Scudder - Eight Million Ways To Die Part 1

Lawrence Block.

Scudder.

Eight Million Ways To Die.

The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.

- Edgar Allen Poe

ONE.

I saw her entrance. It would have been hard to miss. She had blonde hair that was close to white, the sort that's called towhead when it belongs to a child. Hers was plaited in heavy braids that she'd wrapped around her head and secured with pins. She had a high smooth forehead and prominent cheekbones and a mouth that was just a little too wide. In her western-style boots she must have run to six feet, most of her length in her legs. She was wearing designer jeans the color of burgundy and a short fur jacket the color of champagne. It had been raining on and off all day, and she wasn't carrying an umbrella or wearing anything on her head. Beads of water glinted like diamonds on her plaited hair.

She stood for a moment in the doorway getting her bearings. It was around three-thirty on a Wednesday afternoon, which is about as slow as it gets at Armstrong's. The lunch crowd was long gone and it was too early for the after-work people. In another fifteen minutes a couple of schoolteachers would stop in for a quick one, and then some nurses from Roosevelt Hospital whose shift ended at four, but for the moment there were three or four people at the bar and one couple finishing a carafe of wine at a front table and that was it. Except for me, of course, at my usual table in the rear.

She made me right away, and I caught the blue of her eyes all the way across the room. But she stopped at the bar to make sure before making her way between the tables to where I was sitting.

She said, 'Mr. Scudder? I'm Kim Dakkinen. I'm a friend of Elaine Mardell's.'

'She called me. Have a seat.'

'Thank you.'

She sat down opposite me, placed her handbag on the table between us, took out a pack of cigarettes and a disposable lighter, then paused with the cigarette unlit to ask if it was all right if she smoked. I a.s.sured her that it was.

Her voice wasn't what I'd expected. It was quite soft, and the only accent it held was Midwestern. After the boots and the fur and the severe facial planes and the exotic name, I'd been antic.i.p.ating something more out of a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t's fantasy: harsh and stern and European. She was younger, too, than I'd have guessed at first glance. No more than twenty-five.

She lit her cigarette and positioned the lighter on top of the cigarette pack. The waitress, Evelyn, had been working days for the past two weeks because she'd landed a small part in an off-Broadway showcase. She always looked on the verge of a yawn. She came to the table while Kim Dakkinen was playing with her lighter. Kim ordered a gla.s.s of white wine. Evelyn asked me if I wanted more coffee, and when I said yes Kim said, 'Oh, are you having coffee? I think I'd like that instead of wine. Would that be all right?'

When the coffee arrived she added cream and sugar, stirred, sipped, and told me she wasn't much of a drinker, especially early in the day. But she couldn't drink it black the way I did, she'd never been able to drink black coffee, she had to have it sweet and rich, almost like dessert, and she supposed she was just lucky but she'd never had a weight problem, she could eat anything and never gain an ounce, and wasn't that lucky?

I agreed that it was.

Had I known Elaine long? For years, I said. Well, she hadn't really known her that long herself, in fact she hadn't even been in New York too terribly long, and she didn't know her that well either, but she thought Elaine was awfully nice. Didn't I agree? I agreed. Elaine was very levelheaded, too, very sensible, and that was something, wasn't it? I agreed it was something.

I let her take her time. She had acres of small talk, she smiled and held your eyes with hers when she talked, and she could probably have walked off with the Miss Congeniality award in any beauty contest she didn't win outright, and if it took her awhile to get to the point that was fine with me. I had no place else to go and nothing better to do.

She said, 'You used to be a policeman.'

'A few years back.'

'And now you're a private detective.'

'Not exactly.' The eyes widened. They were a very vivid blue, an unusual shade, and I wondered if she were wearing contact lenses. The soft lenses sometimes do curious things to eye color, altering some shades, intensifying others.

'I don't have a license,' I explained. 'When I decided I didn't want to carry a badge anymore I didn't figure I wanted to carry a license, either.' Or fill out forms or keep records or check in with the tax collector. 'Anything I do is very unofficial.'

'But it's what you do? It's how you make your living?'

'That's right.'

'What do you call it? What you do.'

You could call it hustling a buck, except that I don't hustle a whole lot. The work finds me. I turn down more than I handle, and the jobs I accept are ones I can't think of a way to turn down. Right now I was wondering what this woman wanted from me, and what excuse I'd find to say no.

'I don't know what to call it,' I told her. 'You could say that I do favors for friends.'

Her face lit up. She'd been doing a lot of smiling ever since she walked in the door but this was the first smile that got as far as her eyes. 'Well, h.e.l.l, that's perfect,' she said. 'I could use a favor. As far as that goes, I could use a friend.'

'What's the problem?'

She bought some thinking time by lighting another cigarette, then lowered her eyes to watch her hands as she centered the lighter on top of the pack. Her nails were well manicured, long but not awkward, lacquered the color of tawny port. She wore a gold ring set with a large square-cut green stone on the third finger of her left hand. She said, 'You know what I do. Same as Elaine.'

'So I gathered.'

'I'm a hooker.'

I nodded. She straightened in her seat, squared her shoulders, adjusted the fur jacket, opened the clasp at her throat. I caught a trace of her perfume. I'd smelled that spicy scent before but couldn't recall the occasion. I picked up my cup, finished my coffee.

'I want out.'

'Of the life?'

She nodded. 'I've been doing this for four years. I came here four years ago in July. August, September, October, November. Four years and four months. I'm twenty-three years old. That's young, isn't it?'

'Yes.'

'It doesn't feel so young.' She adjusted the jacket again, refastened the clasp. Light glinted off her ring. 'When I got off the bus four years ago I had a suitcase in one hand and a denim jacket over my arm. Now I've got this. It's ranch mink.'

'It's very becoming.'

'I'd trade it for the old denim jacket,' she said, 'if I could have the years back. No, I wouldn't. Because if I had them back I'd just do the same thing with them, wouldn't I? Oh to be nineteen again and know what I know now, but the only way that could be is if I started tricking at fifteen, and then I'd be dead by now. I'm just rambling. I'm sorry.'

'No need.'

'I want to get out of the life.'

'And do what? Go back to Minnesota?'

'Wisconsin. No, I won't be going back. There's nothing there for me. Just because I want out doesn't mean I have to go back.'

'Okay.'

'I can make lots of trouble for myself that way. I reduce things to two alternatives, so if A is no good that means I'm stuck with B. But that's not right. There's the whole rest of the alphabet.'

She could always teach philosophy. I said, 'Where do I come in, Kim?'

'Oh. Right.'

I waited.