Perish Twice Read online

  “I never had no dog,” Jewell said.

  “That’s too bad,” I said. “Tell me about this consent thing.”

  “She asking me about do I want to do this. I say sure. I don’t want to do it, I wouldn’t. And she say do I enjoy it? And I say what’s to enjoy, giving some fat old guy with a limp dick a hand job in the front seat of his car? So she say that’s so disgusting? Why do you do it?”

  Jewell sipped some of her coffee and laughed.

  “I say, don’t you know ’bout money, sis? And she say but there are other ways to make money. And I say like what? Like being a doctor or shit?

  “And she say but there are other jobs.

  “And I say not enough to support my habit.”

  Jewell drank some more coffee watching the street like a cat at a mouse hole.

  “And she say maybe you can break that habit.”

  Jewell shook her head.

  “That girl’s been watching too much television,” Jewell said.

  “What do you suppose she had in mind?” I said.

  “I axed her that. I say why you want to know all this crap ’bout consent and shit? She say she just gathering information.”

  Jewell finished her coffee, lowered the side window, threw the paper cup onto the sidewalk, and raised the window.

  “That’s all?” I said.

  “There he is.”

  A young black man in baggy clothes with a Colorado Rockies baseball cap on backwards ambled up Mass Ave from the direction of the South End. Jewell was out of the car before I could say another word and walking toward the corner to wait for him.

  The candy man can.

  CHAPTER

  35

  JULIE’S FACE HAD a pinched look, as if it were cold in the Harvest, which it wasn’t. I gave my coat to the hostess and joined Julie in the small bar to the right of the door.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Hello.”

  Julie was at a table for two. She had a glass of white wine in front of her. There was something sort of naked about her, like someone who always wore glasses and then didn’t. When I sat down across from her, I saw that she wasn’t wearing any rings.

  I ordered a Coke.

  “So how are you?” I said.

  She shrugged, and twirled her wineglass.

  “That good?” I said.

  “I’ve left Michael,” she said.

  “Oh my.”

  She nodded.

  “Yes,” she said. “‘Oh my’!”

  “Where’d you go?” I said.

  “I’m with Robert.”

  “If that doesn’t work out,” I said, “you’re welcome with me and Rosie.”

  “Why wouldn’t it work out?”

  “Things don’t always,” I said.

  Julie laughed without pleasure.

  “I guess I should know that by now,” she said.

  “The kids with Michael?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who looks after them during the day?”

  “Same as before,” Julie said. “Nanny.”

  “She a good mother?” I said.

  “She’s nice,” Julie said.

  “But?”

  “But not smart.”

  “You have an arrangement to see them?”

  “Informally.”

  “How are they?”

  “They’ll be fine.”

  “But now, are they not fine?”

  “I haven’t seen them since I left.”

  “What does Michael say?”

  “I haven’t talked with him.”

  “The nanny?”

  Julie shook her head. She was starting to cry. Didn’t I have the touch.

  “I was drowning,” Julie said. “I had to get out.”

  “Happens to a lot of women,” I said.

  “I just told the kids I was going away for a while.”

  “You need to tell them more,” I said.

  “I know it. Don’t I know it? I’m a damn therapist, for crissake. Don’t you think I know what I’m doing to my children?”

  “A lot of marriages break up,” I said. “A lot of children survive it.”

  “Little Michael is already a mess,” Julie said. “What must he be feeling?”

  “These are not moments when anyone feels good,” I said, just to be saying something.

  “I did what I was supposed to,” Julie said. “I got married. I had children. I kept my career. I did everything I was supposed to.”

  I nodded. The waitress brought Julie another glass of wine. I hadn’t seen her order it. Maybe it was a present keep-’em-coming arrangement she’d made before I got there. Julie drank some wine and looked at me.

  “You didn’t,” she said.

  “Do everything I was supposed to?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m still working on that,” I said.

  “Well so am I.”

  “Can I make one suggestion?”

  “Of course.”

  “Don’t do anything irrevocable right now.”

  “You think what I’ve done is revocable?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know if it should be. But this is a crazy time. This is the time to stay still and let things play out and see what you are feeling, and let that play out too.”

  “I know what I’m feeling.”

  “You know what you’re feeling today.”

  “I can’t go back,” Julie said. “I’ll die.”

  “You don’t have to go back.”

  “Michael’s so good. He loves his children. He works hard. He’s home every night.”

  “But?”

  “But I’m so bored. Kissing is boring. Sex is boring. Going out is boring. He has nothing to say. I prattle along. He listens. I don’t think he cares. And somewhere underneath is disapproval. He wants more than I’m delivering. I know it. He lets me know it in ways I can’t even explain.”

  “He know about Robert?” I said.

  “No.”

  “Suspect?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes I think he knows. Sometimes he seems oblivious.”

  “Probably both,” I said.

  “Well aren’t you the clever little shrink,” Julie said.

  “I went through this, remember? I got some shrinkage in the process.”

  “Did you cheat on Richie?”

  “No.”

  “But now you sleep around.”

  “I wouldn’t say I sleep around. But if I’m dating someone, I expect to sleep with him. That’s what grown-ups do.”

  “I never expected to be a woman who cheated on her husband,” Julie said.

  “I know,” I said. “I never expected to be divorced.”

  “But you and Richie, you’re sort of still together.”

  “We date,” I said.

  “Do you think you’ll get back together?”

  “I don’t know. I’m pretty sure we won’t get further apart.”

  “And you’re happy?”

  “Yes.”

  “God. I wish I were.”

  “Of course you’re not now. Everything’s too raw. But it doesn’t mean you won’t be. Just don’t rush into anything.”

  “Like Robert.”

  “Just like Robert,” I said.

  CHAPTER

  36

  I WAS SITTING on the floor throwing the ball for Rosie. It was raining and she didn’t like to go out in the rain, so I threw the ball the length of my loft and she dashed after it, and brought it back. A half hour or so of that was as good as a walk and kept her from getting so rambunctious that she broke things. I had my Law
rence B. Reeves file out and was looking at the calendar pad I had taken from his home. I rolled the ball down past my kitchen counter. Rosie tore after it. When she caught up with it, she nudged it with her nose to make it roll farther and when she finally trapped it against the baseboard at the far end of my loft, she picked it up and pranced back in an orgiastic frenzy of self-congratulation.

  The calendar pad was marked as I remembered. “J” every Thursday night. Rosie dropped the ball and then snatched it back when I reached for it.

  “Drop it,” I said.

  She dropped it and hunched over it like a mother condor with her egg. I snatched it and threw it the length of the room again. She raced after it, all four feet clearing the floor, wrestled it into submission at the far end of the room and pranced back. In Lawrence B.’s phone book, under J, I found the listing: J, 254-2265. I reached my phone down from my bedside table near where I sat and called the number. It was a beeper. I punched in my home phone number and hung up. In maybe three minutes my phone rang. I picked it up and said hello.

  “This is J,” a voice said.

  “J who?” I said.

  The line went dead. It could have been Jermaine. Or it could have been Dr. J. Or J. R. Ewing. Or Jay Leno. I stood and shut off my answering machine in case J called back wondering who I was. I got my trench coat and put my gun in my belly pack. Then I put Rosie’s leash on, which is a little like trying to lasso a hummingbird, and went down to get my car.

  Rosie was asleep on the floor on the passenger side, with her nose stuck up near the heater vent, when I pulled in near the corner of Mass and Columbus and parked on the same hydrant I’d parked on before. I shut off the wipers so I wouldn’t attract attention and waited, looking through the rain-blurred windshield, for Jermaine to make an appearance. It wasn’t good weather for whoring. There were a couple of girls huddled against the wall of the drugstore, trying to stay dry. I thought they were probably more interested in the candy man than any johns that might be out in the rain.

  Rain was a great beautifier. The worst streets looked as good as the best ones in the rain, when everything that could gleam did, and the neon lights looked like jewelry. I wondered why I thought of the whores as girls. I was as correct as the next person. But these were girls, not women. Many of them were very young, and probably qualified as girls. But even the ones old enough to be adults were still girls. It probably had something to do with dependence and independence.

  I saw Jermaine’s silver Mercedes pull up to the corner, the wipers disdainfully sweeping the rain off the windshield. Jermaine got out and left it running on the corner, compromising traffic. He had on a cowboy hat and a long yellow slicker. As he walked over to talk with the two girls by the drugstore wall, I called the pager number and punched in my car phone number. In a moment I saw Jermaine pause, open his slicker and look at his pager. He stared at it for a minute then took a cell phone out of his coat pocket and dialed. My car phone rang. I picked it up.

  A voice said, “This is J.”

  I smiled and hung up. I saw Jermaine look at his cell phone for a moment. Then he dialed again. My car phone rang. I let it. After a while Jermaine punched off his cell phone and put the phone away. I sat for a moment staring at the way the rain moved across the surface of the windshield.

  Lawrence B. Reeves had Jermaine Lister’s phone number and some sort of standing arrangement with him on Thursday nights. Lawrence B. Reeves stalked Mary Lou Goddard and confessed to killing Gretchen Crane and killed himself—maybe. Gretchen Crane had come to Jermaine Lister to learn about prostitutes. Rosie looked like she needed to go out. I put her leash back on and got out of the car and walked up to the drugstore where Jewell stood with several other girls.

  “Hey,” Jewell said, “who that you got there?”

  “That’s Rosie,” I said.

  Jewell squatted down on her heels and put her face down to pat Rosie and let Rosie kiss her.

  “You looking to give me more money?”

  “You got something to sell?”

  “Tell you ’bout the sister was with the honkie broad when she come to talk with me.”

  “Someone was with Gretchen?”

  “Awful cold and wet out here,” Jewell said.

  “Want to sit in my car out of the rain?” I said.

  “No. I like to stand out here and get soaked,” Jewell said. “Saves taking a shower later.”

  “Want some coffee?”

  “Yes.”

  “Extra cream,” I said. “Lotta sugar.”

  I went into the drugstore. They didn’t like having Rosie in there, but they didn’t tell us to leave, so I bought two coffees and came back out. Jewell and I and Rosie got in my car. I turned it on and turned on the heater. I handed Jewell her coffee.

  “You’re like the postal service,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Neither rain nor sleet nor snow nor dark of night…?”

  “Jermaine likes us out every day.”

  Rosie got in the backseat but sat upright and stuck her head in between the front seats to make sure that nothing was consumed but coffee. Jewell patted her.

  “When Gretchen, the white woman, came to talk with you about prostitution,” I said, “who did she have with her?”

  “Another woman,” Jewell said. “A sister.”

  “A black woman?”

  “Mostly,” Jewell said.

  “Why ‘mostly’?” I said.

  “’Cause she black but she acting like some rich-bitch white broad,” Jewell said. “She don’t like talking with no whores.”

  “Was Gretchen that way too?”

  “Yeah, but you know, you ’spect her to be.”

  “So what was the black woman’s name?” I said.

  “You mind if I smoke?” Jewell said.

  “I hate it,” I said.

  “Well shit, honey, I got to smoke.”

  I pushed the window button and cracked the window on her side.

  “Blow the smoke that way,” I said.

  She looked annoyed but she lit up and didn’t say anything. She inhaled deeply and drank some coffee, and swallowed before she let the smoke out. She was restless and jittery. I realized the candy man was probably overdue again.

  “The name,” I said. “Did the black woman have a name?”

  She didn’t say anything. She was looking through the rain down Columbus Ave.

  “Name?” I said.

  “I’m thinking.”

  “Take your time,” I said.

  I didn’t mean it. I knew if the candy man showed up I’d lose her.

  “Worth something to you to know?” Jewell said.

  I took my wallet out of my purse and opened it and took out the bills, and counted.

  “I have twenty-eight dollars,” I said. “Unless you take MasterCard, that’s how much it’s worth to me.”

  “Honey,” Jewell said.

  “Honey what?”

  “Don’t know,” Jewell said. “White broad called her Honey a couple of times. Just gimme the twenty. Don’t want to take your last dollar.”

  I gave her two tens.

  “You think maybe ‘Honey’ was just a term of endearment?”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t men sometimes call you Honey?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “She never called her any other name?”

  “Naw.”

  “What’d she look like?”

  “Tall,” Jewell said. “Taller than me. Good-looking. Hair real kinky, cut real short. Had some round glasses on with green, you know? What you call it? Not the glass part, but the…?”

  “Frames,” I said.

  “Yeah, green frames.”

  “Anything else?”

&nbs
p; “She a real white man’s nigger, you know? Thin nose, thin lips, big eyes, got them cheekbones like the girls in magazines.”

  “You think they had a relationship?”

  “Relationship? Like were they doing each other? That kind of relationship? Couple of dykes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe. White broad called her Honey.”

  “She call the white broad anything?” I said.

  Jewell shook her head.

  “She didn’t?” I said. “Or you don’t remember.”

  “Jesus, you ask enough fucking questions,” Jewell said. “What difference it make?”

  “I won’t know what difference it makes until the end. It’s why I’m careful.”

  “Well I tole you everything I know,” Jewell said.

  She shifted in her seat. Her coffee was gone. She was on her third cigarette.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this the first time we talked?”

  “Don’t pay to sell it all at once,” Jewell said.

  “If I come back with more money, is there more to tell?”

  “I tell you stuff, long as you pay me,” Jewell said.

  She smiled widely.

  “But from here on it’ll be bullshit,” she said.

  “How about what you’ve told me.”

  “I like you. You got a nice dog and you don’t act like you afraid you’ll catch something talkin’ to me,” Jewell said.

  “So what you’ve told me is true.”

  “Sho.”

  “But from now on you’ll be lying for money?”

  Jewell’s smile got wider.

  “Sho.”

  Rosie sniffed at Jewell’s face for a moment and then began to lap it. Jewell giggled. Which Rosie took as encouragement and lapped more vigorously. Until Jewell put a hand up and pushed Rosie away gently.

  “Well,” I said. “I don’t have any more money, so you don’t have to lie. Doesn’t that work out nicely?”

  “Works out perfect,” Jewell said.

  We were quiet, Jewell gazing up Columbus Ave, waiting. It was, I realized, her life. Turning tricks to get money to buy heroin, waiting for the man with the heroin to show up and sell it to her. Turning more tricks to buy more heroin tomorrow. Or this evening. Or later in the day. Depending on how big a habit she had.