who she is,” the look-alike said, taking the photo from me. She was wearing a thin black sweater, red satin shorts, and black stockings with a run all the way down the left leg. “Lisa’s friend. Girl who died.”
“Lisa Washington,” I said.
“Yeah.”
I tapped the photo. “Have you seen her around?”
“Not for a while.”
“How long a while?”
“Couldn’t say. Months, maybe.”
“Anybody ever tell you that you look like her?”
“People ain’t looking at my face out here, OK?”
“Just asking.” But what I was thinking was: in another context, in another world, they might have been. She was pretty underneath the hard set of her mouth and her cold stare. The expressive, intelligent eyes fixed on me didn’t fit her current situation. Change a few things and she could easily have been somebody’s girlfriend, stepping out to a club or going to a ballgame or strolling through an art museum instead of standing on a street corner in the cold wearing clothes that would barely keep you warm in May, let alone December.
I said, “I heard she was Bronte Patterson’s bottom girl.”
“You say so.”
“You know Bronte?”
“Know of him.”
“You know how I can find him? How I could get in touch?”
She laughed nervously. “No.”
“Know anybody who does?”
She shook her head, not meeting my eyes.
“How long have you been out here?”
“Couple hours. Why?”
“I meant, how long have you been doing this?”
“Listen, mister. Fuck off, all right? Ain’t your business. And you’re hurting mine, standing here like this.”
“Are you from here?” I persisted. “Columbus?”
“Why do you care?”
“I’m just asking.”
“Go to hell.” She looked at me with what passed for fire in those expressive eyes. But all she had left was coals after someone pisses on them.
I gave her my card. “You see Jessica, would you call me? I can pay.”
“Pay me now.”
“For what?”
“Something.”
“I’m not interested in—”
“Not that. Something about Jessica.”
“What?”
Her eyes moved to the street, where cars were slowing at the corner before moving on when they spied me. She glared at me. I nodded. She wouldn’t be the first person to tell me I was bad for their bottom line. I pulled out my wallet and handed her a twenty. It disappeared like a flame snuffed by a sudden breeze.
“She’s in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“She’s scared of something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Lisa was scared too.”
“Like, of him? The guy killing the women?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, yeah, shit, they were scared of that. Who isn’t? But something else. Something more dire.”
“Dire?” I said, pausing at the word, which didn’t fit the girl or the situation she was in.
“Lisa had something. Something somebody wanted.”
“Something like what?”
“Don’t know. It’s just what I heard.”
“Jessica knew about it?”
“I know Jessica went looking for her, after she disappeared. I know Lisa was scared and then Jessica was scared. And that’s all I know. You got another twenty?”
“For more information?”
“For business. We can go in your van. She can wait outside.” She sniffed at Theresa.
Theresa said, “How about your friend?” She gestured at the girl next to her, who had yet to speak. She was young, short, stocky, wearing yoga pants and a faded Ohio State sweatshirt. Her matted hair looked as if someone had died midway through an attempt at cornrows. She seemed like a person who’d started with a hard life and gone downhill from there. “You know where Bronte is?”
The girl stared through Theresa. Her friend shrugged. “She doesn’t talk much. Why I like her around.”
I showed the girl the photograph of Jessica. “Do you know her?” I said.
She shook her head and flipped me off.
“OK,” I said. I turned to the first woman. “What’s your name?”
“Why?”
“In case I need to find you again.”
“Why would you need to do that?”
“I don’t know. For business. How about that?”
“That’s more like it. Darla. Satisfied?”
“That your real name?” Theresa said.
“Right, bitch.”
I said. “You want another twenty?”
“Sure.”
I handed her my card. “You see Jessica, positive I.D., call me. I find her, it’s all yours.”
The card didn’t disappear as quickly as the twenty. But at least she hung onto it. We crossed back over. I heard my name called. I turned around. She shouted out the name of a suburb.
“What about it?”
“Where I’m from. Satisfied?”
The small burg she’d named was a destination bedroom community just outside of Columbus. An All-American city. One of those places with good schools and green lawns and subdivisions with no sidewalks and no visible streetwalkers.
I nodded and waved. I got back in my van.
