Ed McBain - Puss in Boots

“I happen to think I’m extraordinarily beautiful,” Kim said, and tossed her frizzy bleached hair.

“You are, no question about it,” Mose said, and put his hand on her thigh again.

“Listen, you understand English?” Kim said, and this time shoved his hand away angrily. “So what is it?” she said to Tick, figuring he was the negotiator here. “You interested in me, or you interested in giving me all this bullshit about this gorgeous redhead you’re looking for?”

“We’re interested in both,” Tick said.

“Never mind both,” Kim said, “let’s talk about me . There’s a pickup out back, and the front seat is covered with blowjobs. If you’re interested.”

“What do you get?” Tick asked.

“Twenty-five,” she said.

“Here’s the twenty-five,” he said, reaching for his wallet, opening it, and putting two tens and a five on the table. “Just for sitting here talking to us.”

“Thanks,” she said, and picked up the bills and tucked them into the waistband of her garter belt. “But that doesn’t mean your friend here can get handy. I’m serious about people coming in here all the time looking for something going on. If you’re paying for talk, we talk. Period.”

“I understand,” Tick said.

“But does your friend understand?”

Mose was thinking he’d like to go out in the pickup first , and then come back in here to talk. He was thinking Tick was throwing twenty-five bucks down the toilet.

“Sure, I understand,” he said. “Here’s my hands. Right here on the table, okay?” He folded them on the tabletop. “Okay?”

“Just keep them there, okay?” she said.

“Maybe later we can go out to the pickup,” Mose said.

“Sure, for another twenty-five,” Kim said. “Right now, you bought talk.” She turned to Tick. “So talk,” she said.

“Long red hair,” Tick said. “Green eyes. Five-ten, legs that won’t quit, tits like melons. Have you seen her around?”

“She sounds like a movie star,” Kim said.

Mose was about to say something, but Tick shot him a look.

“What’s her name?” Kim asked.

“She was going by Connie,” Tick said.

“Yeah, but what’s her square handle? Is she a working girl?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, don’t you know ?”

“Not for sure.”

“Why do you want her?”

“Do you know her? Does she sound familiar?”

“Not really. Why do you want her?”

“Have you been working these clubs long?”

“Two years now. I did a year at Alyce, another six months at Up Front. This is the best of the lot, you ask me. Why do you want her?”

“Ever see her in any of them?”

“From the way you describe her, she doesn’t sound like somebody’d be working the topless joints. You’re describing a racehorse, somebody’d be working the beach in Miami, have you tried Miami?”

“We’re pretty sure she’s in Calusa,” Tick said.

“Have you called any of the services? That’s the kind of girl you’re talking about, a hundred a shot. If she really looks like you say she looks. Anyway, why do you want her?”

Tick looked at Mose.

“We’re not creeps,” he told Kim.

“Nobody said you were. But you’re looking for this gorgeous redhead, I got to wonder why? She do something to you? You want to hurt her?”

“No.”

“ ’Cause if that’s the story, it’s been nice knowing you.”

“Okay, I’ll be perfectly honest with you,” Tick said. “We owe her money.”

“For what?”

“She did some work for us.”

“What kind of work?”

“She entertained some businessmen for us. Up in Tampa.”

“What kind of businessmen?”

“We’re in the construction business,” Tick said. “We had this land we were interested in, and these two guys owned it, and we wanted to make a deal with them. So Connie helped us.”

“Helped you how? I thought you said you weren’t sure she’s a hooker.”

“She entertained them. Went out to dinner with them. Whatever else happened is between her and her priest.”

“So how come you owe her money?”

“She checked out the next morning. We’ve been trying to find her since.”

“This is a fairy tale, right?” Kim said. “She checks out without collecting? And you come looking to pay her? Come on, mister.”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

“Sure. How much money is involved here?”

“Five bills.”

“Gets better and better all the time. You know any other businessmen in Tampa? For five bills, I’ll go up there and entertain them out of their minds. Boys,” she said, standing up and moving out of the booth, “you’re full of shit. I don’t know any gorgeous redheads going by Connie, and if I did I wouldn’t tell you where to find her, because you sound like you want to hurt her.”

“How about a big black stud named Jake?” Mose asked.

Kim looked at him.

“Hung like an Arabian stallion,” Tick said.

Kim turned to him.

“Jake who?” she said.

There was knowledge in her eyes. Tick saw it there.

“Sit down,” he said.

She moved into the booth again.

“Jake,” Tick said.

“You know this five hundred you were gonna give the redhead?” Kim said. A calculating look on her face now. She was smelling real bread, more than she could earn in a month out in the pickup truck. “You want Jake, I’ll take that five up front.”

“Make it three,” Tick said.

“No, make it five,” Kim said.

“What if he isn’t the Jake we’re looking for?”

“I’ll tell you what,” Kim said, a thin smile on her face. “Is he six feet tall with shoulders like a wagon yoke and buns like bowling balls? Does he look like Stallone in blackface? Has he got a weapon could choke a girl? If that’s the Jake you want, then hand over the bills, baby, and we’ll talk.”

“Four,” Tick said.

“Five,” Kim said. “And make it fast, ’cause I think I see a live one across the room.”

Tick hesitated.

Kim swung her legs out of the booth. “So long, boys,” she said.

“What’s your hurry?” Tick said, and reached for his wallet again.

Skye Bannister.

Hair the color of wheat, eyes the color of his name. Six-foot-four or — five, reedy and pale, wearing a tuxedo with black patent leather slippers, a ruffled shirt with enameled Shlumberger studs and cuff links, and a red cummerbund and tie.

Skye Bannister, the state attorney himself, in person, here at the Snowflake Ball with whiskey on his breath and two or three sheets to the wind.

“Arthur tells me he sent you a demand for alibi,” he said to Matthew.

“Got it yesterday morning,” Matthew said.

Oliver Lane and the Goldens were playing Harry James’s “Sleepy Lagoon.” Susan was dancing with Frank. She was wearing a red gown. A green feather was in her dark hair. Matthew watched the feather bobbing out there on the dance floor.

“I hope you come up with something, Matthew, I really do,” Bannister said.

Matthew knew he hoped nothing of the sort.

“Because I like you and admire you, I really do,” Bannister said.

He poured more wine from the bottle on Matthew’s table, lifted the glass to his lips, sipped at it, put it down on the table again.

“A job like mine is a difficult one,” Bannister said, and Matthew thought, Oh my God, he’s going to make a campaign speech. “It often pits me against men I’ve worked with in the past, men I like and admire. Like you, Matthew. I like and admire you, Matthew. I can remember the time you and Morrie Bloom worked a number on that black man from Miami, I forget his name now... ”