A Hell of a Dog (31 page)

They spotted me and tottered over. I dropped the paper onto the bench, stood, and smiled. Or maybe I gaped. Who knows?

The big one stuck out her enormous hand. I felt sure she was going to say her name was Alice, because Lord knows, I was in Wonderland. But I was wrong.

“I'm LaDonna.” She was tall, dark, and gorgeous, six-one, maybe even six-two in stocking feet. Only she wasn't—she wore thigh-high pink boots and matching lipstick. We shook hands, her grip, like her broad shoulders and narrow hips, at odds with the message her outfit was trying so desperately to convey.

“Chi Chi,” the frizzy-haired one said. “And this here's Clint.” She jiggled the dog. “Same deep-set, dark eyes.” She nodded slowly. “I could go for him,” she said.

“Aren't his blue?” the one in the cat suit said, wagging one long finger to and fro.

“Whose?”

“Clint's.”

Chi Chi looked down at her dog, then shook her head. “No way. They brown.”

“I meant—”

“What?”

The one in the cat suit shook her head. Never mind, her hand said.

Chi Chi shrugged, turning back to me. “Did you see the one where he risked everything for the hookers?”

“I did,” I told her. “I loved it.”

One hand to her chest, long, iridescent purple nails. “Me, too. The Un something, am I right?” It was the voice from the phone. “This here's Jasmine. She won't tell you herself. She won't speak up 'less you make a mistake. Then she jump in, point it out to you, make sure everyone knows how smart she is. One year of college.” Chi Chi nodded, then knocked my third client with her hip.

Jasmine had one arm bent, her pointer on her heavily rouged cheek, the elbow resting in her other hand. She looked me up and down.

“She needs work,” she said. “But she has potential, I'll give her that. Turn around.”

I did, Dash standing up, then sitting down again, confused. He wasn't the only one.

She pushed back her long, blue-black hair with one finger—well, one long press-on nail that matched her lipstick and eye shadow—a little over the top for me, but as she'd already pointed out, what did I know? “She's lucky,” she said to the other two. “She's got small feet.” She turned to me. “Unless you need a tiara or a butt lifter, you don't need Lee's, size thirteen and up. You can go to Eighth Street. You can go to Barney's or Jeffrey, you got money to burn. What are you, an eight narrow?”

I looked down at my red Converse high-tops, then back up at Jasmine without answering. I thought I'd wait for the Mad Hatter to show before saying anything further.

“Shoes tell a lot about a person,” LaDonna said. “Your shoes can give you away in a heartbeat.”

“Yeah,” Jasmine said. “You know what they say. There are only two kinds of women wear red shoes.” Now they were all looking at my sneakers. “And you ain't no Spanish dancer.”

The three of them fell apart laughing, like it was the funniest line ever delivered.

“At least the color's a good choice,” LaDonna said, arms folded, one long finger tapping her Adam's apple.

“Can we get serious here—”

“We are serious, girlfriend. Dead serious. We're trying to save your life, so you can save ours. We're saying, you've got to look the part, for your own safety. And you've got to check them out, too. Look at
their
shoes. When you get the chance. You see cop shoes, you don't talk money, you beat it the hell out of the car, fast as you can. Of course, some of them, no way you're going away without they get a free sample first.” Jasmine shrugged. “Cost of doing business.”

“Look, you're way ahead of me here.”

“She's right,” Chi Chi said. “We need to start on page one. You're already in the sequel.”

I sat. She sat to my left and took one of my hands in one of hers. For some inexplicable reason, the gesture touched me. LaDonna sat on my right, her eyes way too bright, as if she were about to cry, or just had. And even though I was cold, wearing much more than she was, she was sweating. They all were. Jasmine squatted in front of me. How she did that without tipping over in those shoes I'll never understand.

Chi Chi did the talking. “One of our friends got killed a couple of weeks ago. Nothing's going to be done about it. You understand how that works, don't you? We was told you would.”

“Who—”

She scowled and flicked her hand at me. “I already tol' you, you ask too many questions. Jus' listen, okay?”

I nodded.

“Remember a few years ago, this transvestite Marsha got herself killed on the Christopher Street pier?” She patted my hand. “Remember what happened then?”

“Nothing.”

“Our point exactly.”

They all nodded. Jasmine pushed her hair back again.

“Our friend, someone got her with a box cutter, right across her throat.” She drew one finger across her own neck to illustrate, in case I hadn't gotten the picture.

“I'm sorry.”

“People think because we engage in commercial sex work, means we're trash,” LaDonna said. “They think we're not worth shit, we don't have lives. Or feelings. This is what we do, it's not what we are.”

I nodded. Enthusiastically.

“Anyways, we waited to hear something and din't. So then her brother called the precinct to inquire about the case, and they tol' him it was most likely a john and how are they going to find him, it's not like he left his business card or anything.”

“But you don't think it was a john?”

“Did I say that? What I'm telling you is that they're not going to do anything. I mean, din't they say that themselves, to her brother?”

“Does she have other family, or just the one brother?”

“There's no brother,” Chi Chi said. She was looking down at our hands. She was mumbling. “She was alone. That's why it's up to us to find out who did her.”

“But you said—” I stopped when I knew what was coming.

“It was me,” she said, letting her voice drop. “I had to try to find out. She was a good person, you know, God-fearing. And she was our friend.”

I nodded again. “What was her name?”

“Rosalinda.”

“Pretty name.”

Jasmine smiled. “For a while, she was Gypsy Rosalie. She was taking dance class, at the Y. She wanted to be a stripper.”

“Hence the name.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Like you said. Hence the name. And can I give you a little tip here? Cut the ‘hence' shit when you're on the stroll, okay?”

“When I'm on the—”

“This was just her day job,” LaDonna said.

“So to speak.”

“Yeah,” Jasmine said, “and eighty-six that one, too.”

Before I could even phrase a question—being careful to omit “hence” and “so to speak” from my vocabulary really slowed me down—Chi Chi leaned closer. “What we want,” she said, “is for you to find out
who
. Okay?”

“What we want,” LaDonna said, “is to know how much for finding out
who
. Always good to get the money squared away up front.”

“And if you take Visa, Discover, or American Express,” Jasmine said.

“I—” Things were moving too fast to stop and think. Perhaps I was still trying to process the phrase “when you're on the stroll.”

“Only kidding,” Jasmine said. “It'll be a cash transaction. That's the only way we do business.” She unzipped the front of her cat suit, reached into her bra, and took out a wad. LaDonna stuck her big hand up her short skirt and brought out another. I turned to Chi Chi, who was pulling Clint out from underneath her jacket. He had a jacket of his own on, also red leather. With a zippered pocket. She opened that and took out a third wad of cash.

“We have to know,” she said. “And we're willing to pay to find out.”

“And then what? What happens if I find out who?”

They were all paying attention, all giving good eye contact, but for a change, no one had anything to say.

I held up one hand. Dashiell lay down, though it hadn't been meant for him. “Look, I'm not going to find this person and have you execute him.”

“What about to protect the rest of us? What if he's going to do it again? What if it wasn't about Rosalinda specifically, but there's someone out there gets off on killing hookers? What about that? At least if we know what the guy looks like, then we're safe.” She began to put Clint back inside her jacket, but her hands were shaking. When she looked up, there were tears in her eyes. “If
you
got the information to the cops, well, that's one thing. If we said, Hey, we know who killed Rosalinda, do you think they'd lift a finger? You think they give a shit about us?”

I sat there thinking for a minute, the three tranny hookers watching me, no one making jokes now.

“So what's your take on this? Do you think it was a customer?”

LaDonna shrugged her massive shoulders.

“Could it have been another hooker? Are you guys territorial?”

No one answered.

“A pimp? Setting an example for the rest of his girls?”

I waited.

“No? Not a pimp? They're nurturing, gentle, like the good mothers none of us had? That's what I've always heard, so no way, if that's what you tell me, I'm going to feel you're being less than honest.”

Pregnant pause.

“I take it you're not going to set the record straight for me.”

Nothing.

“Okay, so you don't think it was her pimp?” I looked from one to the next. Mount Rushmore was more expressive, a bit less terrified, too. “If you don't tell me the truth, how am I going to help you?” Wondering if they were capable of doing that, even as I asked.

Clint sneezed.

“Whatever you tell me, it stops with me. Client privilege. You know what that is? So, Rosalinda, did she do something to piss off her pimp? Hold out money? Sass him? Someone, anyone? The pimp, he decided to put the fear of God—”

“We don't know. That's why we hiring you,” Chi Chi said in a voice so low I had to lean closer to hear her.

“It could be it was a wife,” LaDonna said, “didn't take to her husband's little habit.”

I looked up at her.

“They's all married.”

“Not all,” Chi Chi said. “Maybe most.”

Jasmine shook her head. “A lot of them aren't. Sometimes they say they are, even when they're not. They complain about a wife they may or may not have. This guy, he says, my wife,
she
wouldn't do that you put a fucking gun to her head. Who knows, he's really got a wife or not? This ain't exactly St. Patrick's Cathedral, people coming around to confess the truth, ask for forgiveness.”

LaDonna nodded. “You work undercover, right? At least, that's what we was told.”

I looked up at her, down at Jasmine, sideways at Chi Chi.

“You're kidding, right?”

They shook their heads.

“We'll take care of you. Don't you worry,” Jasmine said.

“You'll be with me,” LaDonna said. “I'll never let you out of my sight for one minute.”

I looked back up, thinking for the moment of something my sister had once said, about how I seemed to be looking for better and better ways to get myself killed.

“So you think it was family?” I asked.

“Or another hooker,” Chi Chi said. “They's some out there, they're crazy. Desperate. Kill you soon as look at you.”

“Could be something else entirely,” LaDonna added, “something we ain't thought of.”

“Hence we hired you.” That Jasmine was one smart-ass broad.

“Right. What about the meat market? Is there any chance—”

“The meat market's not even open when we work,” she said. “Case closed.”

“Right,” I said, “and anyway, there's all that rich tradition behind you, of hookers working in the same area as the wholesale markets, here, Hunts Point—”

“What about the pig man?” LaDonna whispered out of one side of her mouth, ignoring me, bending so that she was talking right into Jasmine's ear.

“The pig man?” I asked.

“He's just a customer, some butcher Rosalinda did once or twice. That don't have nothing to do with anythin',” Jasmine said.

“So what's his name, this pig man?”

“I already said, it don' have nothin'—”

“We don't kiss and tell,” Chi Chi said.

“Truth is,” Jasmine said, leaning forward, “we don't kiss, period. It's unsanitary. You never know where someone's mouth's been.”

“So she never mentioned the name? Not even just his first name? The place of business? Nothing? She just referred to him as—”

“The pig man.” All of them together, Tranny Hookers Local 101, my new employers.

They were a sad-looking group. Despite the quick repartee, the fancy outfits with matching shoes, tattoo covers, press-on nails, glitter, the pancake makeup, rouged cheeks, painted mouths, misery was shining in their eyes, to a man. And something else, too, perhaps more than just a hint of the craziness they accused others of. I know I should have been scared, sitting with them the way I was, no one else around. But somehow I wasn't. At least, not enough. For some reason I can't explain, something in Chi Chi's voice had touched me, and I knew before I met her that whatever it was she needed, I'd be with her all the way, in a straight line, right up until the end.

“So he sells pork,” I said. “This we know.”

Chi Chi nodded. “We're pretty sure that's so.” She looked around, shifted her feet, twitched one shoulder, checked to see if Clint was okay. “He sells pork,” she repeated, forcing a laugh, as if to say, Sense of humor like mine, I was ready for
Late Night
.

Jasmine pointed to her head. Well, truth be told, to her hair. “Smart,” she said.