The Lime Pit (12 page)

"'Cause I couldn't stand that, Harry. That would
do me for sure."

He asked if I'd call him, again, and I told him I
would, again. He started to get trembly, and I told him everything
was going to be fine. Then he said he was counting on me. And he hung
up.

I was feeling a very different kind of weariness as I
trudged back to the bedroom. If Jo hadn't been sleeping so soundly, I
would have tried to ease the load by confessing some of it to her.
The big difference between detectives in books and detectives in real
life is that detectives in books are always rescuing their clients
from perilous straits which is a bunch of hokum and dangerous hokum,
at that. That's the way we would have things be, when the bitter
truth is that no one can rescue anyone from anything. As exciting and
professional as they are, those books about ageless beach bums who
salvage their women's psyches along with the family fortunes aren't
doing the world much good. All it takes is a little living to know
how far from the truth that kind of fantasy can lead you and how
irresponsible and finally dehumanizing playing the role of rescuer
can be.

Now, I am and have always been a sentimentalist. I'm
a sucker for romance, maybe because I have so much trouble conjuring
it up in my own life or maybe because it's more romantic to live it
out through other people's lives. But, in my work, there comes a time
when I have to abandon the abiding and pleasant notion that Harry can
make it all come out right in the end. Harry can't do that. And Harry
shouldn't promise desperate old men that he can. And Harry shouldn't
take jobs with that in mind. And Harry was feeling sick at what he'd
committed himself to. And thinking that the trouble with charity work
is not the pay but the working conditions. That they're too damn
unreal. And Harry wanted a shoulder of his own to cry on. But the
only shoulder available belonged to the slender and beautiful young
woman lying next to him, who might or might not be willing to serve
as a hankie, but whom Harry was not certain he had the right to
infringe on. If, indeed, it was infringement and not just plain old
human need, which was also something Harry was unsure of. And he fell
asleep feeling unsure about it, while, at the same time, regretting
not having told Hugo Cratz what Hugo Cratz already knew--that there
was a good chance that, even if she could be pried from the Jellicoes
in one piece, Cindy Ann would probably never want to see that sour,
old man's apartment again.
 
 

11

THE SECOND time I awoke that morning the bells of St.
Anne's were sounding sext. I rolled over in the bed and brushed a
lock of black hair from Jo's face,

"Sunday," I said and kissed her lightly on
the lips.

She opened her eyes and smiled at me. There was
sunlight in the western windows, and the bedroom was hot and bright.
Her face looked almost wan in the sunlight and sleepy-pretty.

"Sunday," she said dreamily and rolled out
of bed.

I showered and shaved while Jo made coffee in the
little cubicle off the living room--the "kitchenette" as
Robert Realty calls it. What it is is a shelfless pantry with a
two-burner stove on one wall, a midget refrigerator on another, and
an aluminum sink crammed in between. There's just enough space for a
normal-sized human being to stand amid them, though it's rather like
standing in the U of a U-shaped control console. Moreover, since I'm
slightly larger than normal size, I have to stoop a bit and sidle in
an out of the U if I want to, say, turn from the refrigerator to the
stove. It makes cooking and washing dishes a challenge, which is why
I generally eat out.

There was something pleasantly domestic about having
Jo in there doing the sidling and turning. Although I couldn't help
thinking as I towelled off and stared critically at my lumpy,
unshaven face--the face of a busted Roman statue, as a romantic
lady-friend once put it--that there was something fairly fragile
about the little sounds of satisfaction and frustration she was
making in the kitchenette. And from the way my own hand was shaking,
I understood why. You can't kid the heart, cajole it the way you
would a temperamental child. It'll have its say, regardless. But you
can't hurry it, either. And, as the morning progressed, as those
nighttime resolutions melted away in the sun and the seasonableness
of everyday living, it was getting harder and harder for the heart to
say what it wanted to say, without stuttering and blushing and
holding a finger to its lips. Too much longer and it might not speak
at all. And that was why I was shaking and Jo was sounding fragile
and sad.

I was almost relieved when the phone rang.

"I'll get it," I shouted.

I walked into the bedroom, picked up the extension
and said, "Stoner."

"Harry, this is Red Bannion. I've got some news
that'll interest you."

I sat down on the mattress and dabbed with the sheet
at my wet face. "Like what, Red?"

"That girl," he said. "I jus' knew I'd
seen her before. And I was right. Ol' Bill Hallan who works the bar
at the Deer says he seen her more'n half a dozen times. But she ain't
no freelance hooker. Every time she come in, she came in with
somebody different. And once she come in with somebody real special.
Does the name Preston LaForge mean anything to you?"

I didn't say a thing for a second. "You're
shitting me, aren't you, Red?"

"Naw, sir, I ain't. Last time she come in the
Deer, Bill Hallan says she was with LaForge."

"I don't believe it," 1 said, half to
myself.

"It do seem strange," Red mused. "Don't
seem like a man like that would cozy up to a kid like her. Not with
his connections."

I guess you never know about people in the public
eye. From what I'd seen of him, Preston LaForge seemed like the
all-American boy. An all-star in college. A rookie sensation with the
Bengals and a perennial all-pro. He was barely thirty and a rich man,
a popular man, with a rock-solid future in national broadcasting
ahead of him once he'd quit the pros. His pink, chubby, boyish face
was already familiar from after-shave ads and beer commercials. And,
during the post season, he'd been in the color commentary booth
joking and gabbing with Merlin Olson. It shook me a little to think
that a man like that would go for green fruit, and bruised fruit, at
that. And I think it shook me a little more to think that Preston
LaForge didn't have brains enough to keep his bad habits to himself.
But it did make a kind of bizarre sense that he
would end up with Cindy Ann on his arm, especially if she was working
for the Jellicoes. O1' Lance was certainly the pro-football type. And
I'd seen him working out at the Nautilus Club, where many of the
Bengals keep in shape. It wasn't hard to picture him and Preston
going out for a drink, maybe stopping at the Jellicoes' apartment for
some smoke and talk and a peek at the family album.

"Two more things," Bannion said. "I
got me a name--Escorts Unlimited. Seems like that's the outfit your
youngster was workin' for. They're on Plum Street, but I'd be willin'
to bet there ain't nothin' in the office but an answerin' machine."

I jotted down the name "Escorts Unlimited"
on a pad. "What's the other thing?" I said to him. Bannion
made a small, tired noise-a sort of unambitious sigh--that came out
"hem." Then he said, "She ain't been around in near a
week, and she was showing up pretty regular before that. Or so Bill
Hallan tells me."

I made a little "hem" of my own. "That's
not so good," I said.

"I didn't like it none, either. 'Course she
could've been cut loose. Those things happen. Or she could've gone
off on her own."

"At sixteen?"

"Oh, hell, Harry," Bannion said wearily.
"She's sixteen goin' on forty. She probably ain't got an unused
part left."

I thought of Hugo Cratz and bit softly at my lip.
"Well, thanks, Red. You've been a big help."

"Hold on, Harry," he said. "Don't you
go off half-cocked on this one, lad. This is sixty hard years talking
to you, now. This boy LaForge is bound to have him some mean friends.
And those folks runnin' that escort service ain't likely to be
playschool children neither. You tangle with them, Harry, and they're
goin' to kill you, lad. You'd be best advised to forget this whole
thing. Just chalk 'er up on the wrong side. And tell that poor old
man to forget her. He don't know it, but he'd probably be better off
not findin' out what become of her."

I didn't say anything.

"How much is that man payin' you?" Red said
in his achy voice. "Couldn't be near enough to cover the risk of
somethin' like this."

I laughed hollowly. "Nothing," I said. "I'm
doing it for nothing."

"Then, boy you're as crazy as a loon if you
don't drop this whole damn thing right now. Listen to Red. I been
through it and I know. Ain't nothin' worth gettin' killed for."

"Nothing," I said dully.

"Nothin' you hired yourself out to do," Red
Bannion said. "A man don't take wages for his life."

After hanging up, I thought a few minutes about the
things a man does take wages for. A man like Lance Jellicoe and a man
like Preston LaForge. But, somehow, I just couldn't work up any real
indignation. That angry little man who'd gotten me into this mess in
the first place was deliberately looking the other way now, with his
hands clasped behind his back and his toe swivelling in the dirt and
a sheepish grin frozen on his red face.

"Cindy Ann," I said out loud and it came
out sounding like a curse.

"Harry?" Jo called from the living room.
"Did you say something?"

"No. Didn't say anything."

"Come on in and have some coffee."

I wrapped a robe around me and walked into the living
room, where Jo was lounging in the recliner next to the Zenith
Globemaster. She was wearing a cup of coffee in her right hand.

I let my eyes travel up and down that magnificent
body. She looked so damn good to me at that moment, so ripe and
uncomplicated and full of health that I almost shouted. Her breasts
were flattened a bit because she was lying back in the chair. She had
one leg on the cushion and the other stretched to the floor. When she
saw the look on my face, she smiled and brought the other leg up and,
leaning forward and clasping her knees, propped her chin on her
kneecaps and stared speculatively at me. She'd have looked like a kid
stealing a last glimpse of a movie from the back of a theater, save
for the firm, round, throat-tightening curve of her breast and the
very naked flesh between her thighs.

"So," she said. "We're back together,
now."

"I'm glad," I said and meant it.

"I can see that," she said with a little
laugh and ducked her head. "So am I, Harry. I kept waiting for
it. Sometimes I'd start to say something myself." She looked
boldly up at me. "I think it could work this time. At least, I'm
willing to give it a try."

"Right now?" I said.

She put her coffee cup
down next to the Globemaster and, rising to her feet, walked
gracefully over to me and tugged at the loose cord of the bathrobe.
"Right now," she said.

***

I didn't want the day to start.

I didn't want to think about anything but Jo. No Hugo
Cratzes, no Lance and Laurie Jellicoes, no Cindy Arms, no Preston
LaForges.

It was the lady herself who brought me back to
reality with a feathery kiss. I felt her weight shift on the
mattress, and then she was gone.

"Hey!" I said. "Where're you going?"

She looked slyly over her shoulder and said, "I'll
be back. I've got a few errands to run. And a few things to pack.
Like toothbrush, comb, change of clothes. A girl scout kit for
grownup girl scouts." She walked into the john and, in a
minute, I could hear the hiss of the shower.

I lay back on the bed and bellowed. Jo laughed.

"Roar!" she shouted over the shower.

At half-past two, Jo kissed me and marched to the
front door. She'd put on her disguise for the trip out the
bridge-club spectacles, the bee-hive hairdo, the subdued plaid
secretary's suit.

"You can't fool me!" I called out from the
bedroom.

"Beneath this mask of tragedy," she said,
pivoting at the door, "is a leering face. I'll see you around
six."

"
Vale
,
" I said and sank back into the bed.

I spent about five minutes shuffling a deck of cards,
five minutes browsing through the Sunday paper, five more changing
channels on the T.V., five just staring at the ceiling. And then I
yanked the phonebook from the nightstand and looked up Escorts
Unlimited.

***

It was a quaint address for an escort service, right
in the middle of the wholesale garment district on lower Plum. Just
for the hell of it, I gave Escorts Unlimited a call. I got a pleasant
recorded message telling me that no one was in the office at that
moment and directing me to phone a different number after six. I
jotted down the second number and, just for the hell of it, looked up
the Jellicoes' phone number in the directory. They weren't listed.