Chapter 48
I was tired and wanted to go home. There was one thing, however, that needed to be checked out. I left Pollard tucked away in bed and headed back to Cal City.
She was half-hidden in an alley, nothing but the glow of a cigarette marking her presence. I waited a beat. She moved into the street. Now she was slightly more than a silhouette. Tight, firm, cut against the night. She wore blue jeans and a short black leather coat. Like any working girl she carried nothing save a small black purse. Inside would be money, smokes, and her stash of condoms. I never would have given her a second look except for the blond hair, not a cheap dye job but the real thing. She wasn’t there the first time Pollard cruised by. On the return trip he’d given her a good look. I thought she might have motioned his way, but Pollard didn’t bite. Now she stared again. This time, my way. I pulled the car around and rolled down a window.
“Hey.”
She seemed unsure, for just a moment. Then Elaine Remington ground the burner under her heel and swiveled over.
“My very private investigator. Stalking your own clients now?”
“You interest me, Elaine.”
She laughed and laid one hand across her cheek. The move looked flat and phony. I couldn’t tell if she was nervous or just high.
“I’m flattered.”
“What are you doing out here?” I said.
“What does anyone do in this part of town at four in the morning?”
“You’re working?”
The phony look coalesced into one of pure sexuality.
“Some call it work, Mr. Kelly. I call it therapy.”
She rested her arms on the car door and leaned forward, her head tipping toward mine, her scent close behind. I kept my hands on the wheel and my eyes above sea level.
“Really?” I said.
“Really. Anyway, I do have a dark alley here and not a soul to share it with.”
Now I leaned forward and inhaled. She smelled sweet, almost ripe. I wasn’t sure if she lowered her eyelids, but I detected a trace of a smile, a hint of triumph as our lips touched. She slid her lower lip under mine just as I moved for the purse hanging loose in her hand. The fun was over. Probably a good thing.
“What the hell, Kelly.”
I had her bag open. A pack of cigarettes, lipstick, a few dollars, and no condoms.
“Working, huh? Bullshit.”
I dumped the contents onto my front seat. At the bottom was a gun, black and heavy. Probably the same gun Elaine had pointed my way the first time I met her.
“Give me that fucking purse.”
“Get in the car, Elaine.”
She tapped her toe against the pavement for the better part of ten seconds, then found her way to the passenger seat.
“Such a hard-ass, Kelly. Jesus.”
Elaine pushed her stuff back into the bag. Then she reached up, pulled down the visor, and began to play with her lipstick in the mirror.
“So you want to tell me what the hell you’re doing down here?”
“Take me for a drink, and I’ll tell you the whole, sad story.”
“No thanks.”
She sighed, shrugged, and moistened her lips with her tongue.
“What is there to say? I’m pushing thirty but I still look good. So I like to get dressed up and hang out down here. Do it once or twice a month.”
Elaine licked her lips one more time, flipped the visor back, and adjusted what I guessed was some sort of exploding bra.
“It’s an escape, role-play, turn-on. Call it whatever you want. But sometimes I do it. Not do it like a pro. I mean, I’m not a fucking hooker, if that’s what you’re asking.”
I kept my eyes on the road and let her talk.
“Really though, Kelly. What’s the big deal? Twenty-five dollars for a mouth, ten for a hand. Shit goes on in every single bar in the city. Buy me dinner or just give me the money up front. Same fucking difference.”
“Lot of difference.”
“You think so?”
“Down here the mouth might belong to a thirteen-year-old, and the date might be looking to rip your throat out,” I said. “But you know all about that. Is that what you’re trying to do? You want to get back there?”
I didn’t expect a response and didn’t get any. Instead she propped her feet up on my dashboard and sulked, but only for a bit.
“You’re cute when you get mad, Kelly.”
“Have you found out who attacked me?”
“Working on it.”
I didn’t want to tell her about the DNA match between her shirt and the Grime file. Or about the possible connection to Pollard. Not yet anyway. I wasn’t sure why, but there it was.
“Is that what you were out on now?” she said. “My case?”
“Listen, Elaine. Your evidence file was destroyed a couple of years back. Whatever I find probably doesn’t matter. The DA would never touch it.”
“You just don’t get it, do you?”
“I don’t get hardly anything when it comes to you, Elaine. So why don’t you tell me about it.”
She looked out an empty window and into herself. I can’t say exactly what she saw. Loss. Regret. Unrealized anger. Maybe all three.
“At the end of the day,” she said, “nothing gets undone, does it? I mean whatever happened, happened. No district attorney, no court is gonna change that. So really, I just want to know. A name, a face. Someone, I guess, to hate. Is that so wrong? Most people probably think it’s pretty sick.”
I didn’t say anything, just let it go. She seemed good with that. After a while she lit up another cigarette, rolled down the window, and blew smoke out of it. I broke the silence and got back to business.
“You have any paperwork from the assault?”
“What sort of paperwork?”
“Hospital admissions form, police reports, anything.”
“Nothing. I woke up in the hospital.”
“Police never came to visit you?”
“Nobody.”
“Didn’t that seem strange to you?”
“I was half-alive when they released me. Just wanted to get home. Back to Sedan. Didn’t really care about the rest.”
“Not back then.”
“Nope. Just wanted to go home and hide.”
Elaine took a deep drag, flicked her butt out the window, and rolled it up.
“I guess your feelings changed,” I said.
“Apparently. Take a left here.”
I took the turn. Ten minutes later we pulled in front of a late-night bar on Diversey called the Bel-Air Lounge. Sixty years ago it was a hot spot, a place where Humphrey Bogart would go to get lost, get drunk, and get laid. Now it was a place where a man with a bad hair-weave played Billy Joel on the piano all night. Divorced men and women snuggled around, throwing money in the jar just like the song said, getting drunk late, thinking about all the things they never had and pretended they missed. Eventually the bar would close. The lights would go out and they would melt away, sometimes together for a coupling, quick and ugly, then, inevitably, each to his or her own.
“It’s not that bad,” Elaine said. “The guy will stay open as long as I want. Sound good?”
She was on again, a live current, jittery, dangerous, exciting.
“No thanks,” I said.
“What’s the matter, Kelly. You don’t like?”
She moved across the front seat, closer now, and tilted her head up at me.
“Or maybe you’re screwing the redhead?”
“You know you’re fucked.”
She laughed.
“You are screwing the redhead. Wow.”
She moved away again and picked up her purse.
“All right, Kelly. That’s interesting. Thanks for the talk. It really settled me. I’ll see you around.”
Elaine Remington got out of the car, walked across the empty divide of Diversey Avenue, and into the lounge. An old man at the bar gave her a leer you can only get away with at five a.m. in Chicago. She cozied right up and ordered a drink. The old-timer slid his stool a bit closer as I slid the car into drive and headed home, to my long lost and mercifully empty bed.