Skin Deep (23 page)

She could have been discussing housekeepers. I held up a hand, and she tossed me her lighter, hard and fast. I stalled by lighting one of her cigarettes, hoping I wasn't going to start again.

The door opened and Alma came in wearing a violet robe with little white flowers on it. She was about twenty-four, with tousled wheat-colored hair and big blue eyes. "He's going home," she said to Mistress Kareema. "He couldn't get it going again."

"You saw him scared," Kareema said. "Took the wind out of his sails." She gave me something halfway between a smile and a grimace and said, "You better hope he comes back."

"He said tomorrow night," Alma said. "He tipped me two hundred."

"Then he'll be back. By the time he gets home he'll feel like a big man again."

"He had a nosebleed. He was worried about what his wife would say."

"He's
married?"
I asked. "Does he knock his wife around, too?"

Mistress Kareema snorted. "She turns him to tapioca. That's why he rents little Alma here, isn't it, kitten?" Alma nodded assent and sat on the edge of Kareema's stool. Kareema gave Alma's flax-colored thigh an affectionate catlike scratch with her long salmon nails.

"They're all scared of women," Alma said. "All of them except Toby. Toby really hates us." She looked down at her right hand. Its thumb was unnaturally crooked. "You're not a friend of his, are you?"

"If I were, I wouldn't have cold-cocked William, would I? I thought he was Toby."

"That's right," she said gravely. "You did. I wish he
had
been. I would have liked to see that. The sonofabitch." Wrapped in her little-girl voice, the words were startling.

"You still haven't really said why you're here," Mistress Kareema cut in.

"Well, I'm not a hundred percent sure. I really don't think Toby murdered that girl. He's got a good alibi."

"Murdered?" Alma said. Her eyes were huge.

"Later, sugar," Kareema said. "What sort?"

"Someone was with him. She swears he never got out of her sight. And someone else saw the dead girl get out of their car."

"Shit," Kareema said. "That's what I'd really like. Murder one is what he deserves." Unconsciously she reached over and caressed Alma's right thumb.

"I just want to know everything I can about him. I feel like I'm driving blind, and I don't like it."

"He's a gold-plated dipstick," Mistress Kareema said. "He'll never find his own level because nobody can go that low. What happens here, someone like William, it's mostly theater. The whip is just silk. But Toby likes the blood to be real, and he likes lots of it. Alma's his type. She looks like a baby, talks like a baby. When she really gets hurt she cries. We get a lot of guys in here, they ought to be seeing a shrink. Hell, we even get shrinks. . . ."

"Doctors are the kinkiest of all," Alma put in. "There's one doctor, a dentist, really—"

"But Toby's the sickest," Kareema said, waving away the digression. "He's running on pure hate, and what he hates is girls."

"He hates us something awful," Alma said. "After he broke my thumb, you know what he said? He said, 'It's okay, honey, you can pick your nose with the other hand.' And then he tried to do my other hand."

"What did you do?" I was fascinated in a horrid sort of way.

"I kicked him in the balls," Alma said in her ten-year-old's voice. "He didn't even feel it at first because he was having so much fun. He kept coming after me. Then he felt it, and he fell down. He was screaming that he was going to kill me. Since he was lying down I kicked him again."

"Too bad he's only got two," I said.

"His face got all red, and he was spitting at me. I was trying to get the door to his trailer open, but I couldn't figure out how to work it, it's not a regular doorknob, you know? And he got up and he was coming toward me, and I finally got it open. I fell down the steps into the dirt. Some man, the man who had hired me, grabbed me and pulled me away and into his car."

"That's your reference," Kareema said. "Dixie."

"Whoever he was, he didn't care dirt about me," Alma said. "I kept telling him about my thumb because I couldn't move it and it looked like it was on all backward, but he just told me to shut up, everything was okay now, and to stay in the car and not make trouble. Then he went into the trailer. After about ten minutes he came out and said not to worry, Toby was sorry. Then he had somebody else take me to the hospital."

"Toby was sorry," I said.

"Yeah, like that was supposed to make everything all right. Jeez, what a weirdo." Kareema gave Alma a pat on the wrist. "That's who you're protecting," she said.

"Did he call here afterward? Did he seem ashamed of himself?"

She looked surprised. "Five or six times. He kept asking for Alma, saying he wanted her to forgive him. Finally I let him talk to her. Tell the man what happened, kitten."

"He cried," Alma said. "He really cried."

"He always does," I put in.

"Then, the next day I got an envelope. It had five thousand dollars in it, all in twenties and fifties. And this card, like a Valentine's card, with all these sticky things written on it."

"And that was it?"

"Not really," Kareema said. "He still calls once in a while. Says he'd like to take Alma out, show her he's really a nice guy. Talk about sick."

"Does he?" I said, thinking. "That's very interesting." It was so interesting that I lighted another of Kareema's cigarettes before I realized what I was doing.

'Two or three times he said he was going to come by," Kareema continued. "I told him I'd call the cops the minute he set foot in the place. Women don't frighten him, maybe, but cops he's afraid of."

She beckoned for her cigarettes, and I threw them to her. She lit up. We all looked at each other for a minute.

"When was the last time he called?"

"Last week sometime. Maybe Wednesday or Thursday."

"Well, well, well," I said. "Isn't that nice?"

"What's nice about it?" Kareema demanded. The bell rang in the hallway.

"I'll get it," Alma said. "You two just sit tight." She went to the door, looking like a teenager at a slumber party.

"That's it?" Kareema said.

"I guess so." I got up. "Make me a promise."

"Depends on what it is."

"Let me know the next time he calls." I gave her a card.

"What for?"

"Why not? It can't hurt, it may help. It may help put Toby on ice."

"I don't see how. I'm not going to let him get near her. I don't care what he wants to pay. I've got a business to think about. You know, this isn't a job where you can get workers comp."

The door opened and Alma came back in. "It's the dentist," she said.

"Hell," Mistress Kareema said. "It's going to be a long night. Good-bye, detective. That
is
all, isn't it?"

"Except for one thing."

"What's that?" She sounded weary.

"I'm tired of phony names. What's your real one?"

She regarded me. "Shirley," she finally said.

"How'd you choose Kareema?"

"None of your business." She sounded defensive, but Alma laughed.

"Basketball," Alma said. "She's crazy for basketball." Kareema gave her a shove, but she sidestepped. "Her idea of a great time would be Kareem Abdul-Jabbar." Alma dissolved into giggles. Kareema actually blushed.

"You can call me Shirley," she said to me. "Now get out of here. Alma and I have to get into our nurses' uniforms."

On the way to Alice I passed the dentist's Ferrari. The wages of sin, I thought. I hoped they were high.

17 - The Tornado

Nana was glassy-eyed, but she was still at the bar. When I took her arm she twisted in slow-mo to see who I was, and her eyes almost crossed. Then she turned back to the bar, reeling slightly with the effort. As an afterthought, she shrugged my hand away.

"Oh, boy," she mumbled. "The hero's hero is here. Quick, everybody, put on your tights and cape." A glass stood on the bar in front of her, next to her cigarettes. On top of the cigarettes was a pack of matches that advised the world to EAT OUT MORE OFTEN.

I sniffed the glass. "What have you been drinking?"

"Seven-Up. Toby's private stock. Who wants to know?" The words were slurred and sullen.

"I think it's more like Tiny's private stock," I said. "Out of the little jars in the office."

Pinpoints of alarm kindled in her eyes. "For chrissakes, shut up. Somebody might hear you."

"I'll say it over the PA system if you like. How many?"

She wiped her nose inelegantly. "How many what?"

"Loads, stupid. How many loads?"

"Two," she said. "Or three." She made a careless gesture with her hand. "So what? I was among friends until you came in."

I took her arm again, harder this time. "Say good-bye to your friends. We're leaving."

"And now," said the clown at the door, speaking into a hand mike and trying for a swinger's drawl, "here's our hot little treat from south of the border. Five feet two of pure salsa and
cucarachas."
He obviously didn't speak Spanish. "Let's hear it for Chili." The Hispanic girl I'd seen before climbed up onto the big stage wearing nothing but a T-shirt and a spangled red G-string that looked like leftover yardage from Dorothy's ruby slippers. Business was slow, but the girls weren't. A few customers applauded laconically.

Nana yanked her arm away and cranked her eyes around to look at me again, but I was too close and she couldn't focus. The tub of lard at the front door, the one who'd demanded seven dollars earlier in the evening, had put the mike down and was staring at us. It wasn't a sweet stare.

"I'm not going anywhere. Not with you, anyway. Someone reminded me of a word for you about an hour ago. You're a louse. 'He's a louse,' he said, and I said, 'You're right.' " Her voice was thicker than maple syrup.

"And you're loaded. In fact, you're loaded beyond any kind of civilized belief."

"Get off my back," she said. "In
fact,
as you might say, college boy, get out of my sight. You're on that toadstool's side. Lips that touch toadstools shall never touch mine." She giggled halfheartedly and then hiccupped.

"Honey," I said, "I don't mean to go all masculine on you, but if you don't get your ass in gear, I'm going to go up to that cretin over there and take his microphone away, and then I'm going to tell the crowd exactly where they can find Tiny's stash of loads. I might even tell them who gave me the key to this shithole."

"You wouldn't," she said. She was having no trouble focusing now.

"Watch," I said. I put down her drink and started around her. She made a feeble grab at my arm and missed. I was up the steps toward the door in two long strides, and Mr. Adipose was looking up in a dimly alarmed fashion when Nana finally caught up with me.

"Okay," she hissed with a slight stagger as she tried to stop moving. "Let's go." The lump of animal fat on the stool looked at us suspiciously, and she added, "Darling." She rubbed her forehead on my arm, teetered precariously, and said to him, "Some men. You never know when they're going to show up."

Fatso started to say something, but I shoved the curtain open and hauled Nana outside.

Nana shuddered, and I started to laugh. Now that we were outside she was subdued. "You're crazy, you know that?" she said. "Tiny could take your head off."

"It's time to be crazy. Nothing else will work now. Our whole problem is that we've been acting like we were dealing with sane people. If anybody on this case were sane, it wouldn't have happened in the first place. Get in." I held Alice's passenger door open.

She did, a little more cautiously than usual, and then slumped onto the seat. She was silent until we were a couple of blocks up Santa Monica. Then she snickered. "Boy," she said, "I've been kidnapped. Right out from under Tiny's nose." The snicker turned into a laugh, and she leaned back and shook her head.

"I'm glad you're amused. It may have cost you a job."

"Who cares? There's other nude bars. I can always go back to the airport." She waved a loose hand in front of her face as though she were too warm. "Swept away," she said.

"Or go back to computer school."

"Oh, sure," she said. "DOS eight-point-oh or whatever it's up to now. It could be DOS thirty-six for all I know. Or care."

"DOS thirty-eight sounds like your IQ this evening. In your case, DOS stands for Downers Over Sense."

"You're not my mother. You're not even dead old dad." She stopped talking abruptly and swallowed. Eventually she said, "He was there tonight, by the way."

"Who was?"

"Dead old dad. Aren't you listening?"

"What'd he want?"

She squinted fuzzily through the windshield. "Where are we going?"

"We're going home."

"Whose home?"

"What did your father want?"

She tangled her fingers together and twisted her hands. "If I answer you, will you answer me?" It sounded like a kids' game.

"Sure."

"Promise?"

I kept driving.

"He had this great idea," she said. Her voice was very tight. "He thought maybe we should move to Hawaii. Just the two of us, just Daddy and Nana. He wants to buy a club there."

"Club? What kind of club?"

She made a strangled sound that was somewhere between laughing and crying. "Sherlock Holmes," she said. "What kind of club do you think? Honest to fucking Christ, what kind of club do you think? Oh, Jesus," she said, and then everything fell apart and she was crying full out, nothing cosmetic or dainty, the kind of crying that puffs up people's eyes and makes stuff dangle from their nose.

I pulled Alice over to the curb and tried to get an arm around her. "No," I said. "He didn't mean that."

She yanked herself away from me. "Don't you tell me what he meant, you middle-class white asshole. He meant a nude club. He meant a place where girls dance naked and be real sweet to the customers." She leaned against the door opposite me.

"And what were you supposed to be?"

"Me?" she said. "I'm supposed to be Miss Oriental Universe. That way he gets to make money and watch me at the same time."

Traffic, L.A. traffic, whizzed by us as if it knew where it was going. The stoplight in front of us turned from green to red and then back again before I had any idea what to say.

"Honey," I said at last, "you're an orphan. Shine him on, say good-bye. Give Daddy a good punt into the far, far end of the end zone where Toby lives and start over."

She looked up at me, and her face, reflecting the bluish glow of the streetlights, was streaked with tears. "Right," she said. "Sure. Except you're talking about my father. When I was a little girl, you know? I mean, a
real
little girl, before . . . Oh, shit. Forget it."

"Nana." I put my hand on her arm. "I'm not going to forget it. For God's sake, trust me. I deserve that much."

"Why should I trust you all of a sudden? I haven't trusted anybody since I was twelve."

"Then don't trust me. You're on your own anyway. You've known that for years."

"I used to pray, you know? When I was eleven, twelve years old and he started coming into my room, I used to pray. I prayed real loud. I hoped Mom would hear me even if You Know Who didn't. Nobody heard me."

"I hear you."

"And who knows what you want? Why should you want anything different? I'm shit. I've always been shit." She lifted her knees and dropped her chin onto them, crumpling into a smaller space than I would have believed possible. "If I hadn't been shit, he'd have treated me like a good little girl. He wouldn't have wanted me."

"He's
shit," I said. "Toby's shit. Listen, everybody's shit sometimes. Everybody's crazy, and nobody wants to be. You never had a chance."

She threw both arms over her face and wailed. I sat as far from her as I could get in the enclosed space of the car and concentrated on counting to twenty. There was nothing else to do. She had her face cradled in her arms.

"Nana," I said into her sobs, "I can't fix anything. I can't make your life right, only you can do that. But you
can
do that. I'm not trying to sound like the
Hour of Power
or Ann Landers, but you can. And you already know it."

No answer, but she was crying more softly. Maybe she was listening. Great. Now I had to say something.

"I can't tell you anything you don't already know. Most of the time I don't even believe anybody can help anybody. But I do believe you've got to try."

Nana was sitting up now, gazing out the windshield through swollen eyes. Tears dripped from her chin. "So what should I do?" she asked.

I thought. "Eat out more often," I said.

Her look was an eloquent reproach. "If that's supposed to be funny, it isn't."

"I'm not a guru. I don't know what I'm talking about. But since you're acting as if I did, it seems to me that you're trapped inside your life, same as Amber was. She said she'd lost the map. What I think she meant was that she'd lost the map that would get her out."

"Out of what?"

"The track she knew. The track she'd worn down chasing herself around and around until it felt familiar because she was following her own footsteps. Go from home to the club. Go from the club to home. Stop on the way to score. She could have quit any time, but she didn't. It caused her pain, but the pain was familiar. She was like everybody else. She was used to the familiar pain and afraid of the pain that might be new. Maybe what she should have done was throw some cold water on her face and stop. Get up the next morning and do something new."

"Amber was a junkie."

"You're not."

"Not yet, anyway."

"You're not going to be a junkie. You won't let it happen. I won't let it happen."

"You," she said. "You can't sit on my shoulder forever, telling me what's right and what's wrong. Life doesn't work that way."

"I don't have to. You already know."

"Tell me what I know."

"You know you don't have to go back to the club, for one thing. Sex is what went wrong first in your life, and you're selling sex for a living. I mean, Jesus, if Daddy wants into your life-style, it's the wrong life-style."

"I should learn from Daddy?" She shook her head again, and I could feel her withdraw.

"Daddy's nothing, Daddy's less than nothing. Daddy's just litmus paper to tell you when you're wrong. When the people we should hate cheer up, we're doing something wrong. We should deprive them of that, if only for the simple pleasure of watching their faces fall."

"That's all what I'm not supposed to do. What
should
I do?"

"How the hell do I know? Go to the zoo. Grow a mustache. Go back to computer school. Become Florence Nightingale, work with lepers. Run for Congress. You speak Korean and English; become a simultaneous translator for the U.N. Eat out more often."

"I can't do those things."

"When your girlfriend, may her flesh rot from her bones, first suggested you should dance nude, did you think you could do it?"

She lifted her knees and crossed her beautiful arms over them. Then she rested her chin on her arms. "No," she said. "I thought it would kill me."

"Of course you did. It was unthinkable. But now it's the pain you're familiar with."

After a full minute, she nodded. "Learn from it," she said.

I leaned back. I felt like I'd run twenty miles.

She looked over at me. "I'm not stupid," she said.

"Nana. You're probably smarter than I am."

Her eyes engaged mine and held them. "Probably," she said, "but you're sweet." She reached out and tried to circle my wrist with her fingers. Her hand was too small. "I'm through at the club anyway," she said. "They'll never take me back now. Let's go home."

"Home it is." We eased out into traffic, and she busied herself with her face. When I turned onto Vista she sat back and said, "Thanks."

"You're welcome," I said. "We're here." I pulled Alice into the curb.

"Okay," Nana said with a final sniffle. "I'm welcome. Well, I've got a hidden agenda. I promise I won't hang around, I won't be embarrassing."

"Nana," I reminded her, "we're home."

"And you're not going to walk me to the door?" She cupped my chin in her hands and raised her face to kiss me. It was almost a chaste little kiss—not quite, but almost. Minus the tip of her tongue it would have qualified. When it was finished she sighed. "You're going to let me walk across the courtyard alone?"

Miss Courtney's etiquette class surfaced. "No," I said, "of course not."

I joined her on the sidewalk, and she slipped her hand into mine. When I took it she gave me a squeeze. "I'm afraid of the birds of paradise," she said. "I really hate birds of paradise. They look like they eat meat."

I stopped without knowing why. An unseasonal breeze stirred the foliage, the birds of paradise cawed silently, and I felt the skin on the back of my neck prickle. Then I saw the strip of light. "Nana," I said, "did you leave your door open?"

"In your hat. In Hollywood? That's what locks are for, right? Why?"

"Because it's open now."

She looked, and her grip on my hand tightened. "No," she said in a whisper. "I locked it this morning, same as ever."

"Stay here. I'll be back in a minute."

"No way, no way in the world. I'm not standing here alone. Come on, Simeon, let's just leave."

"Go to the car," I said, lowering my voice to a whisper. "Lock the doors and stay there."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going in."

She swallowed noisily, and I fought the urge to hush her. "Then I'm going with you."