Saw Red

Chapter One

The first time I laid eyes on Terry Sebring she was showing me the pussy in a hotel bar.  I didn’t take it personally or any other way really. I just saw it as some damned good advertising about the same old thing. I guess that’s how I took it. Our paths crossed again that next morning. Briefly. An elevator. Same joint. That time I was noticing she had a decent sense of humor and spoke casual French. I had already noticed she was a knock-out redhead.

I thought about her, our small encounter, a couple of times then put it where stuff like that goes. I didn’t think anymore about her so she knocked on my front door to remind me. And I knew she had trouble. Nobody knocks on my door unless they’ve got trouble. Seems to be that kind of door.

It took me a moment to place her and my mouth was in forward motion before I remembered I didn’t have a name for her. I rolled with it. “S’up, Red? You lost?”

I was looking at working girl, day off. Fine gauge sweater thing the nancy-name people might call wheat or something like that. Tan worked. Almost white linen skirt tickling the bottom of her knee caps. Some classy gold stuff at her neck, an emerald not much bigger than a thumbnail on one hand. Plain brown Maryjanes, strap and all, that would have set you back a bill and a half. Easy. A soft leather bag, brown to match the shoes, was slung across a shoulder. Curb appeal for days.

Passing her on the street, not knowing any better, not knowing she was a high-dollar whore, I’d think money. Not pretend money like the assholes up in Winter Park or the phony fucks out in the burbs; the McCoy. The kind that actually comes with some class attached.

Odd how you almost never encounter class where you’d expect it, but like game or something, it pops up in the most unusual places. Terry Sebring had plenty of both. The class was out there, obvious. The game I would have bet on.

“Not any more, Private Dick Sloan. How have you been? ”I’d forgotten the voice, how it roused something down low. Something about twenty million years old. Something that would have made Odysseus gnaw both arms off.

I threw out a shrug, turned it into a mi-casa-su-casa gesture with a free hand. We left the sunshine outside for the tourists and she glanced around my short digs while I shut the door. She didn’t look impressed. 

“Cute. ”

Too bad that wasn’t what I was going for. “Thanks. Pull up a chair. ”She did and I offered her something to drink if she wasn’t looking for much more than beer or iced tap water. She said no and I plopped in an old chair I never sit in. I remembered why.

The Terry Sebring who knocked on my door had been putting out the smile, the come-on number, an indispensable accessory in her racket I’m sure. I had been getting the smile but not much else on her face backed it up. Now, sitting here, recataloging each other, her eyes, the ones so green you wanted to ask her if they were contacts, were glittering like the first time we met. She was laughing at me then and I was betting she was laughing at me now. I sat tight, waiting to get to the small talk.

Short wait. “Are you staying busy?”

I shrugged. “At times. ”I was busy like a pickpocket at a nudist joint. “How about you? You keeping the old dance card filled? ”It wasn’t that funny.

She smiled anyway. “Actually, no. I’ve been working the market more than the four stars lately. The way things are jumping around on Wall Street right now, I can really manage some nice surprises if I stay on top of it. Play the short side occasionally. ”I got the eyes and a shrug. “I always seem to do my best work on the supply side. ”

That meant about zip to me. I keep most of my portfolio in my sock drawer. “I don’t even know your name. Do I need to?”

“Terry Sebring. Are you curious how I ended up at your front door?”

“Yeah, I’m curious. ”

“I asked a couple of vice cops I know. They knew you. ”

“I know some vice cops?”

“Chick Rappaport?”

“Yeah. I know Chick. ”

“Freddie Paulk?”

“Yeah. I know Freddie too. ”I guess I did know some vice cops. “They know where I live?”

“No. And your phone is unlisted. You could be on the witness relocation program. ”No I couldn’t. “They put me in touch with a Lieutenant Detective Booker. ”

“Good old Booker. ”Mose Booker was the nearest thing to a friend I had over at the sheriff’s department. Still, a tenuous relationship on a good day.

“The lieutenant’s partner, a Detective Channing, called back instead. He didn’t have your number, but he gave me directions. ”

“Good old Channing. ”I got a free smile with that one.

“I take it you and Channing aren’t friends. ”

“We share a mutual disrespect. ”I was being a nice boy. I hated his fucking guts and he mine. “He give me a glowing recommendation?”

Her funny eyebrows said it. “No. ”Pause. “Are you gay?”

“No. ”The harmonics I was putting on it were right out of junior high. What I recovered with wasn’t that far from schoolyard shit anyway.  “I wouldn’t put much stock in what Channing says. Nobody else does. If that’s where this is coming from. ”

Terry shrugged some nice shoulders. “That and the first night we met? The offer you refused?”

I was grinning at the memory. “Yeah. I recall.  Like I said then, sweetheart, there’s no such thing as a freebie. I still believe it. ”

“I think there’s a little more to it than that. ”She was laughing at me with her eyes again. 

My head went sideways, cousin to a nod, cousin to a shrug thing. “Could be. ”

“You know, to be putting out such a hip image, you tend to be a little old fashioned. ”

I didn’t really think I was putting out a hip image. I don’t always tuck my shirttail in. Maybe that was what she was talking about. “Probably more than I’d like to admit. You come over here to ask me why I didn’t take the freebie?”