Deal Breaker

She read from a steno pad. Why she had a steno pad he could not say. She could not take dictation or type a lick. 'I finally tracked down the other number Gary Grady called after your visit. It belongs to a photography studio called - get this - Global Globes Photos. Located off Tenth Avenue, near the tunnel'

'Sleazy area.'

'The sleaziest,' she said. I think the studio specializes in pornography.'

Nice to have a specialty.' Myron checked his watch. 'Any word from Win?'

'Not yet.'

Leave the photographer's address on his voice mail. Maybe he'll finish in tlrne to meet me.'

You going tonight?' she asked.

121

'Yes.'

Esperanza closed the pad with a snap. 'Mind if I tag along?'

'To the photography studio?'

'Yes.'

'Don't you have class tonight?' Esperanza was getting her law degree from NYU at night.

'No. And I've done all my homework, Daddy. Really I have.'

'Shut up and come on.'

122 23

Hookerville.

There were all kinds. White, Black, Asian, Latino - a verifiable United Nations of prostitutes. Most were young, very young, stumbling on too high heels, like children playing dress-up, which in a real sense they were.

Most were thin, dried-up, needle tracks covering their arms like dozens of tiny insects, their skin pulled tightly around cheekbones, giving their faces a haunted skull look. Their eyes were hollow and set deep, their hair lifeless and strawlike.

Myron muttered, '"Don't they know they're making love to what's already dead?"'

Esperanza paused, thinking. 'Don't know that one.'

'Fontine in Les Miserables. The musical.'

'I can't afford Broadway musicals. My boss is cheap.'

'But cute.'

He watched a blond girl in sixties hot-pants negotiate with a sleazeball in a Ford station wagon. He knew her story. He had seen girls (boys sometimes) just like her get off the bus at the Port Authority, a Greyhound bus that had originated in West Virginia or western Pennsylvania or that great, barren mono-expanse New Yorkers simply referred to as the Midwest.

She had run away from home - maybe to avoid abuse, but more likely because she was bored and 'belonged' in a big city. She had high-stepped off the bus with a wide smile, mesmerized, without a penny. Pimps would eye her and wait with the patience of a vulture. When the time was right, they would sweep down and claim their carcass. They'd introduce her to the Big Apple, get her a place to stay, some food, a hot shower, maybe a room with a Jacuzzi and dazzling lights and a cool CD player and cable TV with a remote. They'd promise to set her up with a photographer, get her a few modeling gigs. Then they'd teach her how to party, really party, not that candy-ass shit she'd done in Hicks Falls with some beer and a zit-infested senior pawing at her in the backseat of a pick-up. They'd show her how to have a good time with the prime stuff, the numero-uno white powder.

But things would change. Someone would have to pay for all these good times. The modeling job would fall through, and she couldn't just be a

123

freeloader. Besides, the partying was more a need now than a luxury. Like food or breathing. She could no longer exist without a snort or a pinch from her favorite needle.

It didn't take long to plummet and hit bottom. And once there she didn't have the strength - not even the desire, really - to get up.

She ended up here.

Myron parked. He and Esperanza got out of the car silently. Myron felt his stomach churn. It was night, of course. Places like this existed only at night. They fled with the onslaught of sunlight.

Myron had never been with a whore, but he knew Win had engaged their services on plenty of occasions. Win liked the convenience. His favorite spot was an Asian whorehouse on Eighth Street called Noble House. Back in the mid-eighties, Win and a few friends would have what they called 'Chinese night' in Win's apartment - Hunan Garden would deliver food, Noble House women. The truth was, Win had no feelings for women. He didn't trust them. Whores were what he wanted. It wasn't just the lack of attachment. Win never let women attach. But prostitutes were throwaways.

Disposable.

Myron didn't think Win still partook in such events - not in this disease ridden era - but he didn't know for sure. They never talked about it.

'Pretty spot,' Myron said. 'Scenic.'

Esperanza nodded.

They passed a nightclub of some sort. The music was loud enough to crack the sidewalk. A teen - Myron couldn't say if it was male or female with green spiked hair bumped into him. Looked like the Statue of Liberty.

There were lots of motorcycles, ear and nipple rings, tattoos, chain jewelry.

A constant whore chorus of 'Hey, baby' pelted him from every conceivable angle, their faces blurring into one mass of human debris. The place was like a carnival freak show.

The sign above the door read club f.u. The logo was a raised middle finger. Subtle. A chalkboard read the following: heavy 'medical' night! live bands!