Mitchell Smith (6 page)

Sofa-not couch; curtains-not drapes; pictures-not paintings; wool, silk, linen, and cotton for clothes-and for Christ’s sake, read a book!

From this inconsequential source, Ellie received little of value. In three years of Rebecca Platt, she was able to pass on sufficient information to a joint antidrug task force to facilitate a minor arrest at La Guardia, a matter of no interest to the Department-and, almost a year later, to report to the office of the Chief of the Department (in the person of Captain Anderson) that an important member of city government was behaving foolishly with a black transsexual prostitute named Audrey Walker, this last of definite interest to the Department.

For these slight returns, Ellie had bought Rebecca two or three dozen lunches, resisted letting her see the apartment on Roosevelt Island-Rebecca was urgent about decoration, deeply interested in Ellie’s private life-and pip pp suffered numerous suggestions regarding her clothes, her jewelry (costume), and her finances. “I know,” Rebecca had said once at a table at Sign of the Dove, “—a guy would pay five hundred, cash on the barrelhead, to spend a night with a lady detective on the cops. Give him the long legs, the real blond muff, he might go seven-fifty.

A-Of course, you’re no kid-you have some sags, some imperfections. -

Still, I say seven-fifty. I can get you th ‘ at. -You like money?”

Rebecca, Ellie had noticed then, had a tiny bright-yellow wedge in the pupil of her dark left eye. “Well?” she’d said, “what about it . . .

?”

“For God’s sake, Eleanor,” Rebecca draped the last leg warmer, “-don’t bother me today. It’s been a ten hour day, and another couple hours to go.” She stepped back to look at the display-tree of leg warmers. “-Ever see such shit in your life? Can you believe women will wear these damn things another years”

“Let’s go somewhere where we can talk.”

“We can talk right here,” Rebecca said, lifting a stack of folded plaid shawls from a tub-cart. “Now these are all right, if you want to look like Mother Machree. I’ve told Robinson a dozen times-leave the plaids downstairs for the drifters. Serious shoppers don’t shop plaids!”

Ellie picked up one of the shawls, heather and gold. It was soft, light, and beautiful, but there was a lot of fringe. “-Did you know a woman named Sally Gaither?”

“Put that down; you’d look like shit in it with all that fringe.You’re too late for the blond love-child bit, sweet heart.” Rebecca began draping shawls over a transparent S-curved display rack. “-Do I?” She cocked an eye at Ellie while draping. `-Did I? Is little Gaither a goner?”

“How well did you know her?” Ellie, surprised and pleased. Something from a source-probably more than Classman would get from his big-time madam. “-See her lately?”

“So,” Rebecca said, “-Gaither is a goner.” She unfolded another shawl-green plaid ground, orange added.

‘ ‘Now, that is a surprise.” She draped the green and orange just over the edge of the heather and gold. “Odd for a john to go ape over that package. - - .”

“Why not? Why wouldn’t he? -She must have been pretty.”

“Pretty-but a purse, from what I heard. You know what that means?”

Rebecca reached down into the tub for another shawl. “It means she was nothing but business. Fun, but business-and she let the men know it.

That was the dumb part, letting the assholes know it. No romancing. A man’ll bang a purse once or twice, pay the cash-and take the chill. Then they’ll try for a girl who at least acts like she’s falling in love.”

“She made a good living at it.”

Rebecca draped. “Damn good, I’d say. I’d say that little piece never spent a dime if she could help it, either.” She finished the last of the shawls, stepped back to look, then in to shake out a fringe and drape again.

“-This fucking fringe.”

Ellie was tired of standing; she walked to the counter beside the legwarmer tree and leaned against it, watching Rebecca searching in the depths of the cart.

“Did you know her well?”

“Ah,” said Rebecca, “-the jewels of the collection.”

She bent into the cart, grunting with effort, and came up with a handful of tam-o’shanters, all in the same plaids as the shawls, all topped by bright burnt-orange balls of yarn. “Would you believe this crap? Thank God I don’t have to sell it. I’d be ashamed to face a customer and try to sell her this garbage. . - . Can you imagine a grown woman with this shit on her head? -Maybe a college girl, looks juicy in anything, but can you imagine a grownup in something like this-with the shawl?”

There was another white plastic tree at the other end of the counter, and Rebecca began putting the tams on it, pausing every now and then to change the bonnets’ places to avoid too fierce a clash of patterns, or unfortunate conjunctions of greens and bright blues, yellows and vivid pinks. “-Do you believe this stuff? Can you believe it? Robinson’s got one lover-boy too many up there, that’s all there is to it.

‘nose boys are sucking his brains right out!”

“You see much of Sally, Rebecca?”

Rebecca paused at the plastic tree, trying to choose the top tam. “I saw that little chinch just twice-and that was enough for me.” She looked down, choosing between a blue and rust, and a yellow, green, and mauve. “What the hell. She spun the blue and rust on her forefinger, then hung it over the looped armature at the top of the display-tree.

Tossed the yellow, green, and mauve back into the cart. “There’s some crap I won’t display. -I tried to help the little bitch-but no way. All she was looking for were discounts. She was a piece, though, one of those little cute-as-a-button types, good for playing Daddy’s daughter, except she was too old for it.

Rebecca searched the tub-cart for anything she might have overlooked.

“Little girl-a six. Who the hell killed her? -You might as well strangle a wallet!”

“One of her clients, I suppose,” Ellie said. “-He scalded her to death in her shower.”

Rebecca straightened up from the cart, and stood for a few moments looking at the back side of the beige screen that separated her task from the rest of the floor. Her throat worked as if she were drinking something.

“Poor baby,” she said. “-Poor little baby . . .” She turned and looked at Ellie, her eyes dry, black, and bright as a bird’s, and cleared her throat. “Men are such assholes,” she said.

Ellie heard a woman shopper, just beyond the screen, asking a salesgirl if she had a cable knit that tied in front, with open side pockets, that could be used as a casual jacket. Ellie happened to have a dark brown sweater almost like that. . . . The salesgirl’s reply was almost inaudible. Ellie thought she said she had two styles that front-tied-and something else about pockets. Ellie couldn’t quite hear that.

Rebecca walked back and forth in front of the new display, surveying her work. ‘-Does this say ‘autumn’ to you?” She rattled her bracelets.

“It says you’re rushing the season.”

“Would it say ‘autumn’ to you in a couple of weeks?”

“I guess so. . . .”

“What if I had Signs make me a sign that said ‘Rush the Season with Cozy Wool!” ? Yellow, brown, and gold-you know? Leaves. Fallen leaves.

-That’s what I call making a virtue out of bullshit.”

“I suppose so. . - .” Ellie was feeling tired enough to go to sleep right there. Seeing Sally Gaither sitting that way in her shower, all ruined, had made Ellie tired, worn her out. . . .

“But not really, right?”

“Sure,” Ellie said, making an effort. `-I think it’s better for you to say you’re rushing the season, than have them say it.”

“You’re right,” Rebecca said. “-I’m right. Signs is closed, but I’ll get Jake to do it in the morning. Now I’ve got to go up to Robes and dress dummies. Want to come up with me, and we can go have dinner when I’m through?”

“No,” Ellie said, trying to think of an excuse. “-I’ve got a date.”

“Who with . . . ? Not another cop?” Rebecca stared at Ellie, trying to find out a secret, her head cocked to one side.

“No.

“Thank God. It’s bad enough being one, without going out with them.

-Who is he?”

“Nobody you know.”

“Then he’s nobody. I know every guy on the make on the East Side. Every guy with money, anyway. . . .

Rebecca began to maneuver the tub-cart out from behind the screen.

“You said you only saw Sally twice. -What was the other time?”

“Same as first.” Rebecca began pushing the cart back toward the fitting rooms. “Come on, follow me. Don’t be ashamed to be seen with a woman doing honest work.”

Ellie’s feet were hurting. She followed Rebecca, seeing two women look their way. The women were mother and daughter, both neat, stocky, with noses that had a small bulb of flesh at the end-not enough to spoil their looks, but noticeable. The two women took identical marching sideways steps to try to peer behind the edge of the screen to see what Rebecca had put on display. “Will you look at that?” Rebecca said.

“They’re crazy about that crap. Let me see, let me see. . . .” She turned the cart into the last aisle in the row. “-Second time was the same thing. She wanted to know about designer markdowns, the days they were released-so she could get downtown early, you know? I told her,

“Honey-if I knew the day each designer was releasing, I would tell nobody, except for big money.” -Susan brought her by.

Susan brought her the first time, too. Introduced her.

Both times at the store, and that was it-didn’t even spring for lunch.”

Rebecca used the front of the cart to butt open a door to the right of the fitting rooms. Beyond was a wide gray corridor with closed freight elevator doors at the far end of it.

“Who’s Susan . . . ?”

Rebecca shoved the cart up against the corridor wall.

“You want that shitty hat? . . . Take it.” She reached down into the cart with a grunt.

“No, thanks.”

“Bullshit.” Rebecca straightened up with the tam in her hand. “It’s ugly, but it could look cute. You know-a snowy day in the woods up in Connecticut. You jump around in the snow throwing snowballs at some jerk with nice eyes. Then it would look cute, you know. Wouldn’t make any difference if it was ugly.”

“No, thanks .

“Will you take it! You want to hurt my feelings? You want to hurt Alfred’s feelings?” She meant the late Alfred Bloomingdale. “It’s ugly; it needs somebody. Take it!”

“No thanks, Rebecca.”

“Oh, all right,” Rebecca said. “I don’t blame you.

Nobody’d look good in this piece of shit.” She threw the tam back into the cart.

“Did you ever mention Susan to me before?”

“Hell, yes-Susan Margolies; she teaches at NYU.

She’s the psychologist. Maybe she met Gaither at school down there; she said Sally was always taking courses. . . .”

“Birnbaurn, ” Ellie said, pleased. Todd Birnbaum had been the mayor’s political aide, fallen madly in love with Audrey Walker-once a black man, a plumber’s assistantlater, and likely still, a beautiful woman with endless slender legs, lovely breasts, black eyes blacker than her soft skin, and blood buzzing with injected hormones.

“Now you got it-that’s right! Susan and Audrey are buddies, been buddies for ages. -I told you … Susan’s friends with everybody. I thought maybe she and Sally were having a thing, you know? Sally’s cute. -She was Very femme, except where cash was concerned. But now, I don’t think so. -I don’t think Susan kisses kitty-, she’s got too much sense of humor, you know?”

“You have her address?”

, ‘Hell, no. She’s in the book.”

Ellie’s legs were aching, just behind her knees. “-Well, thanks, Rebecca. I really appreciate it. -You’ve been a help.”

“Anytime, sweetheart.” Rebecca leaned close and kissed Ellie on the cheek. She had hard lips. “You know I like to help; you cops need all the help you can get. You’re getting swamped. -Listen, they changed your duty? You on Homicide, now?”-holding her head to one side, listening with great attention.

“No,” Ellie said, “—this is something else.”

“Still on that Mickey Mouse downtown thing? -They ought to put you on something else, one of the regular squads. They’re wasting a smart gal.”

It occurred to Ellie, not for the first time, that Rebecca must talk to many people, perhaps to other people in the Department.

“I’m tired, Rebecca; I want to get home.”

“-Get ready for the big date, huh?” Rebecca stared at her, smiling, seeing that Ellie had lied, enjoying having caught her at it.

“That’s right.” Ellie turned away and tugged the corridor door open.

“Thanks a lot; I really do appreciate it.”

“Oh, anytime . . .” Rebecca said, standing by the cart, smiling at her. ‘-Lunch Friday?”

Ellie was tired of Rebecca, tired of talking with her.

She didn’t want to keep her company on Friday. She didn’t want another lunch, with Rebecca sitting across from her, staring at her, fuller of questions than Ellie was.

“All right. -Maybe. IT leave a message for you.”

Rebecca had recently gotten a phone-answering machine, and was very proud of it. Ellie walked away into the store, heard Rebecca say, very distinctly, “It’s a date . . .as the door closed behind her.

On Fifty-ninth Street, the evening was becoming night, but slowly. The dirty peach and purples of New York’s September sunsets dusted the west sides of East Side buildings. As she walked over toward the tram station, Ellie passed a hot-dog cart, its yellow-and-blue umbrella folded, being wheeled along the gutter by a tired young Greek, heading for the warehouse downtown. The cart’s odor reminded Ellie of Sally Gaither, and how she’d gone.

The trams were up in the darkening air-sailing past each other on their cables high over the East River. Ellie deposited her token and joined the small crowd gathered on the second-story platform of the station’s small concrete castle. Two young children, brother and sister, came and stood beside her; Ellie heard their mother murmuring to them from their other side. She glanced that way, and the woman looked back, smiling over the bright heads of her children. Then they all looked up, and watched the small gondola come gliding down out of fading sunset light, down over building roofs, over the avenue, and into its berth before them.