Shift: A Novel (26 page)

BC had regarded the disheveled man delivering such specific sartorial advice with more than a bit of skepticism. “How much is this going to cost?”

“The suits are going to run about a hundred each,” Jarrell said, and
BC fought back a gasp. “But first-timers at Song’s have to pay a cool grand just for the privilege of saddling up. After that it’s two hundred and fifty dollars a ride.” He’d looked BC up and down in his thrift store costume. “You can put your hands on that kind of cash?”

For some reason an image of Gerry Burton flashed in BC’s mind.

“I’ll get it somewhere.”

An Asian boy
answered the door. He wore a plain black suit, not quite livery, and despite the fact that it fit him loosely, and that he couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen, he still managed to project an aura of barely contained strength and menace.

He neither spoke nor stood aside, just looked at BC as if he were stripping off the newly minted threads and seeing the naked, quaking man beneath.

BC took a moment to hear his grandmother’s rolling drawl in his mind. Then:

“Good evening, sir. Is there any chance Madam Song is at home on such a beautiful night?”

The majordomo continued to stare at him blankly. Finally, after BC was about to repeat the pass phrase, he moved aside. BC took a step forward, only to be stopped by an arm that, however thin, still felt as hard as an iron bar. The boy flicked BC’s arms away from his side, and nimble, pincer-strong fingers squeezed each limb from wrist to shoulder, patted the outside of his jacket, then reached inside. BC felt the boy’s hands on his chest, his ribs, his waist.

“The only man who usually touches me this way is my tailor,” BC drawled.

The boy used his foot to nudge BC’s legs apart, knelt down and gave each leg the same thorough going over. At the end he brought his hand up sharp at BC’s inseam, let it sit there a moment longer than BC was comfortable with. He looked up at BC with a little smile on his face.

“No weapon,” he said, standing up. “Suit nice though.”

“Thanks,” BC said. “I had to sell my momma’s house to pay for it.”

“Security consists
of three men,” Jarrell told him. “The majordomo will answer the door. Lee Chul-moo. Don’t let the baby face fool you. Song picked him up off the street in Korea. He’s supposed to be versed in all those kung fu–sumo wrestling maneuvers.”

“Kung fu is Chinese. Sumo is Japanese.”

“Let’s just say that he can rip your legs off and beat you to death with them. Once past the front vestibule, you’ll see a staircase directly ahead of you. There’s a security booth in the room below it. It’s manned by a single guard who monitors the closed-circuit cameras installed in each of the guest rooms. For the past couple of years it’s been a guy named Garrison Davis. He’s more of a gadget geek than Chul-moo, but you can expect he’ll be packing. No one knows where the third man is stationed, but you don’t need to worry about it. If you catch a glimpse of him, chances are it’ll be the last thing you ever see. And then of course there’s Song.”

Chul-moo led BC
past a large parlor to the end of the hall, where he knocked on a closed door. The door opened on a small office. The parlor-height ceilings were taller than the room was deep, and a single coffin-shaped window, heavily draped, added to the cloistered feeling. A series of framed sketches depicted Victorian women holding little frilly dogs in their laps. The rest of the furniture was similarly proper—female but not feminine, cool but not cold—without a hint of the Eastern, let alone the harem. Just like the woman sitting at the small escritoire.

“Song does a
lot of business with the intelligence community. Because your entrée is coming from me, she’ll immediately have a scenario in mind, namely, that I’m going to try to blackmail you into performing services for the Company. I suggest a munitions cover—bullets perhaps, or handguns. Nothing too fancy, but something the Company might be interested in acquiring at a discount. So in addition to the money she takes from you, she’ll be looking at a substantially larger payment when she sells me the copies of the film footage of you and one of her girls. That said, she can smell bullshit a mile away. She
wouldn’t have gotten where she is otherwise. You’re a young, good-looking man and, as far as she knows, quite wealthy. Obviously you don’t need to resort to prostitutes. In order for you to gain her trust, you’re going to have to convince her that you’re not just another pussy-hound. You’re a connoisseur of tail. You’ve had the starlets, the debutantes. Now you want the kind of girls you can’t get back home in Georgia or Ole Miss or wherever you decide to hail from. The kind of girls who do the kinds of things that, well, no respectable girl would do.”

“Things—”

“Choose your kink,” Jarrell said with a wicked gleam in his eye. “And if I were you, I’d seal the deal, if you know what I mean. You’re forking over twelve hundred and fifty dollars. Might as well get your money’s worth. And believe me, Song’s girls are worth it.”

Because she was
Asian, and because she ran a bordello, BC had pictured something a little more exotic. A kabuki girl or whatever they were called. A geisha. A dragon lady. Instead he found himself facing a demure, almost prim woman in a dun-colored herringbone suit lightened only by a bit of pale fur at the end of the three-quarter-length sleeves. Her black bouffant was the spitting image of the First Lady’s, and she’d shadowed her eyes in such a way as to minimize their epicanthic fold. Her accent was similarly Americanized, her vowels as flat as a Midwesterner’s, her consonants as firm as her handshake.

“Mr. Gamin.” Song didn’t stand, but let her hand rest in BC’s for a moment, not limply but delicately: the clothes offered a masculine front, the handshake gave a feminine finish. BC felt weak in the knees. “Please, have a seat.”

BC did his best not to plop into one of the spindly cane chairs opposite the desk. He wasn’t sure what he expected. Some small talk perhaps. Questions about his background. But Song was all business.

“Tell me what you like in a girl.”

An image filled BC’s mind: his mother, inspecting his appearance before she let him leave the house each morning, from the time he went to kindergarten all the way through his first days at the Bureau. A sharp, calcified nail would repart his hair ever so slightly to the left or right of
where he’d combed it, and her cold fingers would smooth it off his forehead. He knew she didn’t mean to seem critical, that it was just her way of finding an excuse to touch her son. But still, he had to fight off a shiver as he remembered the chill of her fingers running over his scalp.

“Warm hands,” he said quickly, then threw in a bit of a smirk, hoping that would make the comment seem more lascivious.

Song waved his words away with an impeccably manicured hand. Though he’d shaken it less than a minute ago, BC couldn’t remember whether it had been cold or warm. He guessed that it could be either, depending on her inclination. Something told him it would be frigid for him.

“Be more specific. All of our girls have a uniform body temperature.”

An image of Naz filled BC’s mind. Her eyes flashed in his. Deep, dark, full of fear, but also fiercely protective, as she hovered over Chandler’s delirious body in the Millbrook cottage.

“I’ve always liked a girl with dark eyes,” he said, his shyness only half feigned. “Dark hair. Dark … skin.”

“Exotic or domestic,” Song said, as though she were referring to automobiles or beers.

“I’m afraid I don’t quite take your meaning.”

“Something like me,” Song said, with the slightest hint of mockery in her voice—as if the man on the far side of the desk could aspire to a woman like her. “Or something like your ancestors owned?”

Jarrell had
called him yesterday.

“Jesus Christ, it took me forever to track you down.”

“I’m sorry, I sold my house to pay for those suits.”

“You
what?”
Jarrell exclaimed. “Never mind. Okay, first off, I asked around about Mary Meyer. The thing with the president seems to have been over for a while, so I think she’s fine.”

“And secondly?”

“She’s at Song’s.”

“Mary Meyer is at a brothel?”

“No, you idiot. The girl. Haverman.”

“What? How do you know?”

“Your description of her was very … memorable.” There was a leer in Jarrell’s voice, and BC found himself wondering if Jarrell had done more than look.

“What’s she doing there? Is she a prisoner?”

“As far as I can tell, she’s working.”

“As …?”

“It’s a brothel, BC.” Again the audible leer. BC was glad Jarrell was doing this over the phone, or he was sure he’d’ve slugged him.

“Why would she do something like that?”

“I’m a spy, not a prosecutor. I don’t need motive. Just facts. But don’t try anything stupid.”

“Stupid?”

“Don’t try to rescue her, BC. You’ll just get the both of you killed.”

“Mr. Gamin?”
Song prompted.

“I was thinking something Latin. Or not quite Latin.”

“Not quite Latin?”

BC didn’t want to be too clear, for fear of seeming too obvious.

“I like Latin features—dark hair, petite frame, curvaceous figure.”

“Are you a lover or a dressmaker?”

BC hoped the room was dark enough to conceal his blush.

“I like the look. I just don’t go for the Latin temperament. Especially in a girl. It’s a little unrefined for my taste. Too forward for a Mississippi boy like me.”

“You prefer something more submissive.”

“I think I would say quiet. Respectful.”

“Quiet.” The word seemed to strike a chord with Song.

“Like Natalie Wood,” BC said, not quite sure where the name came from. “In
Splendor in the Grass
. But before …”

“Before she was ruined.” Song nodded. “You shouldn’t be so coy, Mr. Gamin. There are no taboos here.”

“Must be the Southerner in me, Miss Song. We speak delicately of ladyfolk back home, even when they’re professionals.”

“Nancy is not to everyone’s taste,” Song continued, ignoring him, “but her devotees are quite passionate about her charms. That leaves only one remaining detail.”

“I assume you mean the money.”

Song offered him a slight smile. “We speak as delicately of such matters around here as you do of girls, Mr. Gamin.”

“In case the walls have ears?”

Song didn’t answer, and BC reached for his new wallet—a gorgeous billfold made from butter-soft caramel-colored leather. It was stuffed with hundreds, and he counted out thirteen as though they were singles, handed them over with a smile.

“Momma always said you get what you pay for.”

“Trust me,” Song said, “even your mother will agree you’re getting your money’s worth.” She pressed a button and BC heard the door open behind him. “Chul-moo will take you up.”

She didn’t offer him change, and BC didn’t ask for it.

The town house
was four stories tall, and Naz’s room—if Nancy was in fact Miss Haverman—was on the top floor. BC’s heart sank with each ascending flight. How was he going to get her out of here? Because he knew that’s what he was here to do. Melchior could wait, and Chandler, too. He touched the ruby ring in his pocket, imagining the glow in Naz’s dark eyes when he slipped it on her finger.

But he was getting ahead of himself. There were other questions to address first, not least of which was how Naz had ended up actually working in Song’s establishment. Jarrell hadn’t made it sound like a place where the girls were forced to do anything. Indeed, he’d suggested that competition to get into Song’s was fierce, given that two or three years here could set a girl up for life. The fact that Naz would volunteer for such a fate so quickly after her experiences in Boston and Millbrook didn’t speak promisingly of her stability. The only thing harder than getting a girl out of this place would be getting a girl out of this place who didn’t want to leave.

On the top floor, Chul-moo paused in front of a closed maple door varnished to mirror sheen. His knuckles rapped on the wood with surprising delicacy, and then he turned the latch, opening the door a quarter inch. He stared at BC as the detective walked into the room, his expression inscrutable yet somehow mocking at the same time. Then the door closed between them, and BC was alone in a small but opulent
sitting room furnished with French country antiques upholstered in dove gray damask. Through a silk-curtained archway he glimpsed the foot of a bed that, from the hand-stitched lace border of its bed skirt to the delicate embroidery on the bedspread, was the model of feminine chastity.

A deep wingback chair was angled so that all he could see was a soft wave of dark hair, the supple length of a single silk-covered calf.

“Come in, Mr. Gamin,” a female voice said, as soft as Song’s had been hard, as far removed from the frantic screaming at Millbrook as it was from the revolution Timothy Leary said had taken her parents. Yet it was unmistakably her.

BC stepped all the way into the room and closed the door. The fact that Naz knew his alias told him that there was an in-house phone, confirming Jarrell’s report that the establishment was as wired as Langley. Not sure if he was being watched but taking no chances, he tried to seem as though he was merely admiring the décor as he scanned the room for the probable location of microphone or camera. Then Naz stood up and BC forgot about all that.