Percival Everett - Assumption

“Is he a pimp?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you’ve seen him.”

“Maybe. I don’t remember. Why do you want Petra?”

“She’s a friend of Destiny. Are you a friend of Destiny? Do you know Destiny?” Ogden did what he could to appear nonthreatening. He remained seated. He avoided prolonged contact with the woman’s eyes, looking instead at her shoulders or hair.

“I know Destiny. What’s going on?”

“Destiny’s dead.”

“Oh, fuck, man.”

“She was killed in New Mexico. I’m trying to find out who killed her.” He pulled a copy of Carla Reynolds’s driver’s license from his pocket. “Do you know this woman?”

Shelly shook her head.

“How well did you know Destiny?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you do drugs with her?”

The woman said nothing.

“Thank you,” Ogden said. He didn’t want to scare her any more than he already had. He might need to talk to her again.

The big yellow square thing with windows that was a building was easy enough to find. A couple of young, rough-looking men stood by the front door, smoking, leaning, staring at Ogden as he approached. Ogden was scared, but like when dealing with a bad horse, he had to keep his emotions, his fear, in check.

The three men were white, tattooed over most of their arms. One of them had a tattoo on his face, a chevron on his forehead. They wore heavy black boots.

Ogden addressed them clearly, firmly. “Excuse me, gentlemen. Maybe you can help me.”

“Maybe we can,” one of them said.

“Do you know a woman called Petra?”

“Nah, man, we ain’t be knowing no Peta,” the same one said.

“Petra. I was told that Petra lives here.” Ogden looked up at the second floor of the building. “Shelly told me.”

“Who the fuck is Shelly?”

This was not going well. Ogden was glad he wasn’t wearing his sidearm. Nothing gets you shot faster than having a gun, he always thought, and he was sure he wouldn’t have been able to resist the urge to pull it out if he’d had it. He tried to stay cool.

“Shelly is a hooker at the whorehouse around the corner,” Ogden said. He stepped close to them so he could read the names by the buzzers behind them. What few names were there were only last names, mostly Hispanic. There were no hooker pseudonyms.

The most muscular of the three leaned close to Ogden.

“She up there?”

“No. I have a picture,” Ogden said. He showed them the two women.

“You a cop?” the first asked.

“As a matter of fact, I am.”

“Let me see your badge,” muscles said.

“Why, you want me to arrest you?” Ogden smiled. “No, really, look at the picture. This one is dead. Somebody shot her. I’m looking for this one.”

They looked at the picture. “I seen her.” Muscles pointed at Carol Barelli.

“Here?”

“Yeah. I ain’t seen the other one, though.”

Ogden looked at the building again. It loomed larger now. He supposed he could ring every bell and knock on every door, but the prospect was not appealing. The three men outside the building had lost interest in him, and though they remained aware of his presence, he didn’t feel threatened by them any longer.

He tried the exterior door and found it locked. He recalled his father saying that a thing would not get done unless you did it. It wasn’t until he reached for the first button that he realized his hand was shaking. He rang bell after bell until someone buzzed him in. It was Hernandez in 104 who let him in.

Ogden went to 104 and an old woman opened the door a crack. She spoke Spanish and eyed Ogden, with every right, suspiciously. He immediately showed her the photograph. “¿Ha visto usted a esta mujer?”

The woman sighed, closed the door, and fastened the chain inside.

Ogden knocked at doors until another old woman answered. This woman was Hispanic as well, but she spoke English. “What do you want?” she asked.

Still, Ogden spoke Spanish, just out of respect. “¿Vive esta mujer aquí?” He pointed.

“No sé,” she said.

“¿La ha visto usted?”

She looked up and down the hall.

“Second floor.”

“Gracias.” He thought he saw her begin to smile, but that didn’t make sense.

On the second floor, no one answered the first five doors. A white woman, maybe thirty, opened the sixth door. Her face was pocked, her eyes red, her dyed blond hair was a nest on her head. She looked at Ogden as if she were expecting him.

“You’re late,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Ogden said.

It was only then that she realized he was not whom she was expecting. “You’re not Billy.”

“Not for some time.”

She turned and walked back into her hot apartment. Ogden stepped in after her. The room stank of cigarette smoke and a bathroom and maybe sex. The kitchen was part of the front room and it was a cliché of filth.

“I’m looking for Petra,” Ogden said.

“Yeah, me too. She owes me half the rent.”

“When did you last see her?”

The woman turned to look at Ogden. “Ain’t you proper?” She lit a cigarette. “When did you last see her?” she mocked Ogden. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m looking for Petra.”

“Yeah, well, I can see that. What you need her for? I’ll fuck you for fifty bucks.” She sat at the thick-legged table in the center of the room. She was backlit by the light from the curtainless window.

“I’m not looking to get fucked.”

“Then what the hell you want Petra for?”

“I want to talk to her.”

“Now I know you’re lying. I’ve talked to Petra. You don’t want to talk to her. Nobody in his right mind wants to talk to that bitch. Forty dollars.”

“Did you know Destiny?” Ogden asked. He used the past tense on purpose.

“Yeah. What do you mean did? ”

“She’s dead.”

“Everybody dies.”

“She was shot.”

“People get shot. You know, you sound like a cop and I want you to leave.”

“I’m really not here to cause you any trouble. I don’t care that you’re a hooker. I don’t care that you use drugs. I don’t care that you dye your hair. I’m just trying to find out why two women are dead and who killed them.”

“I knew she was going to fuck up,” the woman said.

“Who?”

“Carol.”

“Carol Barelli?”

“Yeah. She came in here two weeks ago talking about scoring a lot of money and I told her she was crazy.” She put her cigarette down and lit another one. Now she had two going.

“What kind of score?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about One Hand?”

“One Hand. You mean Hicks?”

“I guess. Does he have a first name?”

“I’ve never heard it. He’s a two-bit pusher.”

“You know where he lives or where I can find him?”

The woman looked at Ogden and shook her head. “You ain’t no cop.”

“I’m a cop in New Mexico.”

“Well, this ain’t New Mexico, cowboy, so up here you ain’t no cop.”

“That’s pretty much how it is,” Ogden said. This woman wasn’t stupid. He imagined Carol Barelli looking like this woman, drugs in control, moving like this woman. Then he wondered what the woman in front of him would look like cleaned up and trying to fake her way through the world.

Ogden pulled out the photo of the dead woman from the cabin. “Do you know this woman?”

“Is she dead?”

“Yes, she is.”

“I don’t know her.”

“Listen, thanks for talking to me.”

“Thirty? Thirty dollars. I’ll do you for thirty.”

Ogden took thirty dollars from his pocket and put it on the table. “Use it how you need to.”