Deadly Blessings (30 page)

“
You bring money?” she
asked.

William pulled out several bills from his
back pocket and handed them over.

Candy counted them, twice, tucked them into
a zipper compartment of her purse and shot William a tiny smile
when she finished.

Pulling the fuzzy coat off, she draped it
over her purse, along the back of one of the two chairs. I shivered
at the skimpy spaghetti strap top she wore on a cold night like
this one. Bright pink and shiny, it clung to her body like a glove.
No bra. When she drew away from the fuzzy coat, something caught
her attention and she moved back for an instant, rearranging it so
the sleeves wouldn’t rest on the floor. A possessive move, made all
the more poignant by the fact that this coat had been out of style
for decades.

Patting the garment with affection, she
turned to William, as if asking him to take the lead. When he
smiled at her, she nodded, reached back into her purse, and pulled
out a condom, “I bring. Is okay?”

“
Oh,” William said, shaking
his head, “No.”

“
No?” Her squeaked reply
told me she hadn’t expected that answer.

“
What I mean is—why don’t
we talk for a while first?”

She tilted her head, puzzled. “Talk?”

I leaned forward, as though that would
somehow make the sound clearer, the picture more crisp. “Candy,” no
doubt a name chosen as hooker pseudonym, just like Sophie’s
“Cherie,” put the condom on the bed, and smiled at William. She
pulled her left arm over her right, massaging her right wrist, as
she glanced downward. A surreptitious check of her watch, from what
I could tell.

“
We get cozy first,” she
said. And in a smooth move, she’d closed the distance between
herself and William, to press her body against his, averting her
face. Her hands splayed out on his chest and moved upward in a
trained way, till she’d connected her fingers behind his neck. “We
talk later, yes?”

Leaning away, he reached around to pull her
hands away, gripping her forearms. He stepped back. I couldn’t see
her face at this point, close as she was to William, but it seemed
he reacted to an expression he saw there. “Please, just for a
little while …”

She stepped back and canted her head at him.
“I no understand. You pay for two hours, yes?”

William took a seat on the bed. Perfect
positioning. He patted the mattress next to him offering an
avuncular smile, “I want to get to know you. …” he stammered a bit,
“… before.”

She sat, but her lower lip jutted out in a
manufactured sulk. Her chin down, big eyes stared at William, “You
no like me?”

“
It’s not that. You’re a
very beautiful girl.”

And then he smiled at her.

Her expression softened. William had charmed
her, as we knew he could. But the smile he’d shot her was the same
sort of smile that had knocked me for a loop in the past.

A shiver ran up my spine, even though the
car’s interior had warmed. Despite the fact that this had been
arranged, even scripted in parts, despite the fact that there would
be no physical intimacies happening here tonight, watching
William’s interaction with this woman made me squirm. I didn’t want
to see him work his appeal on her. It bugged me. It shouldn’t, but
it did.

Bass shouted, “Close up! Close up!”

His small-man voice echoed in my car, tinny
and shrill.

“
For crying out loud,
Bass,” I said, “keep it down. Jeff can hear just fine, you
know.”

By the time I finished speaking he’d gotten
his close-up of “Candy.” Small-boned, with nice features, she had
the unmistakable look of a foreign girl about her. One that would
have told me she was off-the-boat Polish, even before she opened
her mouth to speak. Large eyes, and a wide mouth were trimmed with
excessive makeup. She wore false eyelashes and way too much
eyeliner. Her lips, red and wet-looking, still had a childish pout
to them, and it seemed wrong for this tiny person to be coming on
to William in a cheap motel room.

A knowing smile came over her features,
shattering the little-girl look, almost with a crash in my brain.
“Ah,” she said, giving him the once over, slowly. “First time you
come to us?”

William sat up straighter, obviously
startled by the question.

She smiled, again a shrewd look, as she
played her fingertips on his knee, then walked them up along his
thigh. “I mean, you first time to pay for it?”

He pushed her hand away, in a move so
awkward that it made me think he was trying to be gentle about it.
“I just want to be comfortable first.”

“
Oh, yes … cahm-for-tahble
…” She grinned. “I help.” Her hands began to move his way again,
but he leaned back and she stopped.

“
Candy.” William grasped
her hands, effectively stopping their movement. “I paid for two
hours of your time, right?”

She nodded.

“
Then, let’s talk. I want
to get to know you.”

A tiny smile played at her lips, sending yet
another shiver down my back. “Other girls tell me about men like
you.” She shook her head as though amused. “I never meet one
before. Okay. We talk.”

“
Good.” He released her
hands, and I released a breath I hadn’t realized I was
holding.

Our pre-arranged script came to my mind, and
I could tell from the slight loosening of William’s shoulders, that
he was ready to get underway. We’d decided that coming at one of
Lisa’s girls full force, with questions about the organization
could be counter-productive. At best we might get prevarication. At
worst, outright hostility. We had almost two hours. William was an
attractive man, with a sincere smile and gentle demeanor. With any
luck, he’d be able to get her to open up about her life, and
smoothly move the focus to her involvement with Lisa.

I frowned at the screen. Bass caught me.
“Something bothering you?” he asked in a smart-ass tone of
voice.

“
What do you mean?” I
asked.

“
Oh, come on.” He said with
a grin, his eyes moving from me to the monitor and back to me
again. “Like I can’t see the way you look at him.”

I folded my arms across my body, and shook
my head. “Just drop it.”

“
Well, just remember my
personal policy on inter-office dating,” he said.

I shot him an angry glance which he ignored.
I swore he gave a smug wiggle as we watched William launch into
investigative mode.

“
What you want to talk
about?” Candy asked.

“
Well,” he asked, with a
self-effacing shrug, “What’s your favorite color?”

She gave him a peculiar look—but she
answered.

“
Purple.”

He asked her a few other simple questions,
on innocuous, safe subjects, designed to loosen her up. That had
been the plan. As we’d expected, she came in pretty loosened
already, though not necessarily to talk.

Deep into their conversation, she laughed at
an anecdote William told her about a dog he had when he was young.
She responded with a pet story of her own, from back when she lived
in the old country.

As she talked, she scooted back on the bed,
making herself more comfortable as she warmed to her subject. She
folded one leg underneath her and tugged at the hem of her skirt in
an absent-minded, demure move. The words flowed, Candy’s face
becoming more animated as they chatted.

Bass spoke into the microphone to Jeff,
“Close up on these two, okay?”

Seconds later her face took up one view,
William’s another. We still had two wide shots that showed body
language. Candy was beginning to relax.

“
No,” Bass said, his voice
threatening to rise again. “Too close. You lost the shot of her
tits.”

“
Bass!” I said.

The shot widened almost instantly.

“
What?”
Bass said. “You think people are going to tune in to see a
hooker’s
face
? Come on, little girl, grow up. Sex sells, remember? We need
ratings. This is gonna get ‘em for us.”

I wanted to tell him what he could do with
his ratings, but the drama on the screen pulled my attention once
again.

Like hearing a deftly written script
performed by a seasoned actor, William segued into asking if she
still had family back there. She did. Candy’s face tightened a bit,
and she became hesitant. With a glance toward William, who nodded
encouragement, she admitted that she missed her parents and
siblings very much. Her parents believed she’d made a success of
herself. They were so proud of her. And her littlest sister, Josie,
wrote her letters asking when she could please come visit.

“
Will you go back to see
them?” he asked.

The tiny face softened. She bit her lip and
focused on the dark brown carpeting, shaking her head. “How can I?”
she asked. “They all so proud of me. They write letters and say how
happy it is I came here. If they know what I do, they will cry. I
break my parents’ heart. I break Josie’s heart. I can no go
back.”

“
But didn’t you know what
you were getting into, here?”

“
No!” she
said, with vehemence. “I am good girl.” She gave a sad sigh,
“I
was
good girl. I no even have boyfriend in old
country.”

“
How did you get involved
in the business, then?”

She hesitated. Her eyes dropped again to the
carpet, and her mouth compressed into a tight line.

“
Candy?”

A deep breath. A shrug. “Two years ago, my
parents meet man. A priest. From America. He bring gifts and food
and money. He said that life in United States much better than life
in Poland. He tell them that he can get jobs for girls who work
hard. Cleaning lady, or hair style lady, or factory work.” She
pulled her gaze back up to meet William’s. “He promise that we meet
wealthy American men, that we live like queen. My parents tell me
go with him. I no want to go. I no want to leave. They say it will
be better if I go. It will be a dream come true. For whole
family.”

“
He sponsored
you?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes. He introduce me
to Lisa. She tell him she hire me to clean houses.”

When Candy didn’t continue immediately,
William asked, “Does this priest know what you really do?”

She shook her head and shrugged at the same
time. “He only get me job. Then he no come by no more. I think he
see we all doing well and he no need to know more.”

“
But he has to
know.”

Candy shook her head again. “Is all Lisa.
She make me work cleaning houses. She tell me that I could make
more money if I do more for her. The other girls tell me what she
mean. So, I say ‘no.’” Candy bit her lip. “Lisa very angry. The
next house I go to, is not empty. A man is there. Lisa’s boyfriend.
He make me do many things. He hurt me.”

“
What’s the priest’s
name?”

Candy seemed about to answer, then stopped
herself. “Why you ask?”

William backed off. “Just curious,” he
said.

“
Damn it!” Bass bellowed.
“This is dynamite and he’s blowing it.” Bass pressed the
walkie-talkie button. “You getting this Jeff?”

“
Yeah, Mr. Bassett. I’m
getting it all. Don’t worry.”

I shot him a look meant to keep him quiet. I
didn’t want to miss any of the conversation.

Mollified by William’s answer, Candy
continued. “Is no good I tell you. You already talk to Lisa, you
know Lisa. You dom need to know priest.”

“
Why don’t you leave?”
William asked in a low voice.

Candy’s eyes shot up, alarmed. “You no
understand. No one can leave. When you talk to Lisa, you arrange
all this?” She made little circles with her index finger,
encompassing the room.

“
Yes.”

“
Wait …” Candy moved back
to dig the money out of her purse. She counted it out on the bed
between them. When finished, she picked up one of the bills; I
couldn’t make out what it was, and tucked it into her shirt. The
remaining cash sat there between them. “This for me,” she said,
patting her chest. “The rest, Lisa. She make lot of money and she
do nothing but tell us where to show up. She dom let nobody go. Not
while we still can work.”

Bass pressed the wrong button on the phone.
It gave a screech of protest. Unflustered he said, “Keep it steady
on her face, and keep the chest in there,” Bass said to Jeff. Then,
a moment later, “Yeah, that’s good.”

“
Did you ever try?” William
asked.

The world-weary look in her eyes shot
through to my heart, as she gathered up the cash again, to put it
away. “Others try. But they change their mind.”

“
What happened to
them?”

For a breathless moment, we all waited.

Candy stared for a moment, then gave a
shrug. “This dirty business. They know we no able to call police.
Lisa’s boyfriend come visit if we no behave—if we try to get away.
I smart enough not to try.”

“
I’m very sorry,” William
said.

Bass shouted again, too loud for my car,
“Shit! He’s turning this into a freaking soap opera.” He punched
numbers into the cell phone.

“
What are you doing?” I
asked as a phone in the motel room scene rang. “Bass! What are you
doing?”

“
Giving him a clue about
how to proceed,” he said.

“
Don’t!” I said. He ignored
me.

William, visibly startled, grabbed the cell
phone from his jacket pocket. Flipped it open. “Yeah?”