Mitchell Smith (23 page)

“Here we are-gO on in.”

This was a much bigger bedroom, with a single wide, curtained four-poster bed in it-the room done all in shades of pearl. The armchair striped in shell-gray, the walls papered in satins, creams-the curtains shell-white, silver framing the dresser top, the dresser mirror—silver-backed brushes, silver combs, baby’s breath in nacreous, slender . dowed, highvases by the bed. It was a room, two-win ceilinged, cool and gorgeous, suited to hold a black haired beauty while she slept.

“Wow …”

“Thank you.”

“It’s . . . spectacular.

“Yes, I think it is-and, of course, also ridiculous. It’s a room for a very pretty young woman, not an ugly agin one. I like to imagine, some nights, that I am very pretty-one of those fairytale witches that turns into an old lady for the hell of it.”

“It’s a perfect room-a beautiful room for anyone.”

“Well—not bad. Not bad. -The master bath’s the same sort of thing-a sort of oceanic foam and silver sort of feeling. Usually, I’ve got my drawers and stockings hanging all over it, but I did a visitor-coming cleanup this morning. -Want to see it?”

“Yes, I would,” Ellie said. “-You were saying about Sally’s not using her clients’ last names?”

“Yes; she just didn’t do it.” Susan Margolies went to the head of her beautiful bed, and began rearranging the baby’s breath in the slender vase there, separating the delicate stalks with long, freckled fingers.

`-I don’t think I ever heard her mention a client’s full name-even when we were working together with my patients. Well, I don’t use full names either. I doubt if you do, with your informants. -It’s just bad practice. And Sally was a professional, and proud of it. -If you want to know something about Sally-it’s that. She was not ashamed of what she did. She thought it was very, very interesting.”

“Sounds great for her,” Ellie said, “-until she got put in that shower.

She went with someone a little too interesting, I guess.”

“I’ve heard that tone before.” Susan Margolies turned from her flowers, her blue eyes a little brighter. “Isn’t that the sound of satisfaction?

—Of a woman pleased because another woman-more daring, perhaps more richly, more deeply involved in life, has tragically fallen?”

“I hope that’s not true,” Ellie said.

“Well, perhaps it isn’t. Isn’t all that unusual, anyway, dear. You can bet I had my hostilities, too, dealing with Sally-dealing with all those girls. There is something about a beautiful young woman earning enormous sums of money associating with a variety of men—some of them very interesting men, indeed-there is something about that that provokes just a little hostility in most women. -Me, too.” She patted the flowers, appeared satisfied.

PPW

“Who killed her-do you know?”

did-I’d tell you like a

“I haven’t the slightest. If I me.” The tall woman shot. She was very dear to walked around the four-poster to attend to the flowers on the other bedside table. “—I will tell you this. Sally usually did not take as clients the sort of men who were ill, or dangerous. It occurred to me … it occurred to me she might have mistaken a man-might have underestimated ow sick he was………

“She must have done that. -Right? Unless she was murdered for some other reason.” of tiny

“Yes, that’s true.” She found a small twig blossoms that wouldn’t behave, snapped it off. “It’s an ancient profession-and I believe that many women are better off in it than in some of the occupations thought to be so natural, so respectable. But there are risks

“Let me get this itraight,” Ellie said. “You’re telling me you have absolutely no idea-no idea at all-who might have murdered your friend?

-Just no idea at all.

Not even a hint from her that she was in trouble . . . that she’d met somebody. Somebody different? Somebody who was worrying her?”

“Men didn’t worry Sally . She knew them very well She wasn’t afraid of I them.” Susan stroked the trimmed stalk of baby’s breath into place.

“She wasn’t afraid of anything that I know of-except the IRS. Most call girls are very frightened of them.”

“We found money in her apartment.”

“Hidden away, I suppose. -Where?”

:Up in her closet.”

“Such an obvious place . . . Susan was afraid to Put it in a bank-records and so forth. I think she mentioned invest n with a client once, years ago-there were problems, i g he lost a lot of money .I od back and s . . . Susan stoa little, to get a better look at the vase of flowers.

. d Susan Margolies Seemed not quite satisfied. Ellie unagme walking constantly through her halls, patrolling, regarding, straightening, correcting.

“Did Sally like to be beaten up? Did she enjoy having a man spank her, or anything like that?” of hand?”

“You are thinking that might have gotten out

“Damn right.”

“No. No, I don’t think Sally enjoyed roughness, except as Most women occasionally enjoy it, in a very safe, controlled way. She was very normal, sexually.” She went back to the bedside table, but didn’t touch the flowers. Only turned the vase, slightly.

“Normal … Then she had affairs. -Did she mention the last names of these guys? What they did for a living? —Or was all that a professional secret, too?”

“Now, don’t get mad,” Susan Margolies said. “But I have to tell you-yes, I guess it was.” Satisfied at last with the baby’s breath, the slender vase. “I thought they were ex-clients-those were the men that Sally met, after all. And she became genuinely fond of a few of them, and they of her. I do know that a man named Fred wanted to marry her.

-Was quite a guy, according to Sally- “Fred. -Just Fred? That’s it?”

Ellie felt herself flush, knew this Margolies woman was watching her face redden. “If you’re trying to be funny, Susan-if you’re trying to’play games with me, you’re going to regret it.”

“Hey, now, don’t get tough-don’t blame me if Sally’s men were just first names! Why the hell do you think they were just first names? Would you like to hi arrested for prostitution? Would you like to be arrested for soliciting?” Freckles were standing out clearer across the woman’s face.

-A little pissed off herself, Ellie thought. “You police people have connived for years in this hypocrisy used these women and their clients to play your own little career games. Don’t blame me if those chickens come home to roost.” Gave the snowy, figured bedspread a quick, light, arranging tug. “—Come look at the master bath. Ellie followed her through a door beside the dresser, -And the patients you sent her-what about those chickens, Susan? They just first names, too?”

The bathroom was unexpectedly big-almost three times the size of hers at home. Ellie thought she might like the apartment after all-do, something else with that kitchen … get rid of the chrome … plain, white-painted wood.

Relax the room, so it didn’t look like the Long Island Railroad.

“As far as my patients are concerned, they are no names, dear-not to you or to anybody else. Period.

Under any circumstances. -Well, what do you think?”

“I think it must have cost a fortune.” The bathroom, lit by two of the apartment’s big windows-these looking out over Eighty-seventh Street-was tiled in textured bone-white, papered higher on the walls with a mingled white, silver, and dun pattern of seashells. The big, modern, sculpted bath, the toilet, sink, the built-in cabinets and small dressing table were all in pale, gleaming pink.

-The color of the inside of shells, Ellie thought, when they were wet.

The rug was rough woven wool, in light sand. “-It must have been a chore, matching the color for the dressing table and cabinets.”

c car paint from a spray shop over in Brooklyn.” She tapped a towel rack the same color. “I’m sure they thought I was out of my mind. -About names and my patients … Just for your, for the police’s peace of mind, I sent two, no-three men to Sally. All three of those referrals were more than two years ago-and none of those men were violent to any degree whatsoever. Also, none of them had anything to do with Sally once that phase of their treatment was over. that was understood and adhered to. -O.K.?”

Susan slid a dark green towel off the pale pink rack, shook it out, and began to refold it, “No-it’s not O.K.”

“Well, it’s going to have to be, dear-unless you can get a judge that’ll find good enough cause to force production of my patients’ records …

and, reaching that far back, I don’t think you will.”

“We’ll do that if we have to, Susan-Aon’t kid yourself.”

“Oh, I stopped kidding myself a long time ago, dear.”

She put the folded towel back on its rack. “-And I’m not an idiot, either. I’m a very well-qualified clinical psychologist, with many years of practice and a number of publications in the field. None of those patients I referred to Sally either could, or would, have injured her in any way. Or even threatened her. -She would have told me.”

“I’m not calling you a liar”-Ellie wondered if it would be possible to ask to pee in the perfect toilet-“I’m just saying that we have to satisfy ourselves about people.

Your say-so isn’t enough. -Nobody’s say-so would be enough.”

“The hell with it, then,” the tall woman said, smiled, and reached out to pat Ellie’s arm. “We’ll let some crook of a judge decide, if it comes to that. -Come on, you poor suffering creature. You’ve got one more showpiece to look at, then the tour’ll be over.”

“No, I’m enjoying it!”

“Then you’ve got only yourself to blame,” Susan said, and led the way out of the bath and across the bedroom to the door, ushering Ellie ahead of her there, and trailing her down another high-ceilinged hall (this one painted royal blue, decorated with small, elegant pastels of wild flowers) and as she had before, walking close behind, sniffed once, as though she were starting to cry again.

“You know,” she said, “-I thought you were wearing two perfumes. I have a really good sense of smell; I only wish my eyesight was as good.”

“thought so, and you are. You’re wearing Sarabande-and there’s something else in your hair. Really nice … Is it Tenue? Something like that… ?” She reached ahead of Ellie to a doorknob on the left as they came to the end of the hall—Ellie reflected there, blushing, in a tall, beveled glass above a small, fat vase of yellow silk flowers, the big woman looming just behind her. “Here we are.”

“Well… ?” She raised her hands, opening them, palms up, to present the room. It was a small office-study in paneled blond wood. Desk chair, desktop, small sofa and facing armchair all in deep red-leather.

Morocco. Built-in bookcases on two walls. It was a perfect room-like a display room in a fine furniture store. There was a small red-marble fireplace in the wall opposite the desk. “What do you think?” Susan Margolies said-then looked more attentively at Ellie. “What is it?

Something wrong?”

“No. Nothing.” —Stupid, Ellie thought. Clara and her ninety-dollars-an-ounce perfume. Stupid not to have washed my hair. .

- . “-It’s just perfect. Perfect. The paneling-“

“No, I can’t take credit for that. The paneling was here when I first rented. I’m buying the place now, thank God-for a disgusting sum of money. Building went coop this year-talk about Panic City! But, I was simply not going to leave. I was not going to scramble around trying to find some crappy little one-room-and-a-toilet studio I could afford somewhere. Live like a goddamn pig in a pen. -That, I did not intend to do.”

“I don’t blame you-it’s a beautiful apartment.”

“Well—it’s my home. I can’t see myself down in Delaware, living with Johnny, that ridiculous wife, and three kids.”

“I don’t blame you.”

Susan Margolies leaned over and kissed Ellie lightly on the cheek, smelling faintly of jasmine powder. “Justification,” she said. `-That’s what I like to hear.” She looked at her watch. “Damn-I think I have a patient in half an hour, and there was something else I wanted to ask you. -I’m developing an active forgetery.” She went to sit down behind her handsome desk, and looked through a small calendar beside a brass-framed desk clock. “Sit down, dear-I really do apologize for dragging you through my palace. . . .”

Ellie sat in the facing armchair-the red leather felt smooth and cool, delicately textured against the palms of her hands. “No-I enjoyed it, Made me jealous. -My place is strictly functional.”

Susan turned a page of her calendar. “I doubt that. It’s probably charming. -O.K. Appointment in half an hour.

A no-name . . .” She smiled’at Ellie. “A no-name with problems about wide open spaces. -And I remember what I wanted to ask you. It may be out of line-I only met Sonia once, and that was by accident; ran into Sally shopping with her in Saks. I think Sally was upset by my meeting the girl. She liked the idea of Sonia growing up untouched by anything her mother might do-prostitution, in her case.” She turned another page in her calendar, studied it carefully. “-Though I don’t know if she’d have felt any different if she’d been a bank manager. She wanted Sonia to grow up as free of a case of the ‘Moms’ as possible-particularly since there was no father, no family in the picture. As free … as individual as possible-and prostitution, particularly, is emotionally loaded.” She took a fat black fountain pen from the middle drawer of the desk, and made a note on her calendar. “Sonia knew what her mother did for a living, of course-but I think Sally didn’t want her obsessed by it troubled by it. She kept her separate from all her city friends, kept her out of the city. You notice there were no pictures of her in the apartment?”

“Sonia . . .” Ellie’s heart was giving quick little bumps in her chest. Bump, bump, bump. She took a deep breath.

“And I was wondering-even though I hardly know the girl, whether there’d be any objection to my seeing her a few times. -I think I might make this dreadful thing a little easier for her to bear-reduce the trauma, if only slightly. It would give her someone to talk to.”

Susan Margolies stroked her leather desktop lightly with the fingers of her left hand. “-I knew her mother, after all, and loved her. It seemed to me it would be proper to help Sally’s daughter, if I could.”