Timothy Hallinan - Everything but the Squeal

“How about a hundred dollars?” I said.

“How about five?” he said.

“Okay,” I said. “Five dollars.”

“Hold it,” he said, standing up. “You said a hundred.”

“And you bargained me down to five,” I said. “Sit.”

He sat. “Two hundred,” he said sullenly.

“Fine,” I said.

He looked startled and slightly regretful, as though he wished he'd asked for more. “Let me see the bread.”

I took a couple of hundred-dollar bills out of my pocket and waved them around. The garage was lighted by only two candles, but they were bright enough for Donnie to register the denomination of the bills. He'd had practice seeing money in the dark. I handed them to Jessica, who looked vaguely alarmed. “She'll hold it,” I said, “until we're through.”

“Her name is Aimee,” he said grudgingly, “but she calls herself Dorothy. Most of us call her Dottie.”

“Good start,” I said.

He gestured at Jessica. “Who's she?”

“You don't need to worry about that. She's obviously not a cop.”

“She could make a fortune on the Boulevard,” he said speculatively, every inch the young pimp in training.

“No, thanks,” Jessica said at once.

He shrugged. “Up to you,” he said.

I squatted down in front of him. “Listen, Donnie,” I said. “You're going to tell me everything you know about her. If I find out later that anything you told me wasn't true, I'm going to sic the cops on you. After I break your nose and sit on your guitar. Are we clear?”

“Hey,” he said, the picture of affronted innocence, “whatever you say.”

I looked around the garage. It had been spray-painted black, and over the black, designs and graffiti had been sprayed freehand. One large graffito said fuck the citizens (but not unless you have to) . Another one said home is where the check is mailed from . The ceiling was hazy with cobwebs and the air was sharp with the smell of mice.

The filthy, cracked concrete slab that served as a floor was largely bare, except for a cardboard box on which the candles guttered in motel ashtrays, a sleeping bag, and a rumpled heap of blankets. Donnie's imitation Stratocaster leaned upright in a corner. A plastic trash bag held a few items of girls' clothing and, on top of them, a small hair dryer.

“Tell me about Aimee,” I said. Jessica sat on the sleeping bag, and I folded one of the blankets under me.

“Like what? What do you want to know?”

“Everything. Where'd you meet her? Where is she?”

“Can I smoke?”

“You can shoot speed for all I care.”

“Got any?” He looked eager.

“Have a cigarette.”

He lit up with a disappointed air. “I met her on the street,” he said. “She'd hitched a ride with some truck driver.”

“And?”

“And this faggot named Willie picked her up in the street and steered her to the Oki-Burger. You've seen Willie, he was there tonight. Real big and real black. Very popular with bankers.”

“Skip Willie.”

“You said to tell you everything.”

“Everything about Aimee.”

“Okay, okay. So Willie parked her in the Oki-Burger and I picked her up.” He grinned at me, one male to another.

“You picked her up.”

“Well, she needed somebody. She didn't know enough not to cross on the red.”

“What did she tell you?”

“A whole bunch of shit at first, about how rich her father was and what a porker he was. Told me her name was Dorothy Gale. Well, come on, you know? I've seen TheWizardofOz . We always watched it at Christmas when I was. . when I was. .“He faltered.

“When you were home,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, glad to get past it. “Christmas TV dinner. Eat your crappy turkey and watch little Judy sing her heart out. What a dope. All she wanted to do was get away from home, and then all she wanted to do was get back. The only thing I liked-you know? — is when she opens the door of the house and it all turns to color. That's it.”

“Merry Christmas,” Jessica said.

“And a Happy Easter to you, too, sweetie,” Donnie said. “I like the monkeys too. So anyways, Aimee didn't know anything. I had to show her which way was west.”

“And you taught her how to hook,” I said.

“Oh, skip it. What do you think she's going to do, be a chemist? She didn't want to, at first. Thought she was going to be a movie star. So I bought her a couple of burgers and then, the third time, I told her that it was on her. Well, she didn't have any money. Tough, I said. How do you think I get it? So I put her on the curb and took her wrist and stuck her thumb out, and a car stopped just like that. The guy wanted us both, so that made it easier for her. She had company, right?”

“Right,” I said. “Company.” Jessica shifted uneasily on her blanket but didn't say anything.

“So after that we were tight. Asshole only gave us twenty each. She cried for half an hour before I got her calmed down. Still, she never wanted to do it. Only when we didn't have anything, not a nickel. You can't even buy gum with a nickel.” He took a drag from his cigarette.

“This is how long after she arrived?” I asked.

“Week, maybe ten days. But it was obvious that she wasn't sitting on no golden ass. Acted like she invented her tail and it was a military secret from the rest of the world. Nobody could buy a piece of it unless she was actually starving. And she could never learn to get the money first.”

“That's important,” I said.

“Bet your buns. Half the time some citizen in a Mercedes will pull in behind some supermarket or somewhere and let you do your job on him, and then when it's time to pay he pushes you out of the car and drives off, and there you are, on your ass on the asphalt. She had this problem asking for money. Very genteel chick. So after a while I gave up and taught her how to live in the mall.”

“The mall?” I wasn't sure I'd heard him right.

“You know, the Centrum, over on Beverly.”

“I know it.”

“Well, it's perfect.” He stubbed out his cigarette on the floor and looked at Jessica. “How about you give me one of the hundreds now?” he asked. “Since we been speaking of money, I mean.”

“Give it to him,” I said. She did, and he folded it into one-sixteenth squares and tucked it into his black leather rock-star jeans.

“The mall,” he continued. “You know, it's heated and it's dry. And you move around from one store to another, hoping nobody looks at you too long. When they do, you move on. When it's time for everything to close, you roll under one of the rest benches and hope no guard finds you. If one does, you hope you can blow him and he'll leave you alone.”

“And you usually can?”

“Sure. I mean, what are they? Bunch of rent-a-cops. For them, a blow-job is a passport to paradise.”

“Tell me about the mall,” I said.

“Well, for Queen Aimee it was the only place, what with her figuring her ass cost more per square inch than real estate at Malibu. They've got movies there, right? So that means it's open until midnight or later, and it means that the lower floors are pretty much empty after ten o'clock. So, like I said, you sleep under a bench until a guard finds you, and if you can't blow him you try to get into an elevator.”

“An elevator,” Jessica said.

“Sure. You can jam it between floors. So you bring an umbrella into a mall elevator and push the button for the top floor. Then, halfway between three and four or whatever, Aimee or somebody would shove the point of the umbrella in between the doors. Period. End of ride. The elevator sticks wherever you are, and we all go to sleep. Nice, clean, heated. Sometimes we'd spray something on the walls to make it ours.”