Andrew Vachss - Strega

Michelle patted my back, whispered in my ear, "What's on, baby?"

"I'm not sure," I told her. "The redhead in the car braced me outside the courthouse. She's related to that old alligator-Julio. She wants something-I don't know what yet. The old bastard gave her some information about how to find me. She made it clear she was going to stay on my case until I talked to her."

"So talk to her, honey. You didn't drag me away from my lucrative profession to be your translator."

"I want to see if she's wired, Michelle."

Michelle's impossibly long lashes made shadows against her model's cheekbones; her fresh dark lipstick framed her mouth into a tiny circle.

"Oh," is all she said. Michelle's life must have been hell when she was supposed to have been a man.

"I'll pull over around the corner behind the trucks, okay? You get in the back with her-make sure she's clean. I'll check her purse.

"That's all?"

"For now."

"Baby, you know I started the treatmentsbut they didn't do the chop yet. Just the shots. And the psychiatrist-once a week. It's not cheap."

"You definitely going through with it?"

"If I was gay, I could come out, you know? But like I am, I have to break out. You know."

I knew. None of us had ever asked about Michelle, but she gradually told us. And the Mole had explained what a transsexual was…a woman trapped in a man's body. Even before she started getting the hormone injections and the breast implants, she looked like a woman-walked like a woman, talked like a woman. The big thing was, she had the heart of a woman. When you go to prison, the only people you could count on to visit you were your mother or your sister. I didn't have those people-it was Michelle who rode the bus for twelve hours one way and then walked through the ugly stares and evil whispering to visit me upstate when I was down the last time. She still worked the same car tricks-all she needed was her mouth. I knew what was in her purse- a little bottle of cognac she used for a mouthwash after each time. And the tiny canister of CN gas the Mole made for her.

"I don't have a price for this job, Michelle. It may not be a job at all, okay? But if she's got anything in her purse, we'll see about a donation."

"Close enough," she said, "but if she's got no cash, you take me to the Omega to hear Tom Baxter before he leaves town. Deal?"

"Deal," I told her, and she climbed into the back seat behind the redhead.

I found the dark spot in the shadow of the trucks and pulled in.

"Get in the back seat," I told the redhead.

"Why?" she snapped.

"Here's why," I told her. "I don't know you-I don't know what you want. My secretary back there is going to search you. If you're wearing a wire, out you go. It's that simple. She's here because I can't search you myself."

"I still don't see why…"

"Look, lady, you asked me to talk to you, okay? This is the way we do it. You don't like it, you take whatever business you have and you shake it on down the road."

The redhead softly scratched her long nails across one knee, thinking. I didn't have time for her to think.

"Besides," I told her, "haven't you had enough experience with men telling you to take your clothes off?"

Her eyes flashed at me, hard with anger, but she didn't say a word. I looked straight ahead, heard the door open, slam, open and slam again. She was in the back seat with Michelle.

"Toss your purse over the seat," I told her.

"What?"

"You heard me. My secretary's going to check your body; I'm going to check your purse…for the same thing."

The lizard-skin purse came sailing over the back seat and bounced off the windshield. I picked it up, unsnapped the gold clasp. Sounds from the back seat: zippers, the rustle of fabric. The purse had a pack of Marlboros, a gold Dunhill lighter, a little silver pillbox with six five-milligram Valiums inside, a tightly folded black silk handkerchief, a soft leather purse with a bunch of credit cards and a checkbook-joint account with her husband-and three hundred or so in cash. In a flap on the side I found thirty hundred-dollar bills-they looked fresh and new, but the serial numbers weren't in sequence. No tape recorder. Not even a pencil.

"She's clean," said Michelle from the back seat. I heard the door open and slam again, and the redhead was next to me.

"So…?" I asked Michelle.

"All quality stuff. Bendel's, Bergdorf's, like that. The pearls are real. Very nice shoes. But that underwear is just tacky , honey. Nobody wears a garter belt outside a motel room didn't your mother tell you that? And that perfume…honey, you need some heavy lessons in subtle."

The redhead snapped her head around to the back seat.

"From you?" she asked, trying for sarcasm.

"Who better?" Michelle wanted to know, genuinely surprised at such a stupid question.

"How much do I owe you?" the redhead asked Michelle in the same voice she would have used on the man who tuned her BMW.

"For what?"

"Well, you are a prostitute , aren't you? I know how valuable your time is."

"I see. Okay, Ms. Bitch-the hand job was on the house, but you can give me a hundred for the fashion advice."

The redhead reached in her purse. She never touched the new bills. She put together a hundred from the other supply and tossed it into the back seat. Michelle was dismissed.

She floated around to the redhead's open window, winked at me to say goodbye. Then she spoke in a soft voice to the redhead. "Honey, I may be a whore, but I'm not a cunt. Think about it." And she was gone.

"WHAT NEXT?" the redhead wanted to know, in a voice meant to tell me she was just about out of patience.

"Now we drive someplace else, and you tell me your story," I said, throwing the Plymouth into gear. We drove over to the West Side Highway in silence. I turned south, looking for a safe parking place near one of the abandoned piers on the Hudson River. I wheeled the car off the highway, pulled up to the pier, and backed in. From that spot, I could see every piece of traffic except the boats. If the redhead had friends with her, I'd know soon enough.

I hit a switch on the dash and both front windows opened. Another switch locked her door, just in case.

I lit a cigarette, leaned way back in my seat so I could watch her and watch the street too. "Okay, lady, what is it you want?"

The redhead shifted her hips so she was facing me on the seat, her back to the window. "I want you to find a picture for me."

"A picture like a painting?"

"A photograph-a photograph of a kid."

"Lady, will you just tell me the whole story? I don't have time to drag it out of you piece by piece, okay?"

"This isn't an easy thing to talk about."

"Then don't talk about it," I told her. "I didn't ask you to show up. I'll drive you back to your car and you find somebody else, okay?"

"No! It's not okay. Can't you give me a fucking minute to get myself together? It took me a long time to find you."

"Yeah. But you did find me, right? When you see Julio, tell him I'll remember this."

"Don't blame Julio. All he gave me was that phone number…the one the Chinese lady answers.

"I got your messages."

"So why didn't you call me?"

"Because I don't know you. I don't speak to strangers on the phone."

"That's why I had to find your car. Vinnie told me what you looked like-and your car. One of Julio's crew saw you at the courthouse this morning and he called me."

"Vinnie?" I said, thinking that I'd have to get the car painted and some new license plates.

"The guy who delivered the money to you from Julio."

"I don't know what you're talking about, lady."