A silver-gray Buick Electra pulled up to the curb near me and a black woman in a lavender jump suit got out. The Buick pulled away and the woman stepped into the doorway of a pinball arcade out of the rain. The pants of the jump suit were tucked into the tops of black suede boots with very high heels. She wore no coat and she shivered as she stood in the doorway. A middle-sized black man with long arms got out of a white Jaguar sedan parked at the curb and joined her in the doorway. She gave him something and he put it in his pocket. I went over to the doorway and stood beside them. The woman's hair was in a silver-tipped natural. She had prominent teeth and her lipstick was the same shade of lavender as her jump suit. There was a small, new moon scar beside her left eye. The man's nose was flat and broad. He had a mustache trimmed thin and high cheekbones that made him look Oriental. He was wearing a white cowboy hat with a peacock feather and a white leather trench coat with the collar turned up and the belt knotted in the front, the big gold buckle dangling free beyond the knot. I said, "Excuse me, I'm looking for a girl-maybe you could help."
The black man eyed me. The woman looked at him.
"What'd you have in mind, man?" he said.
I took April's picture out of my pocket and showed it to them. "Her," I said.
The man looked at the picture in the light that spilled out of the arcade. He shook his head. "Ain't one of mine," he said. "What's your interest? I mean, I know some girls just as good if your taste run that way."
"Nope," I said. "I want to find her."
The man grinned. "Figured you wasn't no tourist," he said. "Cop'?"
I said to the woman, "How about you?" I showed her the picture. "You ever see her'.'"
"She don't know nothing," the man said.
I ignored him. I looked at the woman. She shrugged. The man moved more fully between us. "I say she don't know nothing," he said. "She don't talk. I talk." His shoulders were sloping and the neck that showed at the open collar of his coat was thick and muscular.
"I noticed that," I said.
"You fucking with me, man," he said. His dark eyes gleamed at me.
"Not me," I said. "I'm just looking for this little girl." "How come?" "Parents want her home," I said.
"They think she around here?"
"Yeah."
"And they don't like their little sweetie giving blow jobs in the back seat of some John's car?" he said.
".Yeah." "Ain't our problem," he said.
"No. It's mine," I said.
"They paying you?" he said. The woman stood motionless, hugging herself, shivering, paying attention only to the black man. Like an attentive dog. That's probably where she got the scar near her eye. Obedience training.
..Yes… "Whyn't they come look for her themselves? I had a kid run off, I'd go get her myself. I wouldn't waste money on some shoofly."
"Too busy, probably." I said. "Maybe too scared. Guys like you would scare them."
“I don't scare you'?" he said.
"Not very much," I said. He grinned and took his hands out of his coat pockets. In the right hand was a brown leather sap. He tapped his palm with it. I reached out with my left hand and snapped it away from him.
"Reflexes," I said. "You spend your time pushing around drunken high school kids and your reflexes go."
He looked at me with his eyes half shut.. I was about three inches taller than he was and he had to look up slightly. Never an asset.
"Quick," he said. He looked at the woman. "See? I told you he ain't no tourist." As he talked he was absently untying his belt that held his trench coat closed.
I said, "If you open that coat I will clean your teeth with your sap."
He was indignant. "What's the matter with you, man?" he said.
"If you got a piece," I said, "it's dumb to keep it buttoned up under your coat."
He looked at my coat. It was hanging open. "I got no piece, man," he said.
"I do," I said. "And now I got a blackjack too."
"You asking for a lot of trouble, Jim."
"I can handle a lot of trouble," I said. If only I still smoked. A line like that needs cigarette smoke curling around it. "While we're waiting for it to start, why don't you take a walk?"
"You keeping the sap?" he said.
"I'm going to count five. If you're still here, I'm going to rattle your face with it."
He raised his hands slightly, "All right, man. All right, be cool." He jerked his head at the woman.
"No," I said. "Just you."
He put one hand out to take the woman's arm. I flicked the blackjack out and tapped him on the forearm. It was a light tap, but the weighted head of the thing would make his arm go numb.
"One," I said. "Two."
He turned and walked down the street away from us. There was no expression on the woman's face. She still hugged herself and shivered. "He ain't gonna let you roust him like that," she said.
"I think he just did."
She shook her head. "Nope. He gotta be first man. Specially in front of one of his girls. He be back."
"You know the girl," I said.
"What's the difference?"
"I'm worried about her. She's sixteen and tricking in the Zone." "Little blond honky do it, everybody gets worried. How come you ain't worried about me?"
"Nobody hired me to worry about you," I said. "You want to retain me?" "I seen her around," the woman said. "Suburb pussy." "Who's her pimp?"
She shrugged again. "Red, maybe?"
"Red got a last name?"
"I don't know. White dude, red hair."
"Coincidence," I said.
"Huh?"
"Never mind. Where's Red hang out?"
"Bar called The Slipper, down toward Boylston."
"I know where it is. You want my coat?"
She shook her head. "Trumps don't let us wear none," she said. "Say it's not sexy." "Trumps? The guy I just talked with?"
She nodded. "You better remember it. You gonna see him again, you hang around here." I held the blackjack out to her. "Here. When you see him give this back to him."
She shook her head. "Naw. He gonna be mad enough. I gotta take a beating now. I don't want to make him madder."
"What's he going to beat you up for?"
" 'Cause I seen you roust him."
The water dripped off the doorway canopy like a beaded curtain. A trio of sailors pushed past us in the doorway and went into the arcade. They all wore peacoats with the collars up.
I said, "You want to come with me?"
She looked straight at me for the first time. "Come with you?" She laughed. Derision. "Come with you? And do what? You gonna marry me? Take me away from all this?"
"I could take you someplace where Trumps wouldn't beat you up."
The laugh again. As mirthless as a knife blade. "People been beating me up all my life, man. One more won't hurt."
I nodded.
She smiled slightly. "Get lost. There's nothing you can do for me. You don't know nothing about it. Just get out of here 'fore Trumps gets back, maybe with help, and blows you away. There's nothing you can do for me."
"You want any money?" I said.
"The honky solution to everything," she said. "Keep it. You give it to me and Trumps take it away. Just get out of here. And watch your back."
I nodded again. "So long," I said.
"Yeah," she said.
I walked up through Chinatown, came out on Tremont, turned right, and the Zone was behind me. I crossed Tremont at Boylston and started across the Common toward Beacon. They were starting to put up the Christmas displays on the Common.
There weren't many people in the Common, and the rain still came steady, but not very hard. We were maybe five degrees from a snowstorm. The falling rain made the lights in the city around the Common haze a bit and soften. The rain also made the air seem clean, and it muffled the sound of traffic on Tremont Street and Charles Street. It was still and wet. A cop sat on a barrel-chested sorrel horse near the wading pool. He had on a glistening yellow slicker. There was a damp horse smell as I passed them. I liked it. When I was small there were a lot of horses around. They pulled the trash wagons and the milk carts. There was always horse manure in the streets. When Emerson and Whitman had strolled across this Common speaking of "Leaves of Grass," there were horses abounding—dignified and symmetrical with a pleasant odor.