Everything but the Squeal

“Ella Moss,” he said promptly. “She was ten. It wasn't my idea.” He sounded desperate.

“I believe you. Where are the ones who are alive?”

“Tell Woofers to speak.”

“Like how?”

“Just say, ‘Speak, Woofers.’ ”

“Speak, Woofers,” I said. Woofers barked.

He made a sobbing sound. “Please,” he said, “take care of her.”

“That's up to you. Screw up, and she could be the main course in some Korean restaurant on Olympic Boulevard.”

“You want to know where they are. Don't you want to know how I got involved?”

Never interfere with the flow of a confession. “That'll do for a start.”

“It was Mister,” Birdie said.

“You've mentioned Mister twice. Who is he?”

“Mr. Brussels, of course,” he said waspishly. “He liked the little ones. He was crazy about Ella. That's why he got into this business in the first place. Being a kiddie agent is a pederast's paradise. All those pretty little girls with their ambitious mommies.”

“The agency was legit at first?”

“Of course,” he said. “Do you think I would have taken the job if it wasn't?” I let it pass. “It's still legit, for that matter, or at least part of it is.”

“When did it go sour?”

“When he realized that he could peddle the ones he got tired of. And then kids started running away from home and all the little babies hit the streets, and that was perfection, wasn't it? No parents, no guardians, nothing but profit.”

“And if they disappeared for good?”

“Well, they'd already disappeared, hadn't they? Most of them were hooking anyway. You wouldn't believe what you can buy on Santa Monica Boulevard if you know where to look.”

“Birdie,” I said, “right now there isn't much I wouldn't believe.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said impatiently. “We already know how smart you are.”

“So you were working for Mr. Brussels.”

He let half a minute slide by. “How do I know you're going to protect me?”

“You don't,” I said. “Listen, Birdie, let's look at the score. I know ninety percent of it, enough to put you somewhere where absolutely everyone is going to be bigger than you, where you can't buy shirts from the Philippines, and they don't take kindly to people who traffic in kids. In a month, no one will be able to tell you from a bean bag. And I've got Woofers. I'm holding out an olive branch to you. If I were you I'd take it even if it were only a twig.”

“Just asking,” he said.

“Well, don't ask again.”

“Can't we do this in person? My life is at stake.”

“Respectively, no, and tough shit. I might be able to protect you from the cops, but I can't do anything about your business associates.”

“You could kill them,” he said promptly.

“Yes,” I said, thinking about it, “there's that.”

“But will you?”

“Get me mad at them. We were talking about Mr. Brussels. Speaking of which, where's the missus?”

“With a legitimate client. She won't be back until later.”

“Mister,” I prompted.

“Mister started setting up his leftovers, renting them to producers and directors who like them little. There are lots of them. He was also doing a profitable line in video.”

“And you?”

“I was keeping the books,” he said defensively. “That's all.”

I didn't contradict him. “Only the books? What about the data base?”

“That was later. That was her.”

“When did she come on the scene?”

“He had a heart attack on top of some twelve-year-old. I managed to keep it out of the papers, and then they read the will and she found out she was bankrupt.”

“She was out of it until he died?”

“Was she ever. Helen Housewife, that's what she was.”

“And why was she bankrupt?”

“The agency account was empty. Twelve-year-olds are expensive. He'd been eating the profits, so to speak. And then, he had a weakness for cocaine.”

“Sounds like a nice guy.”

“You would have liked him,” Birdie said bitterly. “A guy who could kidnap a dog.”

“What about the money from the sideline? All those producers and directors?”

“Ahhh,” Birdie said, stalling.

I waited. “Maybe you'd like me to hang up again,” I finally said.

“No. Wait. It was in a secret account, one that had nothing to do with the real business. She came in and tried to run the agency, or what was left of it, and finally I told her about the other account.”

“And you explained where it came from?”

“That too.”

“Why didn't you just take the money and say bye-bye?”

“I couldn't,” he said in a grating voice. “She was the only authorized co-signer.”

“I thought you said she didn't know about it.”

“In those days, she didn't know shit from shirt buttons. She's a fast learner. He'd given her a bunch of papers to sign, and the signature cards from the account were among them. She would have signed a declaration of independence for the state of Alabama if he'd put it in front of her.”

“So you were stuck,” I said, trying to sound sympathetic. “You couldn't get out because you couldn't get your hands on the money. How much was it?”

He hesitated. “Half a mil.” I was willing to bet it had been more.

“And how did she react when you told her about it?”

“You mean did she rend her clothes and tear her hair out? No. She didn't age before my eyes, either. She went home for two or three days and then she came back and announced we were back in business.”

“Birdie,” I said. The sun went back behind a cloud and Woofers cocked her head and looked up at the window. “She couldn't have done it without you.”

“Don't you think I know that?”

“You knew where the money was. You knew where the kids were. You knew the names of the customers. What did she know?”

“She couldn't keep track of which hand her rings were on.”

“So you were in the driver's seat.”

“Ummm,” he said. I could feel him retreat. “But she had access to the bank account.”

“What did she give you?”

He weighed the odds, so slowly that I could almost hear the mental subtraction. “I'm not sure I know what you mean.”

“The next sound you hear,” I said, “will be Woofers' last yelp.” I hung up.

It was well past lunchtime, but I wasn't hungry. I gave Woofers the cold hamburger I'd bought on the way home, by way of making up for the tug on her ear, and spent the next hour pacing and thinking things through. There was a delicate balance in play: not enough pressure, and he'd clam up. Too much, and he'd break. Broken, he'd be useless. Unless I wanted to start from scratch with Mrs. Brussels, who was a much tougher customer, Birdie was all I had.