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Will had learned a long time ago that the only thing he could control in any given situation was himself. He wasn't a victim. He wasn't prisoner to his temper. He could choose be a good person. Sara had said as much. She had made it seem so easy.
And then he had forced that weird moment when they were together on the couch, staring at her like he was an ax murderer.
"Idiot." He rubbed his eyes, wishing he could rub away the memory. There was no use thinking about Sara Linton. In the end, it would lead to nothing.
Will saw a group of women loitering on the sidewalk ahead. They were all dressed in various shades of fantasy: schoolgirls, strippers, a transsexual who looked a lot like the mother from Leave it to Beaver. Will rolled down his window and they all did a silent negotiation, deciding who to send over. He drove a Porsche 911 he had rebuilt from the ground up. The car had taken him almost a decade to restore. It seemed to take a decade for the prostitutes to decide who to send.
Finally, one of the schoolgirls sauntered over. She leaned into the car, then backed out just as quickly. "Nuh-uh," she said. "No way. I ain't fuckin' no dog."
Will held out a twenty-dollar bill. "I'm looking for Lola."
Her lip twisted, and she snatched away the cash so quickly Will felt the paper burn his fingertips. "Yeah, that bitch'll fuck your dog. She on Eighteenth. Strolling by the old post office."
"Thank you."
The girl was already sashaying back to her group.
Will rolled up the window and took a U-turn. He saw the girls in his rearview mirror. The schoolgirl had passed the twenty onto her minder, who would in turn pass it on to the pimp. Will knew from Angie that the girls seldom got to keep any cash. The pimps took care of their living quarters, their food, their clothes. All the girls had to do was risk their lives and health every night by tricking whatever john pulled up with the right amount of cash. It was modern slavery, which was ironic, considering most if not all of the pimps were black.
Will turned onto Eighteenth Street and slowed the car to a crawl, coming up on a parked sedan under a streetlight. The driver was behind the wheel, his head back. Will gave it a few minutes and a head popped up from the man's lap. The door opened and the woman tried to get out, but the man reached over and grabbed her by the hair.
"Crap," Will mumbled, jumping out of his car. He locked the door with the remote on his keys as he jogged toward the sedan and yanked open the door.
"What the fuck?" the man yelled, still holding the woman by the hair.
"Hey, Baby," Lola said, reaching her hand out to Will. He grabbed it without thinking, and she got out of the car, her wig staying in the man's hand. He cursed and threw it onto the street, pulling away from the curb so fast that the car door slammed shut.
Will told Lola, "We need to talk."
She bent over to get her wig, and courtesy of the streetlight, he saw straight up to her tonsils. "I'm running a business here."
Will tried, "Next time you need help—"
"Angie helped me, not you." She tugged at her skirt. "You watch the news? Cops found enough coke in that penthouse to teach the world to sing. I'm a fucking hero."
"Balthazar's going to be okay. The baby."
"Baltha-what?" She wrinkled her face. "Christ, kid barely had a chance."
"You took care of him. He meant something to you."
"Yeah, well." She put the wig on her head, trying to get it straight. "I got two kids, you know? Had them while I was locked up. Got to spend some time with them before the state took them away." Her arms were bone-thin, and Will was again reminded of the thinspo videos they had found on Pauline's computer. Those girls were starving themselves because they wanted to be thin. Lola was starving because she couldn't afford food.
"Here," he said, tugging the wig straight for her.
"Thanks." She started walking down the street back toward her group. There was the usual mixture of schoolgirls and tramps, but they were older, harder women. The streets usually got tougher the higher the numbers. Pretty soon, Lola and her gang would be on Twenty-first, a street so hopeless that dispatch at the local police station routinely sent out ambulances to pick up women who had died during the night.
He tried, "I could arrest you for obstructing a crime."
She kept walking. "Might be nice in jail. Getting kind of cold out here tonight."
"Did Angie know about the baby?"
She stopped.
"Just tell me, Lola."
Slowly, she turned around. Her eyes searched his; not looking for the right answer, but looking for the answer that he wanted to hear. "No."
"You're lying."
Her face remained emotionless. "He really okay? The baby, I mean."
"He's with his mom now. I think he'll be okay."
She dug around in her purse, finding a pack of cigarettes and some matches. He waited for her to light up, take a drag. "I was at a party. This guy I know, he said there was this pad in some fancy apartment building. The doorman's easy. Lets people in and out. Mostly, it was high-class stuff. You know, people who needed a nice place for a couple of hours, no questions asked. They come in and party, the maid comes the next day. The rich people who own the different apartments get back from Palm Beach or wherever and have no idea." She picked a stray piece of tabacco off her tongue. "Something happened this time, though. Simkov, the doorman, pissed off somebody in the building. They gave him a two-week notice. He started letting in the lower clientele."
"Like you?"
She lifted her chin.
"What'd he charge?"
"Have to talk to the boys about that. I just show up and fuck."
"What boys?"
She exhaled a long plume of smoke.
Will let it go, knowing not to push her too hard. "Did you know the woman whose apartment you were in?"
"Never met her, never seen her, never heard of her."
"So, you get there, Simkov lets you up, and then what?"
"At first it's nice. Usually, we've been in one of the lower apartments. This was the penthouse. Lots of your better consumers. Good stash. Coke, some H. The crack showed up a couple of days later. Then the meth. Went downhill from there."
Will remembered the trashed state of the apartment. "That happened fast."
"Yeah, well. Drug addicts aren't exactly known for their restraint." She chuckled at a memory. "Couple of fights broke out. Some bitches got into it. Then the trannies went to town and—" She shrugged, like What do you expect?
"What about the baby?"
"Kid was in the nursery first time I got there. You got kids?"
He shook his head.
"Smart choice. Angie's not exactly the mothering type."
Will didn't bother to agree with her, because they both knew that was the God's honest truth. He asked, "What did you do when you found the baby?"
"The apartment wasn't a good place for him. I could see what was coming. The wrong kind of people were showing up. Simkov was letting anybody in. I moved the kid down the hall."
"To the trash room."
She grinned. "Ain't nobody worried about throwing away the trash at that party."
