The Ledger Page 12

  She kept her head down and tried to stifle the coughing. Reardon took an ice cube from his glass with a teaspoon. “Here, tiger. This won’t make the cold go away,’ it’ll make the hot go away.”

  Christie sucked on the ice cube and studied Casey Reardon. Her eyes on his, she reached for the drink, wrinkled her nose at the taste.

  “Look, if you don’t want it, don’t drink it.”

  He really was angry; it even occurred to her that he sounded offended. Carefully, Christie reached for a teaspoon and began to sip the drink from the spoon. “Hey, it’s really very good, after you get over the first shock.”

  Casey Reardon’s smile was short and wise. “You’re playing games, aren’t you, Christie?”

  She held the spoon in her mouth for a moment, then carefully licked at it. “Who, me?”

  Bill Dudley moved carefully from the bar, along the narrow aisles, turning sideways at times to avoid an elbow or a chair. His smile and greeting were returned at practically every table: this was definitely his territory. Christie couldn’t see much of the girl who trailed behind him until they arrived at the table, when he stepped back politely.

  “Christie, Casey, this is Celia.” He moved a chair back for the girl. “Celia, baby, you’re among friends.” He turned his head and the waiter materialized, cleared the table. Dudley’s finger circled the table, then pointed at Christie. “Another one of those, Christie?”

  Christie locked her fingers around the half-filled glass and shook her head. “I’m fine, thank you.”

  At first, Christie thought it was some trick of the lighting, the dimness hitting Celia’s blouse at an odd angle. She had never before seen anyone wear a completely see-through blouse over a completely see-through bra. Celia was a big girl who did a lot of stretching and shrugging and looking around. Her hands moved restlessly through huge masses of very dark hair. When she put her right hand on the surface of the table and tapped her fingers, Christie noticed that a strand of wirelike hair was caught around a dragon ring which covered two fingers.

  The girl’s makeup was vivid, applied with a heavy but professional hand. There was a streak of silver glistening over each eyelid and furry eyelashes over somewhat small eyes. Underneath all the makeup, which carefully contoured and shaped and sculpted, there might very well be no face at all: just a blank space, waiting to be decorated.

  “Celia, you’re going to tell us a couple of things about Elena Vargas. Remember, I spoke to you about this last night?” Bill Dudley’s voice was gentle and prodding.

  “Where’s my Scotch? Jack’s getting old, Dude, you know that? Hell, I wouldn’t want to be as old as Jack.” Celia verged on the edge of drunkenness; her voice was thick and her lips, shining with a wet-look lipstick, quivered.

  Reardon glanced at Dudley, who winked. He knew how to handle Celia. “You’ll never be as old as Jack, baby. You’ve got too much know-how. Here we are, see Jack brought your Scotch. But you just take a little sip of it now. That’s the girl. Put it down, and later on we’ll drink, okay?”

  He held the girl with his voice, created an intimacy that eliminated Casey and Christie and everyone else in the room. “We’re trying to find out something about Elena Vargas, Celia. You knew her when she first hit the route, when she first became Enzo Giardino’s girl. How did that happen?” He sounded puzzled, curious. His large hands turned palms up over the table, appealing to her. “How did those two get together?”

  The rings disappeared into the hair as the fingers raked. “Oh, yeah. Elena. Well, you know, Dude. At the scrape place. I went there once. Before the pill.” She leaned her arms on the table. Her breasts were large and fully revealed with each breath. “Hey, I bet a lot of people got put out of business because of the pill, huh? I mean, you would really have to be dumb to get knocked up nowadays. Or a dumb kid, huh? I don’t think I even heard of anybody needing a scrape job in years.” She turned to Christie. “You heard of anybody, honey?”

  Celia’s mouth, which had been slack, tightened. She moved the heavy lashes up and down and pulled back in her chair. “What the hell are you looking at?” she asked Christie. “Hey, Dude, who the hell is this?” She pulled her shoulders back and smiled. “You’re lost in that sweater, baby. Or that sweater is lost on you. Yeah, that’s it, the sweater is lost on you. You look like a little boy.”

  Reardon warned her, without a sound. Christie received the silent message and kept her mouth shut; let Dudley handle it.

  “Hey, Celia, you sure do justice to that blouse.” Her head swung away from Christie. “Nobody but you could get away with it.”

  “I get away with plenty, right, Dude?”

  He held the Scotch to her. “Take a little sip and get on to Elena, okay? What scrape place are we talking about, Celia?”

  Her eyes widened shrewdly. “We’re not talking about: I’m talking about. I’m drunk, honey, but not too drunk. And I got my goddamn reasons for drinking tonight.” She moved her hands vaguely and told Christie, “A man. What else? What the hell other reason is there, right?”

  Christie nodded. “Right.”

  “Hey, Dude. I like this girl. I like her. She’s okay. Whoever the hell she is. Oh, yeah. The scrape place. Out on Manhasset Sound or Bay or something like that. Rest Harbor or Rest Haven or something.” She caught the sleeve of Christie’s sweater. “What the hell was the name, honey?”

  “Quiet Haven.”

  “Yeah. You been there? Never mind. We all been there. But not since the pill. Yeah, Dude, okay. Little Elena Vargas was working out there. Really straight work.” She held her hands in the air and wiggled her fingers. “Typing and stuff like that, real square stuff. Straight from nowhere that girl was. A convent or something equally like that. And she never even realized, get this, because it’s so goddamn funny ...” Celia started to laugh. It was a deep gurgling sound and she bent her head down and moved it from side to side.

  Dudley sat patiently and waited. “She didn’t know she was working at an abortion mill?”

  Celia raised her face. One of the furry eyelashes was slightly lopsided. “Hey, Dude, how did you know that? Dude knows everything. That’s right, she didn’t know. Well, what could you expect, growing up in a convent orphanage, she thought it was all real. You know, in those days, Enzo took good care of his girls. I mean, you know who used to go out to Rest Haven ... Quiet Harbor ... whatever the hell it is ... in those days? Like, you were in class company, with all those little college girls from all those fancy schools.” She reached for Christie’s arm and tightened her long fingers. “You look like them. Like a fancy little college girl. Yeah. They’re all flat-chested too.” She looked down at her own body. “Hey, Dude, nobody’d think I was a fancy little college girl, huh?”

  “And you met Elena out there, at Quiet Haven?”

  “Hey, Dude, I just told you that, didn’t I? Did I? I don’t remember. She was a nice kid and supposed to stay away from the patients, just stick to her office. But I guess she saw young girls, like her own age, and she was glad to see them after all those old croakers all over the place. And they either talked or she just figured it out for herself after a while. And she couldn’t quit. I mean, that old bastard of a doctor had her but for real over a barrel.”

  “Why couldn’t she quit, Celia?”

  She turned to Casey Reardon. “Hey, redhead. Real dark red but there’s light red, like orange on your chin.” She reached out, ran a finger down Reardon’s jawline. “I am dead drunk tonight, Red. Dude is ashamed of me. I know that.”

  “You’re fine, Celia. If anybody has a reason tonight, you have. I told you, baby, you’re among friends. Why couldn’t Elena quit her job at Quiet Haven?”

  Dudley was gentle; he was a big, handsome, muscular man and never once did his expression harden into impatience or annoyance. He moved her on, skirting the endless interruptions easily, constantly encouraging her.

  “Oh, well, she could have just quit. I mean, yeah, quit. But Elena wanted to blow the whistle. Can you im
agine that, she wanted to blow the goddamn whistle, so Enzo went and had a little talk with her. Gee, she was only a baby then. After Enzo had a talk with her, they let her quit her job.”

  “After she promised not to blow the whistle?”

  “Well, Dude, I guess she promised. I wasn’t there. Ask Elena what he said to her. How would I know. But there wasn’t no rough stuff. I know that much. Enzo liked Elena.” She tapped her temple with an index finger. “Hey, it comes back. Like they told Elena she could quit the job but they had some kind of a frame all set for her. Yeah. She had got the job through the court, she’d been arrested for something or other and they had a frame. So that if she blew the whistle, they’d hit her with grand larceny or something. Yeah, something like that. That’s the way it was. So they let her quit.”

  “When did she get together with Enzo Giardino?” Christie asked.

  “Later. I don’t know. Later. A year maybe.”

  “How did Elena get into the life?” Reardon asked.

  Celia made that odd gurgling sound again. Her fingers went to her hair. “You tell him, honey,” she said to Christie.

  “A man?”

  “You bet a man.” Celia stopped speaking and her mouth fell slack. Dudley got her going again.

  “Come on, Celia. That’s my girl. The same old story, huh? For Elena? Some no-good bum walked out on her?”

  She turned to Reardon. “You know Elena?” Reardon nodded. “Elena is special, right? I mean, she has got it. And up there, in the scrape place, like living in the country, the only boys she met, well, sometimes a brother of one of those college girls. Or a grandson of one of those old-timers they had laying around waiting to die, right? Oh, was she ever ripe and ready for one of those little bastards.” She moved her head from side to side and moaned. “Poor little kid. Poor baby. All those nice little white boys, you know and Elena. What the hell does color have to do with anything? You tell me, Dude, because I’ll be damned if I can figure it out. You tell me.”

  Dudley reached across the table and held both of her hands inside his own. “You’re a nice girl, Celia.”

  “Yeah, that’s me. Miss Nice Girl. So there was Elena, knocked up with some bastard’s kid and he pulls that crap on her, you know—I’m not going to be the father of any ... oh, you know, Dude.”

  There were two long streams of tears cutting through the heavy makeup. Dude carefully blotted her face with his handkerchief. “Close your eyes for a minute, Celia.” His fingers were surprisingly agile. He adjusted the lopsided eyelashes.

  “Did Elena have an abortion?” Christie asked.

  Celia shrugged. “I didn’t see her until she was Enzo’s girl. Like, I saw her at Rest Haven and then about a year or so later, Enzo’s got her set up.”

  “You mean, she might have had a child?” Christie’s mind was racing. If there was a child, Giardino would know about it. Reardon’s foot pressed on her shoe, his eyes signaled her not to pursue it. Celia’s face had pulled into a hard, ugly expression.

  “What the hell would I know about a kid? You want to know, you ask Elena, not me. What am I anyway, some kind of a patsy? Hey, Dude, can I finish my drink now?”

  “Save a little, baby, just sip it. Now, what about Elena and Enzo Giardino? Come on, honey, think a little. You told me last night they had a ‘different’ setup. That Enzo didn’t send Elena out like trade.”

  She wiped her mouth with her hand and the hand was stained with shining lipstick. Oh, Elena’s not in trade. Not any more, not in the regular way, anyhow. You know, it’s hard to turn a buck.” She gestured around the room. “Take a look. You should see this place on a weekend. All the so-called nice girls. Hell, everybody’s up for grabs. When I come up from the South—did you know I was from the South?” She laughed heavily. “Yeah, South Jersey, how’s that. When I come here, there were good girls and bad girls. I was a bad girl. Now, hell, they all go parading around; you like the looks of a guy, so you screw and nothing more to it. You know what that leaves the pros? The sickies. And the older guys, you know, Mister Potbelly: cream-cheese-and-jelly ulcer diet and my wife don’t like to screw. But we used to get the college boys, the real loaded kids who used to hold hands with the girl friend and go to bed with us. Hey, Dude, there is a change of social values going on, right under our very noses, did you know that?”

  Time and again, Christie was lost in the barrage of words and emotional gasps and stops and starts. But neither Dudley nor Reardon ever lost the thread. Both hung on, waited for a pause to insert a question.

  Reardon took his cue from Dudley and held his natural impatience in check. “But you said it was ‘different’ for Elena. That Enzo didn’t send her trade. Did he keep her for himself, or what?”

  Celia’s hand played against Reardon’s cuff for a moment. She muttered to herself, then looked up at him. “Oh, well, you know. Enzo is no great lover, right? I mean, he’s busy with things, you know, things.” She became vague, her fingers grasped Reardon’s hand. “You got freckles on your hand, did you know that?” Her head fell forward and her fingers opened.

  For the first time, Bill Dudley’s face and tone changed. “Okay, Celia. Look up. Now, what was the setup with Enzo Giardino and Elena Vargas? No more games.”

  She glanced around quickly and her face showed fear. “Dude, nothing about Enzo Giardino. Look, you know better.”

  “Celia, tell me.”

  Celia was starkly, completely sober. The slur had gone from her voice. “You want to know about Elena. All right. She gets lots of money. The pad, her clothes, her trips to the Island, Enzo finances. She turns a trick, it’s strictly on her own. Enzo doesn’t take no cut. It’s cash, she keeps what she gets.”

  “That’s pretty unusual, isn’t it?” Christie felt the anger emanate from the girl, but she was unprepared for the cold, harsh response.

  “Look, you, whoever the hell you are. Whatever the setup is, you ask Elena. I’m not looking to end up ...” She looked around, and the fear in her eyes was genuine.

  Dudley’s voice was kind and persuasive again, reassuring. “Baby, nobody’s going to hurt you. Look at me, Celia. You believe me, don’t you? You trust me, don’t you?”

  The sound was more of a sob than a laugh but she reached for Dudley’s hand and pressed it to take some of the edge off her bitter tone. “Oh, yeah, Dude. Sure. Sure, I trust you.”

  It was Reardon who latched on to the fragment of information she had carelessly thrown out. “The trips to the island, Celia. Puerto Rico?”

  “Who said anything about Puerto Rico?”

  “Does Elena go often? To visit relatives down there, I guess?”

  “How the hell would I know?” She shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so, Red. She like commutes you might say. Look, I don’t know anything about Elena or Enzo Giardino or anything about anything.”

  Dudley pushed his own glass toward her. “Finish my drink, Celia. It’s Scotch, baby, same as you’ve been drinking. I’ve been saving it for you.”

  “You’re a good guy, Dude. Yeah. You know about Dude?” She turned to Christie. “Dude takes care of things. He’s the only cop I know who isn’t a bastard. At least, not completely. Just a little bit of a bastard. Jesus, I’m loaded.” She swallowed deeply and her words began to slur again. Her face looked ruined. “Hey, I didn’t say anything, did I, Dude? I didn’t say a goddamn thing, did I, honey?”

  “Not a thing, Celia. I’m going to get you something to eat now and then I’ll take you home, okay?”

  Christie caught Reardon’s signal. She eased her coat over her shoulders and Dudley reached to help her. His eyes moved over her carefully and his smile was warm and friendly. And automatic. And professional. “I hope we run into each other again, Christie. Some time when you’re feeling better. Take care of that cold.”

  Celia’s face was down, low over her drink and she didn’t notice them leave. Christie glanced back over her shoulder and saw Dudley smiling and waving to some people at a nearby table. Reardon pushed her along with
his shoulder.

  “Come on, Opara, let’s get the hell out of here.”

  10

  THEY WERE SILENT IN the elevator. The car slid to an easy stop on the sixteenth floor. Reardon held his hand against the rubber bumper and stood aside so that

  Christie could exit first. The corridor of the hotel had a somewhat musty odor.

  She started in the wrong direction, momentarily confused. “No, this way,” he told her. “Here, you carry this.” He extended the suitcase containing Elena’s clothes and waited until Christie pulled off her gloves and shoved them into her shoulder bag. He studied her face for a moment in the dim light. “Can you handle it, this time?”

  She felt the weight of the suitcase and nodded, then stopped. They had spoken very little during the drive to the hotel. Each had been considering various bits of information which Celia had let drop into her rambling conversation. Reardon either ignored or was seemingly totally unaware of Christie’s sense of panic when she realized where they were heading. And that she would have to face Elena. He treated her exactly as he would treat any other Squad member, offering neither doubt nor support. At first, Christie had felt resentment: she wasn’t ready, she needed time to prepare. But now, standing outside the hotel suite, his question was a challenge and she felt herself tense up. Her mouth opened slightly and she met his steady gaze evenly.

  “I can handle it this time,” she said.

  “Good. Because if you louse up this time, you are really in trouble.”

  Christie smiled at his hard, serious expression. “You know, Mr. Reardon, I respond much better to kindness than to threats.”

  “Don’t be a wise guy.”

  He tapped on the door in a series of prearranged knocks. Sam Farrell’s voice asked for identification, and then the door opened.

  The furniture had been rearranged to what apparently the room had been originally: a pleasant sitting room. A newspaper was on the floor beside the chair where Farrell had been sitting. His cigarette had fallen from the ashtray on the table beside the chair and was burning a black mark into the leather surface. Farrell picked up the newspaper, glanced at the cigarette. “Gee, look at that.” He stubbed the cigarette into the ashtray. “All quiet here, Mr. Reardon.”