Eight Million Ways To Die

"Uh-huh." He braked for a light. "Ruby didn't come."

"I know."

"What I told you was a bunch of shit. I didn't want to contradict what I told the others. Ruby split, she packed up and went."

"When did this happen?"

"Sometime yesterday, I guess. Last night I had a message on my service. I was running around all yesterday, trying to get this funeral organized. I thought it went okay, didn't you?"

"It was a nice service."

"That's what I thought. Anyway, there's a message to call Ruby and a 415 area code. That's San Francisco. I thought, huh? And I called, and she said she had decided to move on. I thought it was some kind of a joke, you know? Then I went over there and checked her apartment, and all her things were gone. Her clothes. She left the furniture. That makes three empty apartments I got, man. Big housing shortage, nobody can find a place to live, and I'm sitting on three empty apartments.

Something, huh?"

"You sure it was her you spoke to?"

"Positive."

"And she was in San Francisco?"

"Had to be. Or Berkeley or Oakland or some such place. I dialed the number, area code and all. She had to be out there to have that kind of number, didn't she?"

"Did she say why she left?"

"Said it was time to move on. Doing her inscrutable oriental number."

"You think she was afraid of getting killed?"

"Powhattan Motel," he said, pointing. "That's the place, isn't it?"

"That's the place."

"And you were out here to find the body."

"It had already been found. But I was out here before they moved it."

"Must have been some sight."

"It wasn't pretty."

"That Cookie worked alone. No pimp."

"That's what the police said."

"Well, she coulda had a pimp that they didn't know about. But I talked to some people. She worked alone, and if she ever knew Duffy Green, nobody ever heard tell of it." He turned right at the corner.

"We'll head back to my house, okay?"

"All right."

"I'll make us some coffee. You liked that coffee I fixed last time, didn't you?"

"It was good."

"Well, I'll fix us some more."

His block in Greenpoint was almost as quiet by day as it had been by night. The garage door ascended at the touch of a button. He lowered it with a second touch of the button and we got out of the car and walked on into the house. "I want to work out some," he said. "Do a little lifting.

You like to work out with weights?"

"I haven't in years."

"Want to go through the motions?"

"I think I'll pass."

My name is Matt and I pass.

"Be a minute," he said.

He went into a room, came out wearing a pair of scarlet gym shorts and carrying a hooded terry-cloth robe. We went to the room he'd fitted out as a gym, and for fifteen or twenty minutes he worked out with loose weights and on the Universal machine. His skin became glossy with perspiration as he worked and his heavy muscles rippled beneath it.

"Now I want ten minutes in the sauna," he said. "You didn't earn the sauna by pumping the iron, but we could grant a special dispensation in your case."

"No thanks."

"Want to wait downstairs then? Be more comfortable."

I waited while he took a sauna and shower. I studied some of his African sculpture, thumbed through a couple of magazines. He emerged in due course wearing light blue jeans and a navy pullover and rope sandals. He asked if I was ready for coffee. I told him I'd been ready for half an hour.

"Won't be long," he said. He started it brewing, then came back and perched on a leather hassock. He said, "You want to know something? I make a lousy pimp."

"I thought you were a class act. Restraint, dignity, all of that."

"I had six girls and I got three. And Mary Lou'll be leaving soon."

"You think so?"

"I know it. She's a tourist, man. You ever hear how I turned her out?"

"She told me."

"First tricks she did, she got to tell herself she was a reporter, a journalist, this was all research. Then she decided she was really into it.

Now she's finding out a couple of things."

"Like what?"

"Like you can get killed, or kill yourself. Like when you die there's twelve people at your funeral. Not much of a turnout for Sunny, was there?"

"It was on the small side."

"You could say that. You know something? I could have filled that fucking room three times over."

"Probably."

"Not just probably. Definitely." He stood up, clasped his hands behind his back, paced the floor. "I thought about that. I could have taken their biggest suite and filled it. Uptown people, pimps and whores, and the ringside crowd. Could have mentioned it to people in her building. Might be she had some neighbors who would have wanted to come. But see, I didn't want too many people."

"I see."

"It was really for the girls. The four of them. I didn't know they'd be down to three when I organized the thing. Then I thought, shit, it might be pretty grim, just me and the four girls. So I told a couple of other people. It was nice of Kid Bascomb to come, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"I'll get that coffee."

He came back with two cups. I took a sip, nodded my approval.

"You'll take a couple pounds home with you."

"I told you last time. It's no good to me in a hotel room."