In the Midst of Death

"He didn't want to. I didn't give him much choice. He says you've always been nice to him."



"I tip him enough, the silly little fuck. You gave me a fright, you know. I don't know what you want or why you're here. Or who you are, for that matter. I seem to have forgotten your name already." I supplied it. "Matthew," she said. "I do not know why you are here, Matthew."



"Who did you phone from the coffee shop?"



"You were there? I didn't notice you."



"Who did you call?"



She bought time by puffing on her cigar. Her eyes grew thoughtful. "I don't think I'm going to tell you," she said at length.



"Why are you pressing charges against Jerry Broadfield?"



"For extortion."



"Why, Miss Carr?"



"You called me Portia before. Or was that just for shock value? The peelers always call you by your first name. That's to show their contempt for you, it's supposed to give them some sort of psychological advantage, isn't it?" She pointed at me with her cigar. "You. You're not a policeman, are you?"



"No."



"But there's something about you."



"I used to be a cop."



"Ah." She nodded, satisfied. "And you knew Jerry when you were a policeman?"



"I didn't know him then."



"But you know him now."



"That's right."



"And you're a friend of his? No, that's not possible. Jerry doesn't have friends, does he?"



"Doesn't he?"



"Hardly. You'd know that if you knew him well."



"I don't know him well."



"I wonder if anyone does." Another puff on the cigar, a careful flicking of ash into a sculptured glass ashtray. "Jerry Broadfield has acquaintances. Any number of acquaintances. But I doubt he has a friend in the world."



"You're certainly not his friend."



"I never said I was."



"Why charge him with extortion?"



"Because the charge is true." She managed a small smile. "He insisted I give him money. A hundred dollars a week or he would make trouble for me. Prostitutes are vulnerable creatures, you know. And a hundred dollars a week isn't so terribly much when you consider the enormous sums men are willing to pay to go to bed with one." She gestured with her hands, indicating her body. "So I paid him," she said. "The money he asked for, and I made myself available to him sexually."



"For how long?"



"About an hour at a time, generally. Why?"



"For how long had you been paying him?"



"Oh, I don't know. About a year, I suppose."



"And you've been in this country how long?"



"Just over three years."



"And you don't want to go back, do you?" I got to my feet, walked over to the couch. "That's probably how they set the hook," I said. "Play the game their way or they'll get you deported as an undesirable alien. Is that how they pitched you?"



"What a phrase. An undesirable alien."



"Is that what they- "



"Most people consider me a highly desirable alien." The cold eyes challenged me. "I don't suppose you have an opinion on the subject?"



She was getting to me, and it bothered the hell out of me. I didn't much like her, so why should she be getting to me? I remembered something Elaine Mardell had said to the effect that a large portion of Portia Carr's client list consisted of masochists. I have never really understood what gets a masochist off, but a few minutes in her presence was enough to make me realize that a masochist would find this particular woman a perfect component for his fantasies. And, in a somewhat different way, she fit nicely into my own.



We went around and around for a while. She kept insisting that Broadfield had really been extorting cash from her, and I kept trying to get past that to the person who had induced her to do the job on him. We weren't getting anywhere- that is, I wasn't getting anywhere, and she didn't have anyplace to get to.



So I said, "Look, when you come right down to it, it doesn't matter at all. It doesn't matter whether he was getting money from you, and it doesn't matter who got you to press charges against him."



"Then why are you here, angel? Just for love?"



"What matters is what it'll take to get you to drop the charges."



"What's the hurry?" She smiled. "Jerry hasn't even been arrested yet, has he?"



"You're not going to take it all the way to the courtroom," I went on. "You'd need proof to get an indictment, and if you had any it would have come out by now. So this is just a smear, but it's an awkward smear for him and he'd like to wipe it up. What does it take to get the charges dropped?"



"Jerry must know that."



"Oh?"



"All he has to do is stop doing what he's been doing."



"You mean with Prejanian."



"Do I?" She had finished her cigar, and now she took another from the teak box. But she didn't light it, just played with it. "Maybe I don't mean anything. But look at the record. That's an Americanism I rather like. Let us look at the record. For all these years Jerry has been doing nicely as a policeman. He has his charming little house in Forest Hills and his charming wife and his charming children. Have you met his wife and children?"



"No."



"Neither have I, but I've seen their pictures. American men are extraordinary. First they show one pictures of their wives and children, and then they want to go to bed. Are you married?"



"Not anymore."



"Did you play around when you were?"



"Now and then."



"But you didn't show pictures around, did you?" I shook my head. "Somehow I didn't think so." She returned the cigar to the box, straightened up, yawned. "He had all that, at any rate, and then he went to this Special Prosecutor with this long story about police corruption, and he began giving interviews to the newspapers, and he took a leave of absence from the police force, and all of a sudden he's in trouble and accused of shaking down a poor little whore for a hundred dollars a week. It makes you wonder, doesn't it?"



"That's what he has to do? Drop Prejanian and you'll drop the charges?"



"I didn't come right out and say that, did I? And anyway, he must have known that without your digging around. I mean, it's rather obvious, wouldn't you say?"



We went around a little more and didn't accomplish a thing. I don't know what I'd hoped to accomplish or why I had taken five hundred dollars from Broadfield in the first place. Someone had Portia Carr intimidated a lot more seriously than I was likely to manage, for all my cleverness in sneaking into her apartment. In the meantime we were talking pointlessly, and we were both aware of the pointlessness of it.



"This is silly," she said at one point. "I am going to have another drink. Will you join me?"



I wanted a drink badly. "I'll pass," I said.



She brushed me on the way to the kitchen. I got a strong whiff of a perfume I didn't recognize. I decided I would know it the next time I smelled it. She came back with a drink in her hand and sat on the couch again. "Silly," she said again. "Why don't you come sit next to me and we will talk of something else. Or of nothing at all."



"You could be in trouble, Portia."



Her face showed alarm. "You mustn't say that."



"You're putting yourself right in the middle. You're a big strong girl, but you might not turn out to be as strong as you think you are."



"Are you threatening me? No, it's not a threat, is it?"



I shook my head. "You don't have to worry about me. But you've got enough to worry about without me."



Her eyes dropped. "I'm so tired of being strong," she said. "I'm good at it, you know."



"I'm sure you are."



"But it's tiring."



"Maybe I could help you."



"I don't think anyone can."



"Oh?"



She studied me briefly, then dropped her eyes. She stood and crossed the room to the window. I could have walked along behind her. There was something in her stance that suggested she expected me to. But I stayed where I was.



She said, "There's something there, isn't there?"



"Yes."



"But it's just no good at the moment. The timing's all wrong." She was looking out the window. "Right now neither of us can do the other any good at all."



I didn't say anything.



"You'd better go now."



"All right."



"It's so beautiful outside. The sun, the freshness of the air." She turned to look at me. "Do you like this time of year?"



"Yes. Very much."



"It's my favorite, I think. October, November, the best time of the year. But also the saddest, wouldn't you say?"



"Sad? Why?"



"Oh, very sad," she said. "Because winter is coming."



Chapter 2



On my way out I left the passkey with the doorman. He didn't seem any happier now, even though he was getting to see me leave this time. I went over to Johnny Joyce's on Second and sat in a booth. Most of the lunch crowd was gone. The ones who remained were one or two martinis over the line now and probably wouldn't make it back to their offices at all. I had a hamburger and a bottle of Harp, then drank a couple shots of bourbon with my coffee.



I tried Broadfield's number. It rang for a while and no one answered it. I went back to my booth and had another bourbon and thought about some things. There were questions I couldn't seem to answer. Why had I passed up Portia Carr's offer of a drink when I wanted a drink so badly? And why (if it wasn't another version of the same question) had I passed up Portia Carr herself?



I did some more thinking on West Forty-ninth Street, in the actors' chapel at St. Malachy's. The chapel is below street level, a large understated room which provides a measure of peace and quiet that is otherwise hard to come by in the heart of the Broadway theater district. I took an aisle seat and let my mind wander.



An actress I used to know a long time ago once told me that she came to St. Malachy's every day when she wasn't working. "I wonder if it matters that I'm not a Catholic, Matt. I don't think so. I say my little prayer and I light my little candle and I pray for work. I wonder whether or not it helps. Do you suppose it's okay to ask God for a decent part?"



I must have sat there for close to an hour, running different things through my mind. On the way out I put a couple of bucks in the poor box and lit a few candles. I didn't say any prayers.



I spent most of the evening in Polly's Cage, across the street from my hotel. Chuck was behind the bar and he was in an expansive mood, so much so that the house was buying every other round. I had reached my client late in the afternoon and had given him a brief rundown on my meeting with Carr. He'd asked me where I was going to go from there, and I'd said I would have to work it out and that I'd get in touch when I had something he ought to know. Nothing in that category came up that night, so I didn't have to call him. Nor did I have any reason to call anyone else. I'd picked up a phone message at my hotel: Anita had called and wanted me to call her, but it was not the sort of night on which I wanted to talk to an ex-wife. I stayed at Polly's and emptied my glass every time Chuck filled it up.