Strega (16 page)

41

I
T WAS cold out there by the water, especially along my spine. We had a deal—I had listened to her story and now I could walk away. But I wanted to buy some insurance—make her understand that I wasn't the man for the job anyway.

"Julio's full of shit," I told her in a flat voice.

"I know," she said, quiet and soft.

"I mean about the Nazis. I don't know them—they were in prison with all of us—nobody knows them—they keep to themselves, you understand?"

The redhead twisted in my lap until she was facing me. She grabbed the lower half of my face like I had done to her. I could smell the perfume on her hand. She put her little face right up against me, grabbing my eyes with hers.

"You're lying to me," she whispered. "I know all about men—I know more about men than you'll ever know. I know when a man is lying to me."

I met her stare with no problem, even though the moon was dancing in her crazy eyes.

"I'm telling you the truth," I said.

She leaned against me, shoving her lips hard against mine. I could feel her teeth. Then her tongue. She stayed like that for a solid minute, her hands somewhere on my chest. "Please?" she whispered.

She pulled her face away. "No," I said. I started to get up but she was still sitting on my lap. She put her face against me again, opened her mouth, and bit into my lower lip with all her strength. The pain–jolt shot through me like electricity—I stiffened two fingers and a thumb and drove them into her ribs. She grunted and pulled away from me, blood on her mouth.

The redhead rolled off my lap and bent double at the waist. I thought she was going to throw up, but she got herself under control. Her head came up. She was chewing on something—a piece of my lip.

"Mmmmm," she said, "it's so
good
." I watched her swallow a part of me. Her smile had red in it, like smeared lipstick.

I got up from the bench and walked back to the Plymouth, leaving her where she was. She didn't move until she heard the engine kick over. Then she walked to the car, taking her time.

She got in the passenger side, opened her window, and looked out—away from me. She didn't say another word until we pulled up next to her BMW.

42

M
ETROPOLITAN Avenue was quiet. The BMW was sitting there undisturbed. It was that kind of neighborhood.

The redhead turned to me. "Can I say one thing to you before you go?"

I just nodded, tensing my right arm in case she decided she was still hungry.

"One hundred thousand dollars. In cash. For you."

She had my attention, but I didn't say anything.

"One hundred thousand dollars," she said again, like she was promising me the most erotic thing in the world. Maybe she was.

"Where?" I asked her.

"I have it," she said. "And it's yours if you find me that picture."

"And if I don't? I mean, if I look and come up empty?"

"How long will you look?"

"If I look, I'll look four, five weeks. After that, there's no point. You could run some ads, shake some trees…but if it's around, still local, that's all the time there is."

"How do I know you'll really look?" she asked.

"You don't," I said, "and
that's
the fucking truth."

"Five thousand a week?"

"Plus expenses.

"For a hundred grand, you can pay your own expenses.

"If I find the picture," I said, "the hundred grand covers it all, okay? But if I don't, you pay five grand a week for a max of five weeks, plus expenses.

The redhead stroked her own face, soothing herself, thinking. Finally she said, "Ten grand up front and you start tonight."

"Twenty–five up front and I start tonight," I shot back.

"Fifteen," she offered.

"Take a walk, lady," I said. "I shouldn't have started this in the first place."

"You walk with me," the redhead said. "Back to my house. I'll give you the twenty–five."

"And a picture of the kid?"

"Yes. And all the other stuff I put together."

"And then you're out of it? I do my work and I let you know the result?"

"Yes."

"And then you forget you ever saw me?"

"Oh, I'll do that," she said, "but you'll never forget you saw me.

Even in the car I was still cold. "You have the money at your house? Your husband?"

"Don't worry about it. He won't be home tonight. Is it a deal?"

"No promises," I told her. "I'll take my best shot. I come up emptythat's all, right?"

"Yes," she said again. "Follow me."

She got out of the Plymouth and into her car. I let the engine idle while she started up. She pulled out and I followed her taillights into the night.

43

T
HE REDHEAD drove badly, taking the BMW too high in the lower gears, backing it off through the mufflers when she came to a corner, torturing the tires. The Plymouth was built for strength, not speed—I drove at my own pace, watching to see if she attracted attention with her driving.

The BMW ducked into the entrance for Forest Park. I lost sight of her around a curve, but I could hear tires howling ahead. I just motored along—there was no place for her to go.

She turned out of the park and into a section of mini–estates—not much land around the houses, but they were all big bastards, set far back from the street, mostly colonials. The redhead took a series of tight, twisting turns and stopped at a flagstone–front house with a wrought–iron fence. She got out and walked to the entrance, never looking back. Something from her purse unlocked the gate. She waved me around her car and I pulled into the drive. I heard the gate close again behind me and then the BMW's lights blinded me as she shot past me, following the curve of the driveway around to the back of the house—it opened as we approached—it must have had some kind of electronic eye. The light came on inside the garage. Only one stall was occupied—a Mercedes sedan.

I watched her slam the BMW into the middle space. I brought my car to a stop, and reversed so the Plymouth's rear bumper was against the opening of the garage. She motioned for me to pull all the way inside. I shook my head, turned off the engine. She shrugged the way you do at an idiot who doesn't understand the program and pointed for me to follow her inside.

The redhead pushed a button against the garage wall and the big door descended from the ceiling and closed behind us. She opened a side door and started to climb some stairs, flicking her wrist at me in a gesture to follow her.

The stairs made a gentle curve to the next floor. Soft light came from someplace but I couldn't see any bulbs. The redhead's hips switched almost from wall to wall on the narrow staircase. I thought about the magnum I'd left in the Plymouth.

She took me into a long, narrow room on the next floor. One whole wall was glass, facing the backyard. Floodlights bathed the grounds—there was a rock garden around a patio in the back; the rest faded into the shadows.

"Wait here," she said, and moved into another room.

She hadn't turned on a light in the big room but I could see well enough. It looked as if her interior decorator had a degree in hospital administration. The whole room was white—a low leather couch in front of a slab of white marble, a recliner in the same white leather. There was a floor lamp extending over the recliner—a sharp black stalk with a fluted wing at the top. A black glass ashtray was on the marble slab. Against the far wall was a single black shelf running the full length, the lacquer gleaming in the reflected light. I saw four floor–standing black stereo speakers but no components—probably in another part of the house. The floor was black quarry tile and there were two parallel strips of track lighting on the ceiling—holding a series of tiny black–coned spots. The room was a reptile's eye—flat and hard and cold.

I sat down in the recliner and lit a cigarette. My mouth burned with the first drag. I pulled the butt away—there was blood on the filter. I wiped my mouth on my handkerchief and sat there waiting. I heard the tap of her heels on the tile, turned my head without moving. I tasted the blood on my lip again. She was wearing a black silk camisole over a pair of matching tap pants. The whole outfit was held up with a pair of spaghetti–straps—they made a hard line against her slim shoulders. The redhead had a pair of black pumps on her feet—no stockings that I could see. She was all black and white, like the room.

"You want a drink?" she asked.

"No."

"Nothing? We have everything here."

"I don't drink," I told her.

"A joint? Some coke?" she asked me, an airline stewardess on a flight to hell.

"Nothing," I told her again.

She crossed in front of me, like a model on a runway for the first time, nervous but vain. She sat down on the couch, crossed her long legs, folded her hands over one knee. "We have a deal?" she asked.

"Where's the money?" I said in reply.

"Yeah," she said absently, almost to herself, "where's the money?"

She flowed off the couch and walked out of the room again, leaving me to my thoughts. I wondered where her kid was.

The redhead was back in a minute, a slim black attaché case in one hand. She looked like she was going to work. In a whorehouse. She dropped to her knees next to the recliner in a graceful move, crossing her ankles behind her on the floor, and put the attaché case on my lap. "Count it," she said.

It was all in fifties and hundreds—crisp bills but not new. The serial numbers weren't in sequence. The count was right on the nose. "Okay," I told her.

She got to her feet. "Wait here. I'll get you the pictures," she said, turning to go. "Play with your money.

As soon as she was out of the room I got up and took off my coat. I transferred the money from the attaché case to a few different pockets, closed the case, and tossed it on the couch. Lit another cigarette.

She was back quickly, her hands full of paper. She came over to the same place she'd been before, kneeled down again, and started putting the papers in my lap, one piece at a time, as if she was dealing cards.

"This is Scotty like he looks today. I took this last week. This is Scotty like he was a few months ago—when it happened. This is the drawing he did—see the swastika? This is me and Scotty together—so you can tell how big he is, okay?"

"Okay," I told her.

She handed me one more piece of paper, covered with typed numbers. "These are the phone numbers where you can reach meand when you can call. Just ask for me—you don't have to say anything else."

"Any of these answering machines?"

"No. They're all people, don't worry.

I took a last drag of my smoke, leaning past her to snub it out in the ashtray, ready to leave. The redhead put her face next to mine again, whispering in a babyish voice, more breath than tone, "You think I'm a tease, don't you?"

I didn't say anything, frozen there, my hand mechanically grinding the cigarette butt into tobacco flakes.

"You think I'm just teasing you, don't you?" she whispered again. "Dressing like this .

I pulled back to look at her but she hung on, coming with me. "You do what you want," I told her.

"I will if you close your eyes," she said in my ear. "Close your eyes!" she said, a baby demanding you play a game with her.

I was still so cold. Maybe it was the room. I closed my eyes, leaned back. Felt her stroke me, making a noise in her throat. "Sssh, ssh," she murmured. She was talking to herself. I felt her hands at my belt, heard the zipper move, felt myself strain against her hand. I opened my eyes a narrow slit; her red hair was in my lap. "You promised!" she said in the baby voice. I closed my eyes again. She tugged at the waistband on my shorts, but I didn't move—she was rough and clumsy pulling me through the fly, still making those baby noises in her throat. I felt her mouth around me, felt the warmth, her tiny teeth against me, gently pulling. I put my hands in her soft hair, and she pulled her mouth off me, her teeth scraping the shaft, hurting me. "You don't touch me!" she whispered, the voice of a little girl.

I put my hands behind my head so they wouldn't move. And she came back to me with her mouth, sucking hard now, moving her mouth up and down until I was slick with her juices. My eyes opened again— I couldn't help it. She didn't say anything this time. I opened them wider. The redhead's face was buried in my lap, her hands clasped tightly behind her back. My eyes closed again.

I felt it coming. I pushed my hips back in the chair, giving her a chance to pull her mouth away, but she was glued to me. "Just this!" she mumbled, her mouth full, a little girl talking, a stubborn little girl who made up her mind and wasn't giving in. My mind flashed to a girl I met once when I was on the run from reform school. This was all she'd do too—she didn't want to get pregnant again. Somehow I knew this wasn't the same.

It was her choice. She shook her head from side to side, keeping me with her. I felt the explosion all the way to the base of my spine, but she never took her face away—never reached for a handkerchief—I could feel the muscles in her cheeks work as she took it all.

I slumped back in the chair and she let me slide out of her mouth but kept her head in my lap. Her little–girl's whisper was clear in the quiet room. "I'm a good girl," she said, calm and smug. "Pat me. Pat my head."

My eyes opened again as I brought my hand forward, stroking her red hair, watching her hands twist behind her in the handcuffs she'd made for herself.

Her head came up. She was licking her lips and her eyes were wet and gleaming. Her hands came forward, taking one of my cigarettes and lighting it while I pulled myself in and zipped up. She handed me the lit cigarette. "For you," she said.

I took a deep drag. It tasted of blood.

"I have you in me now," she said, in her own voice. "Get me that picture."

I had to get out of there. She knew it too. I put on my coat, patting the pockets, putting the pictures and the other stuff she gave me inside.

"Come," she said, taking my hand, leading me back to the garage.

The Mercedes had a regular license, but the one on the BMW said JINA. "Is that the way you spell your name?" I asked her. "I thought it was Gina—G–I–N–A."

"They named me Gina. I didn't like it. When I have something I don't like, I change it."

"Who's Zia Peppina?" I wanted to know.

"Me. Auntie Pepper, you
capisce
? When I was a little girl, I was a chubby, happy child—always running, getting into mischief. With my red hair, they used to call me Peppina. Little Pepper. But when I got older, when I got to be myself, they stopped calling me that baby name. I only let Scotty call me that because he's special to me."

"People call you Jina now?"

"No," the redhead said, "now they call me Strega."

The side door slammed behind me and I was alone.

I drove too fast getting out of her neighborhood, cold speed inside me, rushing around like cocaine. Even the twenty–five grand in my coat couldn't keep out the chill.
Strega
. I knew what the word meant—a witch–bitch you could lust after or run from. You could be in the middle of a desert and her shadow would make you cold. And I had taken her money.