Flood - Andrew H. Vachss [124]
As I stopped at a light I saw a working girl sitting on one of the concrete bases that anchor the steel I-beams that hold up the highway. She had short reddish hair, a hard thirtyish face, dark lipstick, a quarter-inch of face powder. A rust-colored sweater bulged out over huge tightly cinched breasts, the ensemble finished off with a thick leather belt, faded jeans, black leather boots almost to the knee. She was smoking a cigarette, blowing the smoke toward the river—waiting. Her partner, a skinny black girl wearing a turquoise knit dress and apparently nothing else, was standing by, hands on hips. The black hooker was anxious to get working, jawing with every car that stopped, but the big woman sat like she was part of the concrete.
I pulled up and rolled down the window, giving the big pros a look at my face. She asked, “Want to buy some pussy?” in a half-asleep voice like she didn’t give a damn one way or the other while the black girl ran her tongue around her lips.
“How much?”
“Twenty-five for the pussy, ten for the room.”
“Hey, I want to rent it, not buy it,” I told her, and the black girl giggled.
“I just want to talk to you,” I told the white woman.
She looked at me. “No sale, pal. I’m self-employed.”
“Do I look like a pimp to you?”
“You don’t look like nothing to me,” earning another giggle from her pal.
“You want to talk about it?”
“For twenty-five bucks in your car, thirty-five in the room,” she said in the same monotone.
“Deal,” I said, opening the door for her. She slowly pulled herself off the concrete cushion and walked over to the Plymouth. She was about six feet tall, had to weigh 170 pounds.
As soon as she stood up I knew who she was.
I drove down by one of the abandoned piers, killed the engine, and turned to look at her. She said, “The twenty-five, man,” and I reached in my pocket while she fumbled in her purse, and I had my gun out before she came up with hers.
“Take your hand out of your pocketbook, okay? Nice and slow. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
A resigned light flashed in her eyes for a split-second, but she didn’t move. I cocked the pistol—the sound was harsh in the closed car. She took her hand out of her pocketbook, threw one massive thigh over the other, and put her folded hands on her knees where I could see them.
“You’re not a cop, right?”
“Right.”
“So you want this one on the house . . . or is this payback?”
“It’s neither one, JoJo. Just be cool. Give me the purse.”
“There’s no money in it.”
“I know what’s in it.”
She tossed the purse at me, right at my face. I didn’t move—my gun didn’t move. The purse slapped against my face and fell into my lap. I snapped it open and found the tiny .25-caliber automatic—I put her piece in my pocket and tossed her purse into the backseat.
“Not much of a gun, JoJo.”
“I don’t need much.”
“You want to know what this is all about?”
“I figure I already know. Some sucker sent you, right? You don’t figure to blast me right here, and you don’t look tough enough to whip my ass, so I figure it’s got to be about money.”
“It’s about money all right, but money for you, not from you. I want you to do some work for me.”
“Twenty-five for the pussy, ten for the room.”
“Cut the shit, JoJo. I know you run a one-woman badger game, okay? I’m not going to any room with you. I want to buy something and I’m willing to pay.”
“You know about me?”
“Yeah.”
“From where?”
“From around.”
“Then you’re around the wrong people.”
“And you live in the suburbs, right?”
“I’m listening,” she said.
“I’m looking for a guy, okay? I’ve got his picture, got his description. You turn him up, I pay you a grand in cash. That’s it.”
“How much up front?”
“What do I look like, a fucking commuter? I’m not asking you to go out of your way—just do your work. You happen to see him, you make a call, you get your money.”
“I can get the same deal from the federales.”
“Bullshit. Don’t be so cool—there’s no way you’re talking to the Man. I’ll front you a quarter for the phone call, that’s it.”