Evan Hunter - Candyland

"Boyle's my maiden name. I'm in the middle of a divorce."

"Sorry."

"No big deal," she says.

But it is.

They walk in silence for several moments.

"Is he in the job, too?" Morgan asks.

"No. He's a lawyer."

"Is that how you met?"

"Yes. In court. He was defending a guy we sent away for twenty years."

"Good start."

"I thought so."

"What happened?"

"The job happened," she says.

The day has turned sticky and hot.

Emma is wearing a wheat-colored linen suit over a lavender cotton blouse open at the throat. Her dark brown hair is clipped short, falling in bangs on her forehead. She would prefer going barelegged on a day like today, but the job dictates pantyhose and low-heeled pumps that match the suit. All in all, she could be any woman walking to her office on Madison or Lex — except for the snub-nosed Detective Special in her tote bag. Morgan is wearing a white short-sleeved shirt under a blue Dacron suit. A shoulder holster under the jacket shows the butt of a nine-millimeter semi-automatic pistol. They walk side by side, moving through miasmic heat.

"This XS Salon we're going to," Morgan says, giving the word "Salon" a deliberate French spin, "is a whore house, never mind what it says in their magazine ads. But if we tried to bust every one of these little places, we wouldn't be able to focus on the big boys anymore. Where the mob's concerned, prostitution and dope go hand in hand. We look to get 'em on RICO, send 'em away for a long long time. We're not only into prostitution, you know. We're after the policy racket, bookmaking, loan sharking, ticket scalping, the whole nine yards."

On Third Avenue, he leads her to the front of a four-story, red-brick tenement squatting between a Korean grocery and a bar called The Shamrock. Newspapers outside the grocery store carry the headline Bodies From Kennedy Crash Are Found. A subhead under a photo of Senator Kennedy and four of JFK, Jr.'s cousins reads PLAN IS FOR CREMATION WITH ASHES TO BE SCATTERED AT SEA. As they approach the door to the building, Morgan says, "It's B for Beautiful."

She doesn't know what he means until he reaches out to press the only bell button with a nameplate on it, the letter B in outline, filled in with a red marker. A girl's voice comes from a speaker set in the door-jamb above the bell buttons.

"Yes?"

"Police," Morgan says. "Want to buzz us in, please?"

"One moment, sir," the girl says.

They wait.

And wait.

"Putting on their panties," Morgan says, and smiles knowingly.

They wait.

"Come in, sir," the girl says at last, "we're on the first floor."

A buzzer sounds. Morgan twists the doorknob, opens the door, and allows Emma to precede him into a small foyer. They immediately recognize as blood the dried stains on the black-and-white tiles underfoot. This is not a crime scene, but they step around the stains gingerly, and then climb a steep flight of steps to the first-floor landing. Walking familiarly to a door with the brass letter B hanging on it, Morgan knocks on it sharply. The door opens at once. A very fat black man wearing a sweat shirt over Bermuda shorts, white socks, and sneakers stands in the doorway, a red light glowing behind him.

"Police," Morgan says, and shows his detective shield.

"What seems to be the trouble, Officers?" the black man asks.

"No trouble," Morgan says. "We're looking for a man who might've been here last night."

"Okay to come in?" Emma asks, and reaches into her tote for her shield on its leather fob. "Detective/Second Grade Emma Boyle," she says, "Special Victims Squad." She drops the shield back into her bag. "And your name, sir?"

"Jefferson."

"Is that your first name or your last?"

"My whole name's Jefferson Moore."

"Okay if we come in, Mr Moore?"

"What for?"

"Talk to some of your girls."

"There's hardly nobody here just now," Moore says. "We don't open till ten."

"Whoever's here," Emma says.

"Well, come in, I guess," he says.

They step past him into a small entryway and then beyond that into an empty room where a threadbare, velvet-covered couch rests against the wall. Moore closes and locks the entrance door behind them.

"They's juss me and one of the girls here juss now," he says. "We don't get too many people needin massages in the mornin hours."

"Massages, huh?" Morgan says.

"Yes, suh, this is a massage parlor, is what it is."

"Uh-huh," Morgan says. "Besides Cathy Frese, who else was working last night?"

"I don't know no Cathy Freeze."

"Try Heidi."

"Don't know her neither. Don't know none of the girls work nights. You got to ask the night manager about that."

"Harry Davis? Is that who was here?"

"That's his name. You know him?"

"He knows me," Morgan says. "Is he here now?"

"Was you the one here on that holdup last week?"

"No. I was up here two, three weeks ago, you had some drunk making a fuss here. Is Davis in or not?"

"No, sir, he's the night manager. He don't get here till six p.m."

"You got his phone number?"

"Yeah, but he don't like to be bothered at home."

"Bother him," Morgan says.

"You mention the word “homicide,” they'll give up their own mothers," Morgan says.

He is talking about the list of names Davis gave him on the phone. They are driving across the Queensboro Bridge in a Vice Division sedan, the air conditioner rattling, the car stiflingly hot even though they've rolled down all the windows. Emma throws her suit jacket onto the back seat, over Morgan's. Her cotton blouse clings to her. She can feel beads of perspiration rolling down her chest and into her bra, between her breasts.

"I'm still trying to place this first one," Morgan says, "Consuelo Gomez." He takes his right hand from the wheel, taps his temple with the index finger, and says, "I've got a computer right up here, but there are too many names in it. I think she uses the name Bianca on the job. She used to go to Queens College. I think she got pregnant or something, had to quit school, been hooking all over town the past five or six years. You got any kids, Emma?"

"One. A daughter."

"So what's gonna happen?"

"What do you mean?"

"The divorce and all."

"I'm fighting for custody right this minute."

"How come? The mother usually…"

"My husband says I'm too busy to raise her. Too busy being a cop, he says."

"So who's been raising her till now?"

"Exactly my point."

"What's the judge have to say?"

"He's still deciding."

"Who has the kid meanwhile?"

"His mother. Temporary custody."

"Your husband's mother?"

"Bitch of the world."

"Like my mother-in-law," Morgan says, and grins. "Must be an accident up ahead," he says, and hits the horn. It is a signal for drivers all up and down the line of traffic to begin honking. Morgan shakes his head in annoyance. Emma takes a Kleenex from her tote, dabs at her upper lip. She feels sweaty and tired and unattractive. Everywhere around her, there is the din of automobile horns. "How'd she seem last time you talked to her?" she asks.

"Who's that?"

"Cathy. The night that drunk pushed her around."

"He did a real number on her. Split her lip, there was blood all over the front of this baby doll nightie she wears." Morgan turns from the wheel, looks at her. "She wanted to kill him," he says.

The girl standing in the open doorway is some five-feet six-inches tall, a full-figured girl with curly black hair and dark brown eyes, wearing a pair of blue jeans and a red tube-top blouse. No makeup, no lipstick. She seems to be in her early twenties, fresh-faced and clean-scrubbed, but according to Morgan she's been hooking all over town for almost six years.

"How you doing, Consuelo?" Morgan asks, and grins. "Or should I call you Bianca?"