reach under the plastic for it. I slapped her hand. “Ah-ah,” I said. “Make sure the man finds her.”
“That's what I mean,” Jessica said to her, “he's so forceful.”
When I had her outside, I pinched her arm. “You're overacting,” I said.
“Yummy, yummy,” she said, jerking her arm away, “another bruise.” She lowered her voice. “How do you know no one's listening? Jeez-o-crips, look at all these windows.”
“Just behave,” I said in a whisper. “There are limits on how scummy I'm willing to feel.”
“That's your problem. It wouldn't bother old Blister.” I shut up.
The room was small, dirty, and painted that peculiar shade of pale green that's usually reserved for veterans' hospitals. Fluorescent tubes hummed, and a single queen-size bed offered shade for the cockroaches. Other than that, there was nothing but a chipped desk with a blotter, a ball-point pen, and a couple of dog-eared postcards advertising the glories of Hollywood.
“God,” Jessica said, “it looks like they painted it with Linda Blair's leftover vomit.” She surveyed the room critically. ‘That's got to be the John,” she said, nodding at the far door, “and I get it first. Girls, you know. It has something to do with the relative length of the urethra. What do you think about the relative length of the urethra?”
