Deadly Blessings (31 page)

His voice was angry, terse and in
stereo—coming as it did through the display and Bass’s phone—with
about a half-second delay.

“
You need to push her,
Armstrong,” Bass said, thankfully quiet enough. I could only hope
his voice wouldn’t carry for Candy to hear. William must have had a
similar worry because he stepped back, near the washroom, putting
distance between him and the girl. “We need concrete information,
you understand? Push the broad. Quit being such a
marshmallow.”

At Bass’s rebuke, William stiffened. His
back went straight, and Jeff chose that moment to go for the
close-up. I watched William work his jaw, as though to fight
internal tension. “Yes,” he said, a fake-friendly tone to his
voice. “Thank you for letting me know.”

He slammed the phone shut, jamming it back
into his jacket before Bass could react.

“
That son of a bitch,” Bass
said.

Candy tilted her head. “Who call you?”

“
My boss.”

She shot William an inquiring look, but
didn’t push.

I thought I saw one of William’s hands fist
and flex, but it might have been screen distortion.

Candy tilted her head the other way.

“
You no want sex, do you,”
she said. It wasn’t a question as much as a realization.

He shook his head.

Next to me, Bass made an impolite sound.

“
Is okay,” she said. “Why
you spend money, then?”

William looked away for a moment, then
turned back to her. “My name isn’t John,” he said.

“
I no think so.”

Apoplectic, Bass shouted, “What’s he
doing?”

“
Shh,” I said. I
understood. Or at least I thought I did.

“
My name is William.
Will.”

Candy nodded acknowledgment. “My name,” she
said, shy all of a sudden, “is Katrina.”

“
Hello,
Katrina.”

When she smiled, I saw the baby face in her
again. William must have seen it too, because a flicker of sadness
crossed his eyes, enough to translate through the camera.

Bass broke the silence. “Shit.”

“
What?”

“
Just look at these
expressions we’ll be missing if we obscure their faces.”

“
If?”

He broke his stare from the monitor to look
at me. “You know what I meant.”

I glanced at my watch, having to tilt it
toward the screen for enough light to read the time. We had just
under fifteen minutes left before Candy’s meter ran out.

“
So,” she asked again, “why
you want to meet here?”

“
Can I ask you
something?”

She nodded.

“
Would you like to get out
of this business?”

Her guard went up in a flash. She leaned
away from William. “What you mean?”

“
Don’t worry. I’m just
asking. If you could, would you quit if you could?”

“
You have job for
me?”

“
No, I don’t. I just want
to know if you’d take the chance.”

“
I dom know,” she said with
a shrug. “I no able to get away. I no think about it.”

“
But what if you could?
Would you? Would the other girls?”

Katrina seemed to examine the question for a
long while. She stared at the floor. One foot bounced with
tension.

She looked to William with innocent eyes, a
glimpse of the girl she had been, and for a moment the trashy
clothing faded away, she seemed more like a child playing dress-up,
mixing and matching things that clashed but made her feel
grown-up.

“
Me? Yes. I get away if I
can. Maybe some other girls too. Not all. Some think they no can do
anything else. Some think this better than working. I can do many
things. I good in math at school in old country.” She wrinkled her
nose, as though to stem tears. “I work hard. I like work hard. I
like to try.”

She sucked on her lower lip, and sniffed
deeply. When she spoke again, her voice faltered. “I nineteen years
old. I here now, two years. I think I come to United States, I meet
nice American man.” She shook her head. “You first one I ever meet
who nice to me, not just for sex. I want some day to have babies
and have house and nice life.”

“
Maybe I can help you,”
William said.

She gave him an amused look. “You want to
marry me, give me babies, and money?”

“
No.”

She lifted her chin. A touch of defiance,
curiosity. “How you help me, then?”

William pulled out a business card from his
pocket. “My work phone number is there.” He pulled out a pen and
scribbled on the back. “My cell phone number too.” I winced. Wow,
he was going out on a limb for this girl.

She scanned the front of the card. Even if
she couldn’t read, our station’s logo was unmistakable. “You work
for TV?” Her guard shot up again. The fear in her eyes was
palpable.

“
I won’t do anything to put
you in danger.”

She stood up. “I no be on TV.”

“
Katrina,” William said, in
a voice so deep and powerful and soothing that it would have
stopped me at the sound. He repeated himself, slowly. “I won’t do
anything to put you in danger.”

“
They kill me.”

I heard my own sharp intake of breath.

“
Katrina—”

“
No!” She shouted, her eyes
shooting between William and the door as though to gauge the
prospect of escape.

“
You don’t understand,”
William said as he moved to angle himself, effectively blocking the
door. He apparently sensed, as I did, that Katrina might bolt any
second. “I won’t let that happen.”

I believed him. I only hoped she would too.
We’d gone off script, but I had no doubt in my mind that he’d stay
true to his word.

“
Shit,” Bass said again.
“He’s losing control of this.”

“
I sell body, yes?” Katrina
nodded, angry panic shooting her voice up two octaves. Advancing on
William, he seemed forced to nod in agreement. “But I no sell my
life. I no sell my soul.” She shook the card at him. “You keep
this. They find it, I dead. You understand that? I
dead.”

“
Katrina,” he said. “We
will protect you.”

“
No. No one can protect. No
one. You understand? Even if you get me away from them, what?—What
about my friends? What about other girls? You can no protect us
all. You no know what you doing here. You no know who you dealing
with.” Some of her hooker, tough girl persona made its way to the
forefront; her voice lowered and strengthened. “No,” she said, her
gaze hard. “You get away from me. You no call again. You no ask for
me again.”

“
But we can—”

“
No!” She shouted,
crumpling the card and throwing it at him. Her voice warbled with
hysteria. Grabbing her purse and fluffy white jacket, she moved to
get around him, out the door. “You let me go. Now. Time is
up.”

“
Awww, hell,” Bass
said.

His face impassive, William stepped
aside.

She wrenched the doorknob and literally
threw herself out of the room, faltering a bit on wobbly high-heel
feet. Bass swore, loudly, and I got out of the car, to watch her
scuttle down the metal stairs. Even across the street, we could
hear the stilettos clank as she ran all the way down.

Neither of us knew how she’d arrived, so we
watched from between the six-foot bushes, for about ten chilly
minutes while she paced, hugging herself against the cold, until an
extended-length gray passenger van approached. As Candy/Katrina
opened the door to jump in, the interior lights went on. At least
four other girls occupied the back seats, each sitting alone. Each
leaning against a window, staring out.

“
Now what?” Bass
asked.

I ignored him to glance back inside the car.
The monitor gave me four versions of William, sitting perfectly
still on the edge of the bed, eyes averted, jacket gripped in his
hand. Waiting for the signal, no doubt. The gray van had pulled far
down the street, gotten a green light at the intersection, and was
gone. I held my horn down, for two long blasts.

On the monitor, I watched him sigh and shake
his head, right before I slammed the car door shut to hurry across
the street.

Chapter Twenty

Leaving Bass with a stern admonishment not
to move from my car, despite his furious sputterings, I made my way
across Cicero Avenue. Several late-night speeders and a
semi-trailer truck rumbled past, making me wait, the cold more
biting than earlier. And me fresh and warm from my toasty car. Why
the hell did this street still have so much traffic late at night?
A half-block of emptiness finally opened up, giving me an
opportunity to scamper toward the motel before the next wave of
headlights neared.

The night clerk, a middle-aged woman with
tight perm-curly brown hair and a bulldog’s dour expression,
watched as I passed the office. Leaning on the high countertop with
flabby arms, she held a page of a magazine, mid-turn, her attention
on me.

I ignored her, heading for the metal
staircase. My first few steps clanged, announcing my presence, so I
ran the rest of the way to room 212 on tiptoe.

William answered before I had a chance to
knock a second time.

“
God, I messed up,” he said
when he saw me.

“
No you didn’t.”

He stepped back, allowing me into the room.
Exactly the scene I’d watched onscreen, but different. It disturbed
me. Like I’d stepped into a movie, real, but not real. The
still-made bed with the floral cover askew and the ripped hem,
mocked our plans. Two-dimensional, they’d represented background
for a set-up-story with a prescribed, predictable ending. One that
I’d been able to watch from a safe distance, on a sterile screen,
the players performing for me, for my viewing and story-developing
pleasure.

But here, the musty smells of old linens and
stale cigarettes mixed with those of sweet perfume, reminding me
that reality is often far different than that which we
perceive.

“
I should never have let
her go,” he said.

“
You didn’t have any
choice.”

He shot me a meaningful glance. “No?”

Having removed three of the cameras from
their locations, William worked on the fourth. I got the impression
he needed something to do with his hands, to work out whatever
tension the night had wreaked upon him.

He knelt on the matted carpet to reach under
the window, where he had difficulty extricating the final camera
from within the tight alcove between the heating unit and the
wall.

A couple of bumps, like a person punching a
wall, came from the room next door. I turned my head that direction
for a split-second. A silly move. Like I’d suddenly been given
x-ray vision or something. Rhythmic thumpings now accompanied by
female exclamations, were barely muted by the thin wall between us.
Amid whump-whumps and pleasured groans that neither of us could
ignore, William looked up. Our eyes locked for an oh-so-brief
moment.

It was strangely stirring.

And I think held my breath.

The woman’s voice shouted a couple of choice
expletives. Then, sudden silence.

Just me and William and whatever thoughts
might be traipsing through our minds at the moment.

“
Cold in here,” I said,
glancing away, and then back.

He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. I shut the
radiator off when I got in. The smell and the heat were too much.
Plus,” he nodded to the bookcase-sized contraption next to him,
“listen.”

He reached around, flipped up a hinged black
cover and hit the “on” switch. The wheezing blast of heat surprised
me to the point that I took a step back. Like a downtown musician
gone bonkers on a set of upside-down kitchen pots, this baby
rattled and shrieked to its own beat. So loud, the din was almost
painful. Dust and fuzz and who-knows-what-else blew upward out of
the top vents. Finishing with the last camera, William stood up,
gave a wry smile, and shouted, “We wouldn’t have been able to catch
a single word over this thing.”

“
Shut that off,” I said,
straining to be heard, but by the time I got the sentence out, he’d
already hit the switch.

The quiet was immediate, and welcome.

Another bang from the wall next door. Just
one this time.

I looked that direction again. No way.

“
Keep it quiet in there,
wouldja?” a male voice shouted.

William rolled his eyes.

“
You watch the whole
thing?” he asked, placing the camera equipment pieces back into
their carrying case.

“
You were amazing,” I said,
sincerely. “I couldn’t believe how much you got her to open up.” I
winced at my choice of words, but he didn’t seem to
notice.

“
Oh, yeah,” he said, his
tone sarcastic. “Real good job. And for what?”

I heard clanging in the background again.
Someone on the steps outside. Busy night.

“
Listen,” I said, “It’s a
place for us to start. My friend Maria on the police department
might be able to …”

I stopped when I saw the look on his
face.

“
We’ll have to deal with
Bass first,” he said. “I doubt he’s too pleased.”

“
It wasn’t your
fault.”

I’d left the door slightly ajar. Bass banged
in at that moment, his face red. Possibly from the cold, possibly
from the exertion of walking up the stairs, but most likely because
he’d whipped himself into a frenzy. He wore the overcoat he’d shed
earlier. Unbuttoned, he held the open flaps in place and twisted
his neck, struggling against the half-in, half-out collar.