"It kinda is," Denise said.
Bobby shrugged. "They still playing hearts in that booth back there?"
Denise looked back in the booth. "Yeah. Why?"
"Then I'll go join them. Hearts are fun."
The kids played hearts all day sometimes, just waiting for the night and the stand they made on the streets or in Loring Park. Denise hadn't lived through a winter there yet, so she wasn't sure what happened when the snow started flying. Standing outside for long would probably get to be a drag real fast.
Bobby got up, kissed Denise on the cheek, and then slid into the booth behind them.
"You want some coffee?" Polly asked as Denise sat down.
"Huh-uh. Not right now, anyway."
Polly stared at her. "Wow, you really looked wasted." She narrowed her eyes and looked at the bruises along Denise's cheek. "Some bad-ass tried to stomp you."
"Sort of, I guess."
"I won't go with those rough-stuff guys, kiddo. You got to watch yourself. Remember all the things I told you."
"I remember, Polly. I really do."
"Good." She smiled. She had a beautiful smile. She seemed so much older and more mature to Denise. Almost wise. "So, what's up?"
"I just want to ask you some questions."
"All right."
"I mean, they're not about me."
"Right."
"They're really not."
Polly smiled. "They're about a friend of yours."
"Well, let's just say they're not about me."
"If you say so."
Denise snuggled into the booth, trying to get comfortable. Not easy, when the booth was nothing more than painted pine board. The ass quickly got sore sitting on painted pine board. "Say you were with this guy who tried to beat you up."
"Okay."
"But I mean real serious. Maybe he even tried to kill you."
"All right."
"And say that you managed to get away safely."
Polly nodded.
"And say that earlier you'd picked him clean, you know, taken his wallet and stuff. So, you knew where the guy lived and everything."
Polly frowned. "You're thinking of Chet, aren't you?"
Denise didn't say anything for a while then answered, "Yeah, I guess so."
Chet was a fifteen-year-old who'd gotten himself linked up with a doctor who was really into the rough stuff. The doctor enjoyed being beaten. Really severely. All the kids on the street thought this was hilarious. There was just something inherently funny about a doctor who wanted you to work him over (he particularly liked the sting of black leather gloves). Then one day, when Chet was relating his latest experiences with this guy, one of the kids said, "You should tell this guy that if he don't start giving you a lot more money, you're going to start calling his family and his colleagues and shit like that, you know?" So, Chet took the suggestion and started shaking the guy down. How Chet's life changed. New clothes, access to the doc's convertible, lot of spending money. Even managed to work out a weekly deal with a not-too-bad-motel where he could stay. After a few months old Chet didn't even want to spend any time with the other kids. Considered himself too good for them. He no longer needed to turn tricks. He was shaking down the doctor. Then, after a while, Chet vanished. He didn't even cruise by anymore in the red convertible so the other kids would drool. He was just… gone. There was a lot of speculation. One story had Chet taking all his money and splitting for LA, where he was going to try to model. Another story had him taking off for Alaska, where he had a brother, and the brother had a wife and two kids and a big dog, and where Chet was going to forget everything he knew about the streets. A third theory-and the inevitable one-was that the doc got sick of paying Chet off and killed him in some fashion. A doc could do it good and maybe not even ever get caught. Anyway, Chet disappeared. People still talked about him. Whatever happened to him anyway? You really think the doc stiffed him?
Polly said, "It's pretty dangerous shit."
"I wouldn't ask for much."
"How much?"
"Couple hundred."
"This guy look rich?"
"He had a new car." She had dropped the pretence that she was talking about somebody else.
Polly sat there, with her gorgeous blue eyes and her somewhat imperious nose and her large, erotic mouth, and shook her head. "Kiddo, I don't think you want to get involved in something like this."
"I could buy some new winter clothes and stuff."
"I don't know, kiddo. What if he jumps on you again?"
"I'll take a knife." She tried to sound tough. "If he gets crazy again, I'll just pull the knife on him."
Polly laughed. "You don't see yourself right."
"Huh?"
"You think you're this real hard-assed street chick, but you're not, kiddo. You're just this lost little girl. I mean, I'm not tryin' to hurt your feelings, but it's the truth."
"I've managed to survive so far, haven't I?"
"Hey, don't get pissed, kiddo. I'm tryin' to be your friend. I'm tryin' to keep you out of trouble."
Denise shrugged. "I guess you're right. Sorry I got so uptight."
"It's all right." She reached across and patted Denise's hand. That was one thing Denise liked about Polly in particular. She wasn't afraid to act like your older sister or even mother. She smiled. "So, you gonna forget it, kiddo?"
"Yeah," Denise said. "Yeah, I am."
But of course she wasn't. As soon as she left there, she was going to look up on the city bus map the address she found in the guy's wallet. Then she was going to give him a surprise. One he'd never forget. One he'd be willing to pay for to forget.
After a time Bobby came back and asked if it was okay if he, like, you know, sat down. Bobby could be real shy sometimes, and that was part of why Denise found him so cute. So, he sat down and slid his arm around Denise and kind of flirted with her the rest of the time she was there. Denise liked Polly and Bobby so much; they were real friends. Maybe after she got the money from this guy, she'd do something real nice for them. Buy them sweaters or something.
In half an hour Bobby drifted away, and Polly announced that she had to meet somebody over by the Civic Centre. Denise assumed she meant a trick. Polly was very discreet, sometimes frustratingly so.
Denise sat there alone and finished her Pepsi. Before she left Papa's, she went in the back, near the toilets that always smelled like those scented skunks you hang off rear-view mirrors, and dug the wallet out of her coat She flicked through several pieces of ID, some credit cards, and about sixty dollars in fives and tens, and found the home phone number listed on the this-wallet-belongs-to card. The phone rang five times, and then an answering machine came on and a male voice, sort of distorted by the machine, said, "This is Frank Brolan. I'm unable to talk to you at the moment. If you'd leave your name and number, I'll get back to you as soon as possible."
Standing there next to the sweet-smelling toilet, working men pushing against her as they made their way back up front, Denise smiled to herself, forgetting all the ominous stories Polly had told her about the boy named Chet. This was going to be easy and maybe even fun.
Real soon Denise was going to have herself some money.
14
NEAR THE UNIVERSITY of Minnesota was a small messenger service that would deliver virtually anything within the city limits. After leaving the agency, and taking along a plain white number-ten envelope, Brolan drove straight to the messenger service and asked if they had a mailing bag. The girl at the counter gave him one; Brolan went over to the customer counter and filled out the address he was sending it to. Then he took the playing card with Emma's photograph on it, circled her head in ink, and dropped the card back in the white number-ten. Then he put the number-ten inside the mailing bag he'd already addressed.
He took the bag back to the counter. The girl checked the address and said, "Three hours all right, sir?"
"Fine. How much will it be?"
"I hate to say it, but it'll be six dollars. There's a minimum, I'm afraid."
"I know." Usually this service delivered much heavier objects. In fact, the girl seemed puzzled-but didn't say anything-about Brolan's mailing something so light. He gave her six dollars and left.
John Kellogg was the name of Emma's pimp. Given his address, you'd never guess his occupation, which was probably why he was so successful at what he did. He had a condo not far from the expensive Shorewood area. Everybody in the glass-and-stone-and-wood six-plex seemed to drive a new Mercedes-Benz. Seeing six of them arrayed together, Brolan had the sense that he'd just entered a car lot.
Fog lapped at his face. Even this many hours from darkness, the overcast sky set the day in a kind of limbo-not exactly day, not exactly night. From one of the condos came the sound of Dvorak, turned up as loud as a teenager would have a boombox.
Brolan went in the first door and checked the three mailboxes. John Kellogg was in 108. Brolan went up the stairs. Dvorak's music filled the hallways. He was surprised-even given the good taste of the listener-that the neighbours didn't complain. It was one thing condo owners and ghetto dwellers had in common. Rude neighbours.
When he came to Kellogg's door, he knocked twice loudly. No response. He listened to the music for a time. It had a soothing effect on him. But soon enough images of a dead woman in a freezer chest and images of prison came to him. You're still the likely choice, pally, as Foster would say.
He knocked again, this time a lot more aggressively.
The guy who opened the door was probably around Brolan's age. He was slender; his curly dark hair formed a widow's peak on his forehead; his handsome features were outsize, lending them a certain theatricality. He wore a blue V-neck sweater with no shirt underneath, and a lot of astroturf hair spilled out of the V. His jeans looked painted on. He wore no shoes. Behind him, in a large room that was obviously intended as the living room, stood an artist's easel with a canvas on it. Half-finished was a watercolour of a bowl of fruit. The technique clearly stated that this man considered himself a disciple of Renoir. The only difference between the two men was that Renoir had had talent. Even with his untutored eye, Brolan could see that this was not a genius standing in the doorway.
"Yeah?" From the glance the man gave Brolan, it was obvious he was not exactly a big fan of Brolan's, either.
"You're John Kellogg?"
"Maybe."
Brolan had to smile. The man's surliness was almost childish. "I'm trying to locate a woman."
The man smirked. "Aren't we all?"
"Her name is Emma."
Something shifted in Kellogg's dark eyes. Not only recognition but some other emotion far more serious than merely recognising her name. Fear? Or was Brolan only finding what he wanted to find?
"Can't help you," the man said.
He started to close the door. Like a good encyclopaedia salesman, Brolan got his foot between door edge and jamb before the man could do anything more.
"I'd really appreciate five minutes of your time," Brolan said.
"You son of a bitch," the man said, glancing down at Brolan's foot.
Just then the Dvorak music swelled. Kellogg frowned and glanced, irritated, down the hall. Brolan used Kellogg's distraction to push his way in.
"Who the hell are you?" Kellogg said.
"You're Kellogg, right?"
"So what the hell if I am?"
"I want a straight answer." Brolan moved close enough to the man to rattle him a little.
Kellogg took a few steps backward. "Yeah, I'm Kellogg."
"Well, in that case, you can help me locate Emma." Brolan forced himself to calm down and looked around again. The room was covered with drop cloths on the floor and walls. The drop cloths had been wounded many times with paint splotches-red, yellow, green, blue. Over in the east corner stood a half-dozen more canvases. These were all finished, and each of them bore the influence of Renoir. Each was just as bad as the half finished one on the easel.
"I don't know any Emma," Kellogg said.
"You should. You're her pimp."
"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"
"What the hell do you think it's supposed to mean, Mr. Kellogg?"
"You're calling me a pimp?"
"Right."
"You bastard." But there was a singular lack of passion in Kellogg's name-calling, as if his honour wasn't quite worth the effort. He nodded his curly dark locks toward the canvas. "I'm a painter."
"I can see that."
You had to give Kellogg credit. At least he could pick up sarcasm. "And you must be an art critic?"
"Afraid not. I work in advertising."
Kellogg was passionate. His laugh was as scornful as Brolan had ever heard. "Advertising? I'm not the pimp. You are."
"Thank you." Brolan was used to being insulted about being an ad man. Almost everybody considered himself morally superior to ad people. Even pimps.
Kellogg looked admiringly at his canvas as he spoke. "So-called writers who write about cereal and so-called artists who design dog-food bags." When his head swung abruptly back to Brolan, his dark eyes were angry. "You're the pimp. Not me. And remember that."
From inside his coat pocket, Brolan took one of the pornographic playing cards. He handed it with a certain elegance to Kellogg, as if he were presenting some most impressive credentials.