Ed McBain - Cinderella

“Yes, it’s in the file,” Matthew said.

“Gorgeous girl, am I right?”

“Very pretty.”

“Sure, that’s the picture I gave him. Plus twenty-five bills as a retainer. Find her, I told him. Find Cinderella for me. That’s the first time I called her that.”

“Why was that?”

“Well, because I met her at a ball , didn’t I? Dressed like a princess, sapphire pin on her chest, high-heeled shoes looked like glass, all she’s missing is a tiara. Plus by morning the princess turned into a fuckin’ whore who stole my Rolex cost eight thousand dollars at Tiffany’s in New York.”

“Which is why you hired Otto.”

“Yeah.”

“To get your watch back.”

“To find her , never mind the watch. The watch is probably in Alaska by now, you think she’s gonna hang onto a hot watch engraved with my initials on the case?”

“You merely wanted him to find her.”

“ Merely ? You think I was giving him an easy job or something? Merely , the man says. I didn’t even know her name.”

“I thought she—”

“Yeah, she told me Angela West, but I looked in the phone book before I called Otto, and there were six Wests in it, none of them Angela. So all I had was this picture of a young blonde girl — Cinderella, right? Of which maybe there are fifty thousand such young blonde girls in the city of Calusa, so Otto’s supposed to run down to the beach and find her. That’s not such a merely , Matt, is it okay if I call you Matt?”

“Most people call me Matthew.”

“Matthew then,” Larkin said and shrugged as if to say there was no accounting for taste. “The point is, this was a hard job I gave Otto, and he wasn’t making a hell of a lot of progress, I can tell you that.”

“Why’d you go to him in the first place?”

“Why? Because I heard he was a good—”

“I mean, why didn’t you go to the police?”

“I didn’t want to.”

“Why not? She stole your watch.”

“I felt this was a personal matter. Between her and me. I didn’t want the police in this. Anyway, the police are full of shit, Matthew, I’m sure you know that.”

Matthew said nothing. Far out on the water, a trawler was silhouetted against the gray of the sky. Sandpipers skirted the waves as they nudged the shore. Overhead, a flight of pelicans hovered and then dipped into an air current. Matthew wondered if birds knew when it was going to rain.

“So when did you go to him?” he asked.

“Around the end of the month.”

“The end of April.”

“Yeah, sometime around the end of the month.”

“Why’d you wait so long?”

“What do you mean?”

“She stole your watch early in April, but you didn’t go to Otto till the end of the month. How come?”

“I was thinking it over,” Larkin said.

Domingo said since the mother wasn’t home they should go to the beach. Ernesto said the beach could wait. Neither of the men were terribly impressed with Venice, which was where Mrs. Santoro lived, in a cinderblock development house not too far off US 41. Domingo said he liked Miami Beach better. He said Venice looked “crommy.” That was one of the few English words he liked, crommy. He didn’t think Miami Beach was crommy. Miami Beach was like a small province in Cuba, and therefore gorgeous.

The men were waiting outside the house in the red LeBaron convertible. They had decided on a high profile here because all these crommy little houses were very close together and they couldn’t risk a break-in. Otherwise, they’d have preferred being inside the house when she got home. As it was, they had gone to the front door, and rung the bell and a neighbor next door had told them Annie wouldn’t be back from Miami till later today. They had not anticipated that high a profile, being talked to by a nosy neighbor who should’ve been inside watching a soap opera. A moment before Mrs. Santoro drove up — at about twenty after three that Wednesday afternoon — Domingo was complaining that there were no Spanish-speaking radio stations in this crommy town. Ernesto nudged him in the ribs as her car, a brown Dodge Caravan, pulled into the driveway. They got out of the convertible at once, and were walking toward her as she unlocked the kitchen door at the side of the house.

“Mrs. Santoro?” Ernesto said.

She turned, surprised. Mother of the two other women, Ernesto thought, no question about it. Same eyes, same mouth, bleached blonde hair trying to hide the gray, yes, but no doubt the mother. Same firm breasts, well they were somewhat heavy, true, but she had to be fifty, fifty-five, something like that, a bit thick in the waist, also, but good legs like the two daughters, she was the mother, no question.

“Miami Police Department,” he said, snapping open his wallet and flashing his driver’s license, and then snapping the wallet shut again. “We have some questions about your daughter.”

Annie heard an accent like a tortilla, words that came out as “Miami Polee Deparm, we ha’ some question abou’ you’ door,” but she supposed there were a lot of Hispanic cops in Dade County, and anyway he’d just shown her his ID card, hadn’t he?

“Yes, come in,” she said.

They went into the kitchen behind her.

She put her parcels down on the kitchen table and then led them into the living room. Venetian blinds closed, the room dim and cool, Florida in the summertime, up the street the sound of a lawn mower. You could smell mildew. Almost taste it.

“I just got back from there,” she said. “Miami.”

“Yes, we know,” Ernesto said.

“I went over to identify the body,” Annie said.

“Yes, that’s required,” he said.

The other one, the big one with the slick little mustache and the darting eyes, said nothing.

“It was horrible,” Annie said, and shook her head. “Have you ever been in a morgue? Well, of course you have,” she said.

“Yes,” Ernesto said.

“Horrible,” she said. “The smell in there.”

“Yes,” he said. “Mrs. Santoro, can you...?”

“Excuse me,” she said, “I didn’t get your names.”

“Oh, excuse me ,” Ernesto said. “Detective Garcia.” His true surname was Moreno. “And my partner, Detective Rodriguez.” Domingo’s surname was Garzon. “I was wondering if you could tell us where we can locate your stepdaughter?”

“Jenny? Why do you want her?”

“Mrs. Santoro,” Ernesto said, “we want to make sure nothing happens to her like happened to your poor daughter in Miami Beach.”

“Was this drug-related?” Annie asked.

“Your daughter?”

“Yes. Did her death have something to do with drugs?”

“Perhaps,” Ernesto said.

“I thought so. But I don’t think Jenny’s into drugs. I mean, she’s into enough , believe me, but—”

She suddenly cut herself off.

“Yes?” Ernesto said.

“Nothing,” Annie said.

“We know she’s a prostitute,” Ernesto said.

“You do?”

“Yes. That’s not why we want to find her. We want to protect her, Mrs. Santoro.”

This all came out in Señor-Wences English.

“Thass nah why we wann to fine her. We wann to protec’ her, Meez Santoro” — well, the Santoro came out beautifully, of course, but everything else was dipped in guacamole. She thought Miami must be really overrun with them if they were hiring policemen who couldn’t even speak English.

“Who told you Jenny was a prostitute?” she asked.

Ernesto almost said “Alice,” forgetting for a moment that unless he had talked to the Miami daughter before she got killed, she couldn’t have told him anything . “Your daughter in Orlando,” he said, and then realized that was a mistake, too. The daughter in Orlando was also dead. The only difference was that Mrs. Santoro didn’t know about her yet. Chances were, not even the police knew about her yet. They would know about her when the body began stinking. Which in this heat should be very soon.