Hundred-Dollar Baby Read online

  “Hidey ho,” he said.

  April looked up.

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s them.”

  “You ladies go somewhere,” I said to the office workers.

  They looked at April. April nodded. The two women got up and went out a door behind April’s desk.

  “How about you, my feminist beauty?” I said.

  She smiled. She didn’t seem frightened.

  “I’ll stay,” April said.

  “Don’t blame you,” Hawk said. “Be fun to watch.”

  3

  They were both wearing dark overcoats. On the monitor one of them looked fat. They brushed past the concierge desk and headed for April’s office. The door opened and in they came. In person, one of them was fat. The other guy had the thick upper body of a weight lifter.

  The weight lifter said, “Time for another talk, whore lady….”

  He stopped and looked at Hawk and me.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he said.

  “I often wonder,” I said. “Don’t you? Sometimes at night when you’re alone?”

  “You ain’t customers,” the weight lifter said.

  The fact that Hawk’s coat was off and he was wearing a.44 Magnum in a shoulder holster was probably a clue. They had thought it was going to be another walk in the park. Both of them had their overcoats buttoned up. If they were carrying, it would take them five minutes to get their guns out.

  “We be whorehouse security,” Hawk said.

  He seemed pleasant. Both of the overcoats stared at us. They seemed a little uneasy. Despite the pleasant overtones, Hawk didn’t look like a guy who’d surrender easily.

  The weight lifter said, “Whoever the fuck you are, take a walk. We got business with the head whore.”

  “Her name is Miss Kyle,” I said.

  The fat guy began to unbutton his overcoat.

  “Leave it buttoned,” I said.

  The fat guy frowned. “Fuck you,” he said.

  Hawk stepped away from where he’d been leaning on a file cabinet and knocked the fat guy down with a single punch. The punch exploded on him so fast that the fat guy never got his hands up. He got to his hands and knees and stayed there, shaking his head slowly. The weight lifter’s hands moved slightly, as if he wanted to unbutton his coat, but he didn’t.

  “So who sent you here to talk with Miss Kyle?” I said.

  “I ain’t talking to you,” the weight lifter said.

  I almost felt bad for him. He had come here assuming he was going to frighten a few prostitutes and maybe slap around some guy from Newton, in town for an early-afternoon quickie. He hadn’t planned on us. And as things developed, he was beginning to realize that he and his pal were overmatched.

  “You are talking to me,” I said. “It’s just a matter of when.”

  The fat guy got painfully to his feet. He didn’t look at Hawk. Hawk had his gun in his hand. He let it hang by his side.

  “I got nothing to say,” the weight lifter muttered.

  He was trying to be a stand-up guy. I slapped him across the face with my open hand. Behind me I heard April gasp. The weight lifter stepped back. It hurt. It was humiliating. But mostly it startled him. People in his circles didn’t do a lot of slapping. He put his hands up toward his face and glanced at his fat friend.

  “Who sent you here to talk with Miss Kyle?” I said.

  The weight lifter was backing toward the door. Hawk stepped across and blocked it.

  “I’m getting outta here,” the weight lifter said.

  I feinted at his stomach with my right fist. He dropped his hands and I slapped him with my left hand. And then with my right. He hunched and ducked his head and covered his face. I slapped him on the top of the head. He put his hands up to cover. I slapped him in the face again.

  “Stop it,” he said. “Stop it, stop it.”

  His face was mottled.

  “Who sent you to talk with Miss Kyle?” I said.

  “Ollie,” he said.

  “You know Ollie?” I said to April.

  “No.”

  “Who do you talk to?” I said.

  April shrugged.

  “He never gives a name,” she said. “Maybe it’s Ollie. I have no way to know.”

  “Tell me about Ollie,” I said to the weight lifter.

  “Ollie’s got a crew,” the weight lifter said. “Me and Tank work with him.”

  “What’s Ollie’s last name?”

  “DeMars.”

  “Where is Ollie located?” I said.

  “Andrews Square,” the weight lifter said.

  There was some sort of odd anticipation in his voice. I realized he couldn’t wait for us to try our stuff on Ollie. Ollie would show us.

  “He’s got a clubhouse there,” the weight lifter said. “Storefront, used to be a chiropractor’s office. Right off the square.”

  “Why is Ollie asking you to annoy these folks?” I said.

  “I don’t know.”

  I smacked him across the face with my open hand. He ducked back.

  “Don’t,” he said. “I honest to God don’t know. Ollie just says keep on them until they come around.”

  “Which means?”

  “They’ll talk business.”

  “With Ollie?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What business?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You know, Tank?” I said to the fat guy.

  He shook his head.

  “You agree with everything he told us?” I said.

  The fat guy nodded.

  “Okay,” I said. “Hands on the wall, legs apart. You know how it works.”

  They did as I said, and I patted them down. I took a gun from each of them, and a wallet. I put the guns on April’s desk. I took the driver’s licenses from the wallets and handed the wallets back to them.

  “Tell Ollie we’ll drop by,” I said.

  “How ’bout my gun?” the weight lifter said.

  “You guys will have to risk it back to Andrews Square unarmed,” I said. “Beat it.”

  They didn’t like leaving the guns. The guns mattered to them. But there was nothing they could do about it. They turned toward the door. Hawk still blocked their way. They stopped. Hawk put the muzzle of his gun against the nose of the weight lifter.

  “Don’t come back here,” Hawk said.

  Nobody moved. Then Hawk stepped aside and the two men went out. We watched them through the front door and out onto the street.

  “Thank you,” April said when we were alone.

  “It’s not over,” I said. “These two dopes may not return, but Ollie will send someone.”

  “One of us needs to talk with Ollie,” Hawk said.

  “And one of us needs to stick around here,” I said. “To greet whoever Ollie sends.”

  “How ’bout I do that,” Hawk said. “Gimme the opportunity to meet the workers.”

  I nodded.

  “And I get to meet Ollie,” I said.

  “Should be you,” Hawk said. “You so charming.”

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s certainly true.”

  “Will you be all right alone?” April said to Hawk.

  What she meant of course was Will we be all right with only one of you on guard? Hawk knew what she meant. He smiled.

  “Be too many of them,” Hawk said, “I can always run and hide.”

  April looked uncertain.

  “He’s teasing,” I said. “Unless you expect to be invaded by China, Hawk will be sufficient.”

  “You think I not sufficient for China?” Hawk said.

  I waffled my hand.

  “You might need me for backup,” I said.

  4

  Susan came up to her living space from her first-floor office at ten past six in the evening. I was reading the paper and drinking Johnnie Walker Blue on the couch with Pearl. Actually, Pearl was neither reading nor drinking—she was lying on her side with her legs stretched out and her
head on my left thigh, making it awkward to turn the page.

  Susan said, “Sit right there. Don’t disturb the baby.”

  Pearl wagged her short tail vigorously but didn’t get up. Susan came across the living room and kissed me on the mouth, and then kissed Pearl.

  “At least I was first,” I said.

  Susan went to the refrigerator, got out some Riesling, poured some, and sat in the chair opposite me.

  “How was today,” I said, “in the world of whack jobs?”

  “I have a patient for whom love and sex are inextricable,” she said. “It makes sex very important and serious and a bit frightening for her.”

  “And fun?” I said.

  “Sadly, no,” Susan said. “Not yet. And how is the world of thuggery?”

  “April Kyle has resurfaced,” I said.

  “The little girl you steered into a life of prostitution?”

  “I saved her from a life of degrading prostitution and steered her to a life of whoredom with dignity,” I said.

  “If there is a such,” Susan said.

  I finished my drink and gathered myself to get up and make another.

  “No,” Susan said. “I’ll get it for you. She’s so comfortable.”

  She made my drink and brought it back.

  “There is more dignity and less dignity,” I said, “in almost anything.”

  “I know,” Susan said. “I was being playful. You did the best you could with her.”

  “She was too damaged to become a soccer mom,” I said.

  “Or a shrink,” Susan said. “How is she?”

  “She’s a grown woman,” I said. “It’s a little startling. For the last however many years she’s been in my memory as a kid, and now she’s not a kid.”

  “Is she still involved in prostitution?”

  “In a dignified way,” I said.

  “Tell me about it,” Susan said.

  While I was telling, Pearl got up suddenly, as if responding to a voice unheard, and went over and wedged herself up into the wing chair where Susan sat. Pearl weighed seventy-five pounds, which created a territorial issue. Susan resolved it by sliding forward and sitting on the front edge of the chair while Pearl curled up behind her.

  “Didn’t she begin in some Back Bay home? All that time ago when you first found her?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Different location, but, still, back to her roots, I guess.”

  “She sounds integrated and charming,” Susan said.

  “She does,” I said. “Patricia Utley may have done a good job.”

  “She cannot have lived the life she’s led, especially growing up, without suffering a lot of damage,” Susan said.

  “I know.”

  “Under stress,” Susan said, “the damage usually surfaces.”

  “I know.”

  “You seem to know a lot,” Susan said.

  “I’ve been scoring boldly and big-time,” I said, “for many years with a really smart shrink.”

  “Funny,” Susan said. “During those moments of bold and big-time scoring, I can’t recall that much discussion of the psyche.”

  “Can you remember any fun?” I said.

  “Mostly I just squeeze my eyes tight shut and think of Freud,” she said.

  I rolled the ice around in my drink for a minute.

  “So, do you think prostitution is inevitably demeaning?” I said.

  “We are conditioned to think it’s demeaning to women,” Susan said.

  “But not men?”

  “We are not conditioned to think it degrades men, I suppose. Though, I suspect, most of us disapprove of men who frequent whores.”

  “It might degrade both,” I said.

  “Or maybe we are like my patient,” Susan said, “who feels sex has to be a demonstration of love, every time. Maybe we invest it with too much meaning and aren’t willing to accept the possibility that sex without love and commitment can still be fun.”

  “What if there’s love and commitment, too?” I said.

  “Like us,” Susan said. “It probably intensifies everything, but it should be no less fun.”

  “Chinese food delivered to the house,” I said, “is fun.”

  “Especially when there’s love and commitment?”

  “Especially then,” I said.

  “Do I hear you saying you’re hungry?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about the question of dignified prostitution?” she said.

  “Perhaps over mushu pork,” I said. “Or lemon chicken.”

  “Shall we order in?”

  “If I am allowed to eat with a fork,” I said. “I hate chop-sticks.”

  “Certainly,” Susan said. “If that’s fun for you.”

  I raised my glass to her.

  “Scotch and soda,” I said, “lemon chicken, and thou.”

  “I’ll make the call,” she said.

  5

  Ollie DeMars had space in a small brick building on Southampton Street just before Andrews Square, with its own convenient parking lot. The lot was empty except for somebody’s Lexus. I parked beside the Lexus and went into the building.

  The room was nearly overwhelmed by a vast television screen on the far wall. Five or six comfortable chairs were arranged in front of the screen, and a couple of hard-looking guys were sitting, watching some sort of program where people ate worms. To my left along the side wall was a big conference table with some straight chairs, and against the wall next to the television, beside a doorway that led further into the building, was a big avocado-colored refrigerator.

  One of the men watching reality television turned his head when I came in and said, “You want something?”

  “Tank asked me to stop by,” I said, “and talk with Ollie.”

  The man thought about that. He was nearly bald with a really bad comb-over.

  “Ollie know you?” he said.

  “Only by reputation,” I said.

  “Reputation,” the comb-over guy said.

  His viewing partner was bigger than he was, and younger, with dark shoulder-length hair. He turned to look back at me.

  “You got a big rep?” Long Hair said.

  “Naw,” I said. “I’m just your ordinary man of steel. Could you tell Ollie I’m here.”

  “What if we don’t?” Long Hair said.

  “Then we may find out about my rep,” I said.

  It was silly. There was nothing in it for me to get into it with two entry-level street soldiers. But they were annoying me. The long-haired guy got up and stood, looking at me. Then he laughed dismissively and walked through the door beside the refrigerator. Comb-over watched me silently while Long Hair was gone. The time passed quickly.

  “Okay, Man of Steel,” Long Hair said from the doorway. “Ollie says bring you in.”

  I followed him down a short corridor and into another room. There was another large television, a desk, and several office-type chairs with arms. There was a phone on the desk, and a computer. On the right-hand wall there was a couch. Behind the desk was a guy who looked like an Ollie. He had sandy hair and a wide, friendly face. When I came in he stood and came around the desk.

  “You gotta be Spenser,” he said. “I’m Ollie DeMars.”

  I looked at Long Hair.

  “See?” I said. “I told you I had a rep.”

  He snorted.

  “Be okay, Johnny,” Ollie said to him. “You can leave us.”

  Long Hair nodded and went back down the short corridor to his reality show.

  “Have a seat,” Ollie said.

  He had on a blue-checked shirt and a maroon knit tie, and a rust-colored Harris tweed sport coat. He looked like he might sell real estate.

  “You’ve done me a hell of a favor,” Ollie said. “I send out guys like Tank and Eddie with the expectation they can get things done.”

  “Eddie the weight lifter?”

  “Yes, and you showed me that they couldn’t.”

  “All part of the s
ervice,” I said.

  “So I canned their ass,” he said, and grinned at me like we were pals. “My way or highway, you know?”

  “Are you planning to send somebody else?” I said.

  He grinned. His teeth seemed unnaturally white.

  “Not at these prices,” he said. “I gotta deal with you and the schwartza, I need to get paid accordingly.”

  “Schwartza’s name is Hawk,” I said. “Who’s paying you.”

  “Tell you the truth,” Ollie said, “I don’t even know.”

  “How come you don’t know.”

  “Got a phone call, guy says he wants me to do some work over at a cathouse in the Back Bay. Says have I got a checking account. I say I do. He says he’ll wire money to my account. And he does.”

  “What was the work?”

  “Just keep pressuring them until he tells us to stop.”

  “Pressuring them to do what?”

  “Pay up,” Ollie said.

  “Pay who?” I said.

  Ollie shrugged.

  “Don’t know,” he said.

  “For what?”

  Ollie shook his head.

  “Same answer,” he said.

  “Where’d the wire transfer come from?”

  “None of your business,” Ollie said.

  “Actually, it is,” I said.

  “Okay,” Ollie said. “I still won’t tell you.”

  “Yet,” I said.

  “Yet?” Ollie said. “Confident bastard, aren’t you.”

  “Optimistic,” I said.

  “Might want to be a little careful,” Ollie said. “I’m fairly optimistic myself.”

  “Sure,” I said. “How’s he know you’re doing your job? Might be some people who would take the money and do nothing.”

  “I’m not like that,” Ollie said. “I got a reputation.”

  “You too,” I said. “But how does he know?”

  Ollie shrugged and shook his head. Multitasking.

  “You plan to keep earning the money?”

  “I plan to ask for more. I didn’t agree to do business with you and Hawk.”

  “Yet,” I said.

  Ollie smiled.

  “You know Hawk?” I said.

  “I been doing this work for a long time,” he said. “Of course I know Hawk. Know you, too.”

  “So you’re going to renegotiate,” I said.