Strega (22 page)

63

T
HE SUN was dropping into the west as I made my way across Queens Boulevard to the statue. The courthouse was to my right, a squat, dirty piece of undistinguished architecture that hadn't been put up by the lowest bidder—not in Queens County. Looming behind it, the House of Detention cast a shadow of its own, six stories of cross–hatched steel bars, cannon fodder for the processing system citizens call Justice. The guys inside—the ones who can't make bail—call it "just us." Wolfe's office was somewhere in the courthouse complex.

I found a seat at the base of the statue—some Greek god covered with tribute from the passing pigeons. I lit another smoke, watching my hands holding the wooden match. Citizens passed me without a glance—not minding their own business because it was the right thing to do, just in a hurry to get home to whatever treasures their VCRs had preserved for them. The statue was right behind a bus stop, just before the boulevard turned right into Union Turnpike. The human traffic was so thick I couldn't see the street, but I wasn't worried about missing Strega.

I was into my third cigarette when I felt the change in the air—like a cold wind without the breeze. A car horn was blasting its way through the noise of the traffic—sharper and more demanding than the others. A fog–colored BMW was standing right in the middle of the bus stop, leaning on its horn and flashing its lights.

I walked over to the passenger door. The window glass was too dark to see through. The door wasn't locked. I pulled it open and climbed inside. She had the BMW roaring into the traffic stream while I was still closing my door, the little car lurching as she forced it into second gear. We shot across to the left lane, horns protesting in our wake.

"You were late," she snapped, staring straight ahead.

"I was where I said I'd be," I told her, fumbling for my seat belt.

"Next time wait at the curb," she said. Telling the cleaning woman she missed a spot.

She was wearing a bottle–green silk dress, with a black mink jacket over her shoulders, leaving her bare arms free. A thin black chain was around her waist, one end dangling past the seat—it looked like wrought iron. Her face was set and hard behind the makeup mask.

I leaned back in my seat. Strega's skirt was hiked to mid–thigh. Her stockings were dark with some kind of pattern woven into them. Spike heels the same color as the dress. She wasn't wearing her seat belt.

'Where are you going?" I wanted to know.

"My house. You got a problem with that?"

"Only if it isn't empty," I said.

"I'm alone," said Strega. Maybe she was talking about the house.

She wrestled the BMW through the streets to her house, fighting the wheel, riding the clutch unmercifully. The car stalled on Austin Street when she didn't give it enough gas pulling away from the light. "Goddamned fucking clutch!" she muttered, snapping the ignition key to get it started again. She was a lousy driver.

"Why don't you get a car with an automatic transmission?"

"My legs look so good when I change gears," she replied. "Don't they?"

I didn't say anything.

"Look at my legs!" she snarled at me. "Aren't they flashy?"

"I wouldn't get a car to go with my looks," I said, mildly.

"Neither would I—if I looked like you," she said, softening it only slightly with a smile. "And you didn't answer my question."

"What question?"

"
Don't
my legs look good?"

"That isn't a question," I told her. And this time I got a better smile.

64

S
HE PULLED the BMW around to the back of her house and hit the button on a box she had clipped to the sun visor to open the garage. I followed her up the stairs to the living room, watching her hips switch under the green dress—it looked like a slip in the soft light. She carried the black mink like a dishrag in one hand, tossing it in the general direction of the white couch as she went by.

Strega passed through the living room to another flight of stairs, and climbed toward a light at the top, not saying a word. The bedroom was huge, big enough for three rooms. The walls were a dusky–rose color, the wall–to–wall carpet a dark red. A Hollywood bed, the kind with a canopy over the top, was in the precise middle of the room, standing on a platform a few inches off the carpet. It was all in pink—pink gauze draped from the canopy almost to the floor. The spread was covered with giant stuffed animals—a panda, two teddy bears, a basset hound. A Raggedy Ann doll was propped against the pillows, its sociopath's eyes watching me. A bathroom door stood open to my right—pink shag carpet on the floor, a clear lucite tub dominating the room. A professional makeup mirror was against one wall, a string of tiny little bulbs all around its border. A walk–in closet had mirrored doors. It was half yuppie dreamscene, half little girl's room. I couldn't imagine another person sleeping there with her.

"His bedroom is on the other side of the house," she said, reading my mind. "This is just for me."

"Your husband works late hours?" I asked.

"My husband does what I tell him. I give him what he wants—he does what I want. You understand?"

"No," I told her.

"You wouldn't," she said. Case closed.

I patted my pockets, telling her I wanted to smoke. I couldn't see an ashtray anywhere.

"I don't smoke cigarettes in here," she said.

"So let's go somewhere else."

Strega looked at me like a carpenter checking if there was enough room for a bookcase.

"You don't like my room?"

"It's your room," I replied.

Strega slipped the straps of the green slip over her shoulders, pulling it down to her waist in one motion. I heard the silk tear. Her small breasts looked hard as rocks in the pink light. "You like my room better now?" she asked.

"The room is the same," I said.

She took a breath, making up her mind. "Sit over there," she said, pointing to a tube chair covered in a dark suede—it looked like something growing out of the carpet. I shrugged out of my coat, holding it in one hand, looking toward the bed. "Put it on the floor," she said over her shoulder as she walked out of the room.

She came back with a heavy piece of crystal, kneeling in front of me to put it on the carpet. Whatever it was supposed to be, it was an ashtray then. She was as self–conscious about being topless as two dogs mating—you wanted to look, that was your problem.

"You want something besides that cigarette?"

"I'm okay," I told her.

She was putting a smoke together for herself, loading a tiny white pipe—tiny brown pebbles mixed with the tobacco. "Crack," she said. Super–processed, free–based cocaine—too powerful to snort. She took a deep drag, her eyes on me. It should have lifted her right off the carpet, but she puffed away, bored.

"You wanted to talk to me?" she asked.

I watched her walk back and forth in front of me, the green slip now a tiny skirt just covering her hips, her heels blending into the carpet. The tube chair had a rounded back, forcing me to sit up very straight.

"I need the boy," I told her. "I need to have him talk to some people. Experts. He knows more than he told you—he might have the key in his head."

Strega nodded, thinking. "You're not going to use drugs on him?"

"You mean like sodium amytal—truth serum? No. It's too dangerous. It could get him to where it happened, but we might not be able to get him back."

"Hypnosis?" she asked.

"Not that either," I said. "There's people who know how to talk to kids who've been worked over by freaks. It doesn't hurt—might make him feel better."

"He's okay now," she said. "All he needs is that picture."

"He's not in therapy…not getting treatment from anyone?"

"He doesn't need any of that!"

"Yeah, he does. Or at least someone who knows what they're doing should make the decision."

"Not about this," she said, her voice flat.

"Look," I said, "you don't know anything about this, right? Treatment could make all the difference."

"I know about it," she said. Case closed again.

I took a deep drag of my smoke. "I need to have somebody talk to the boy, okay?"

"I'm going to be there when they do."

"No, you're not. That's not the way it's done. Nobody's going to be there."

She puffed on her little crack–laced pipe, flame–points in her eyes.

"He wouldn't trust you."

"He would if you said it was okay, right?"

"Yeah. He'd do whatever I said."

"You bring him to a place, okay? I'll meet you there. I'll have the therapist with me. You hand him over—tell him to be a good boy, okay? I'll bring him back in a couple of hours."

"That's it?"

"That's it," I said.

Strega rubbed her eyes as if she didn't like what she was seeing. "What if I don't do it?"

"You do what you want," I told her. "But you're paying me money to get something done—you don't bring the boy, it makes it harder. And it's tough enough already. It's up to you.

She took a last drag on her pipe, came over to me, and sat in my lap. She put one slim arm around my neck and leaned down to drop the pipe in the ashtray. "I'll think about it," she said, grinding her butt deep into my lap. Heat flashed below my waist but my shoulders stayed cold.

"When's your husband coming home?" I asked her.

"He can't come back here until after midnight."

"
Can't
?" I asked her, looking the question into her little face.

She buried her face in my chest, whispering so softly I could barely hear her. "We have a deal. I do him good. I'm what he needs. I know his mind. On his last birthday I brought a girlfriend of mine over for him—we did a threesome." She was wiggling frantically in my lap, whispering in that little–girl's voice. "All men are the same," she purred, reaching for my zipper, pulling it down, slipping her hand inside, stroking me, scraping a long thumbnail down the shaft. "A hard cock makes a soft brain."

The big house was quiet as a tomb. "Do I get the boy?" I asked her.

"Pull up my dress," she whispered, lifting her butt from my lap. It slid up to her waist as if it was oiled—the green silk made a thick band around her waist; only her dark stockings showed underneath.

She fit herself around me, never changing her position, her face still buried in my chest. She contracted the hard muscles in her hips, pushing back against me. "Say my name!" she whispered into my hair.

"Which name?" I asked her, my voice not as flat as I wanted.

"You know!" she cried, her voice years younger than her body.

"Strega," I said, holding one of her breasts gently in my hand, feeling myself empty into her. She ground herself hard against me, groaning like I was hurting her. In another couple of seconds she was quiet, still welded to me, leaning her head back, letting a long breath out with a sigh.

I rubbed my hand softly over her face. She took a finger in her mouth, bit down hard. I left my hand where it was. She shifted her hips. I popped out of her with a wet sound. She twisted in my lap, her face buried in my chest again. "I'm the best girl," she said. I patted her head, wondering why it was so cold in that pink room.

65

W
E STAYED like that for some time. I couldn't see my watch. "Have another cigarette," she said, climbing off my lap and walking into her bathroom. She closed the door. I could hear the tub filling.

She came out wrapped in a white terry robe, her red hair tousled above the thick collar. She looked thirteen years old. "Now you," she said.

When I came out of the bathroom the bedroom was empty. I heard music from downstairs. Barbra Streisand. Too bad.

Strega was sitting on the white couch, now dressed in a black pleated skirt and a white blouse. I walked past her to the steps. She came off the couch and held my arm, grabbing her mink with her free hand. I went down the steps first, feeling her behind me, not liking the feeling. We got into the BMW without a word.

She pulled into the bus stop, hitting the brakes too hard. "The boy?" I asked her, one more time.

"I'll do it," she said. "Give me one day's notice." Her eyes were somewhere else.

"Good," I told her, getting out of the car, looking back at her.

Strega made a kissing motion with her lips to say goodbye. It looked like a sneer.

66

I
T WAS STILL a half–hour shy of midnight when I grabbed the subway heading back to Manhattan. The day–shift citizens were gone but the same rules applied—look down or look hard. I alternated between the two until the train screeched to its last stop under the World Trade Center. I stayed underground, following the tunnel a few blocks to Park Place, found the Lincoln just where I'd left it, and drove back to the office.

I let Pansy out to the roof, searching the tiny refrigerator for something to eat. Nothing but a jar of mustard, another of mayonnaise, and a frozen roll. I poured myself a glass of cold water, thinking of the mayonnaise sandwiches we used to make in prison, stuffing them inside our shirts to eat in the middle of the night. Sometimes it was hard to keep my mind from going back to doing time, but I could control my stomach anyway. I'd eat in the morning.

The pictures of Strega's boy Scotty were on my desk—a happy little kid. Like she had been, she said. There's a big slab of corkboard on one wall of my office, just over the couch. There was plenty of room for the boy's pictures. I tacked them up to help me memorize his face—I didn't want to carry them around with me. I lit a cigarette, my eyes sliding from the burning red tip to the boy's pictures.

Working on it. Drawing a blank.

The back door thumped—Pansy was tired of waiting for me to come up on the roof. I let her in, turned on the radio to get the news while I put some more food together for the monster. Then I lay back down on the couch. The radio was playing "You're a Thousand Miles Away" by the Heartbeats. A song from another time—it was supposed to make you think of a guy in the military, his girl waiting for him back home. It was a real popular song with the guys doing time upstate. I thought of Flood in some temple in Japan as I drifted off.