Taming A Sea-Horse Part 5

"Big deal. Slopping drinks to a bunch of f.u.c.king lushes. At least I got someone looking out for me. Who looks out for you when you tend bar?"

I shook my head. "Robert's looking out for you?"

She laughed again. "He's looking out for him."

"So how much is he looking out for you?"

"He needs me. He takes care of business."

"If you tended bar," I said, "I suppose you'd have to look out for yourself. You and the union."

"That s.h.i.t's okay if you're a man," Ginger said.

I nodded. A middle-aged man came into the bar wearing brand-new cowboy boots, and Sergio Valente jeans, with his hair blow-dried and his shirt collar carefully smoothed out over the lapels of his suede sport coat. His wife's jeans were tucked into her boots. The jeans were too tight and plainly revealed the spandex undergarment that compressed her b.u.t.t. The ma.s.s of black hair piled on her head seemed to dwarf her face. Visitors in the big city. Up from Orlando, maybe. Or in from Wilkes-Barre, or Worcester.

"What did you do before you started hooking?" I said.

"Nothing." Ginger made a kind of shivery motion. "How come you want to know all this s.h.i.t?"

"I don't know much about wh.o.r.es and this kid I'm interested in is one. I thought I'd better inform myself."

"Why don't you ask her?"

"She doesn't know what you know," I said.

"She will."

"Maybe not," I said.

"You gonna save her?"

"Maybe," I said.

Ginger laughed her joyless laugh. "Why?" she said.

"Why not?"

"You gonna save me?"

"Maybe," I said.

Ginger was still for a moment. Then she said, "s.h.i.t," and drank her Tequila Sunrise.

8.

From the window of my room at the St. Regis I could see Fifth Avenue. It was early evening and the crowd on the street was on its way to early dinner, or late shopping. The sky beyond the skysc.r.a.pers to the west was still light, but down in the city it was dark and the streetlights were on.

I turned from the window and looked at Ginger. She was sitting on the edge of the bed eating a cheeseburger and drinking beer. The room service table was in front of her with a pink tablecloth and a rose in a gla.s.s vase. "What about Robert?" I said.

"f.u.c.k him," Ginger said. "He don't own me. I give him his cut, what difference does it make to him?"

"Doesn't he like to know where you are?"

She chewed a bite of her sandwich and swallowed and pulled at the beer bottle. "Who gives a s.h.i.t what he likes. He'll get his share."

"Is he going to be nasty about this?" I said.

She tossed her head a little. "I can handle him."

I nodded and picked up a half a turkey and Swiss cheese sandwich on pumpernickel. I took a bite, leaning my hips against the windowsill. Ginger ate a french fry with her fingers. She drank some more beer.

"How'd you get into this line of work?" I said.

"Jesus, you don't quit," Ginger said, "do you."

I shook my head.

"You really worried about this new hooker, huh?"

I nodded.

She ate another french fry. "There more beer?" she said.

"Sure," I said, and got one from the ice bucket and opened it and handed it to her. She drank it from the bottle.

"What the h.e.l.l is she to you?" Ginger said. "She been hauling your ashes for you? You jealous of Robert?"

I shook my head.

"You married?" Ginger said.

"No."

"Girlfriend?"

"Yes."

"But she's kinda cold, right? Don't like the kinky stuff. So you have to hustle a little on the side, buy a little strange p.u.s.s.y now and then and tell yourself you're saving her."

"How'd you get into the business?" I said.

Ginger drank from the bottle. She picked a piece of congealed melted cheese from the plate and ate it and drank some more beer.

"f.u.c.k you," she said. "You want to save some floozie, go ahead, save her yourself. I don't have to tell you s.h.i.t."

"How come you can't tell me how you got into hooking?"

"'Cause it's none of your f.u.c.king business," Ginger said. "You probably one of those creeps likes to get off hearing about it. I thought you was gonna save me."

"Not if you're where you want to be."

"G.o.dd.a.m.ned right," Ginger said. "I'm where I want to be. I could show you some G.o.dd.a.m.ned tricks too. You think I'm not good?"

"Good's not what you do," I said. "It's how you feel when you do it."

"You think so, huh."

I nodded. Ginger ate the rest of her cheeseburger. I was quiet. When she finished she wiped her mouth with a napkin. Then she drank some beer and wiped her mouth again, and looked at me across the table.

"Let me tell you something, you smug son of a b.i.t.c.h," she said. Eating and drinking and wiping her mouth had smeared away most of her lipstick. Behind me, down in the street, a bus downshifted. A horn sounded. Ginger closed her mouth and opened it and nothing came out. As I watched her, tears began to fill her eyes and when they had filled her eyes they began to run down her cheeks. She seemed to be trying to get her breath in big sighs, then she put her face in her hands and bent forward and rested her forehead on the room service table in the s.p.a.ce between her cheeseburger plate and the water gla.s.s, and sobbed. The sobbing became harsher and her shoulders shook. A fork fell off the table and onto the floor and a water gla.s.s tipped and wet her hair and she didn't stop sobbing.

I went over and moved the table away and sat on the bed beside her and put my arm around her. She pressed her face against my chest and sobbed. I patted her hair.

She cried for maybe ten minutes, her chest heaving, gasping for air, her left hand clutched onto my shirt front, her right holding on to my back. Then she stopped sobbing and her body began to shake less. Then it stopped. Then her breathing began to get more controlled. Deep breaths but regular.

With her face still pressed against my chest she said, "My father's name is Vern Buckey, toughest man in Lindell, Maine. When I was a little kid he used to fool around with me, by the time I was twelve he was d.i.c.king me." I patted her hair.

"My old lady knew about it but she was scared to say anything. Everybody knew about it. Kids used to call me f.u.c.ky Buckey. But n.o.body did anything about it. Everybody was scared of Vern. When I was fourteen he sold me to a wh.o.r.ehouse in Portland."

The overhead light was on. It had seemed cheerful in the gathering evening, with the room service table being wheeled in. Now it seemed too bright. Like the lights in an operating room. But I couldn't reach the switch, so I sat still in the harsh light and patted Ginger's hair and let her clutch me and didn't say anything at all.

9.

Ginger and I slept apart on the same bed. In the morning I gave her most of my cash and put her in a cab. She gave me her phone number. I gave her my card.

"You need me, you call me," I said.

She nodded. Since she'd told me about her father she hadn't said five words. The cab pulled away and I watched it turn downtown on Fifth Avenue. Vern Buckey, Lindell, Maine. I got in the next cab and went to Patricia Utley's town house on 37th Street, west of Lexington. It was as elegant and quiet as it had been ten years ago when I'd come here looking for another young woman.

Steven let me in. Patricia Utley was waiting in her library. There was a silver service for two laid out with coffee and some half-size croissants.

"Have you breakfasted?" she said.

"No, ma'am, but, begging your pardon, this don't look like it."

She smiled. "Shall I have Steven bring some Froot Loops?" She poured coffee from the silver pot into a white china cup with a silver band around the rim. I ate a croissant.

"Do I have to save any for you?" I said.

"Perhaps one," Patricia said. "Have you spoken with April?"

"Yeah. She's in love with a pimp named Robert Rambeaux, who studies music at Juilliard and needs her money to complete his education."

Patricia poured herself some coffee.

"I met Rambeaux," I said. "Tall, lean, light-colored man of African ancestry. Thinks he's tough, carries a straight razor. He told me to stop bothering his lady."

"Did you agree?"

"No. Robert and I agreed to disagree."

She smiled and took a small lump of sugar from a small silver bowl with small silver tongs and dropped it into her coffee. "And?" she said.

"And I tailed him and noticed that he spends a lot of time with attractive young women during the day and that he runs a string of streetwalkers at night."

Patricia said, "He turns the girls over to a high-cla.s.s service and takes the used ones and turns them out for himself. He gets a commission from the high-cla.s.s house and he gets the income from the street girls. It's quite a profitable arrangement."

"Like a car dealer," I said. "Sells you a new car, takes your car in trade and sells it. Gets a double profit."

Patricia nodded.

"The funny thing is," I said, "he really is enrolled at Juilliard."

"People aren't one thing," Patricia said.

"Yeah, I know. Hitler loved dogs."

"He probably did in fact," Patricia Utley said.

"Didn't make him not Hitler," I said.

"True."

"I met one of the street wh.o.r.es. Kid named Ginger Buckey. Actually not so much a kid anymore. Except by my standards."

"Our standards," Patricia Utley said. "We're about the same age."

"But we don't look it. She asked me if I was going to save her."

"And you think you can?" Patricia Utley said.

"No," I said. "That's what makes it lousy. I know I can't."

Patricia took a very small bite off the narrow end of one of the croissants. "Care to tell me about her?" she said.

I did.