Harry stopped his car at a crossroad in the outskirts of Springdale. He held a city map up to catch the fading light. The creases created shadows on the map. Harry popped open the glove compartment and fished out a yellow plastic camp flashlight, which he shined first onto the map, then onto a street sign that said Beechwood Avenue.
“Sue me,” Harry said. “I was wrong.”
* * *
In the glare of the Indian Orchard Mall, Friday stopped at a store window, displaying erotic lingerie.
She entered the store.
* * *
Beechwood Avenue was in a rural area. Few houses, far apart. Harry’s headlights picked out a mailbox: Number 16. A ramshackle trailer, half hidden in the weeds. Through the filthy, cracked windows, Harry saw lights. And from inside the trailer, he heard a woman singing “Blue Skies.”
Harry got out of his car, walked to the door.
Across a quarter-acre of brush, half hidden behind the neighboring trailer, a strip of yellow bug-light across his feral eyes, crouched a half-naked boy, dirty white jockey shorts, so skinny even in shadow his rib cage looked like a vulture-picked carcass.
“A wild child,” Harry decided, “like Mowgli. Wonder where Akela is? The wolf pack? Baloo? Bagheera? Kaa?”
Harry knocked on Number 16.
The door opened, revealing a woman—sixty-six, maybe, a beautiful face despite, maybe because of, the wrinkles. Her eyes were violet. Her mouth was full and sexy.
She was wearing a garish, multicolored Mexican skirt, a Celtics T-shirt, and a man’s torn wool overcoat. She looked—and smelled—as if she hasn’t bathed in months. And she was clearly drunk.
Harry asked, “Margaret Resnick?”
* * *
Inside Victoria’s Secret, Friday went from rack to rack, picking out an outfit—a lacy red bustier, silk stockings, black spike heels.
* * *
Margaret Resnick sat in her trailer at the built-in table, pouring herself a shot of peppermint schnapps. Harry held up the Polaroid photograph.
“You think I don’t know my own daughter?” Margaret asked.
“She says her name’s Marian Turner,” Harry said.
“You been busted as many times as she has,” Margaret said, “you collect a lot of names.” She sighed. Under her T-shirt, her bosom heaved. Absently, she straightened the cloth. “Brenda developed early. Eleven years old, she looked like a woman. Charged the boys a dollar a feel. By junior high, she was working the streets. Dropped out of high school when she got into an escort service. Two years later she was running the place.”
“She ever mention a Marian Turner?” Harry asked.
“My daughter sends money every month,” Margaret said, “but she doesn’t come here. She’s too classy. An ex-hooker. Too classy, huh.”
She poured and drank another shot of schnapps. And stared into the empty glass.
“I heard you singing,” Harry said.
Margaret gave him a suspicious look.
“You have a lovely voice,” Harry said.
Margaret still looked at him, suspiciously.
Harry sang, “Blue skies smiling at me / Nothing but blue skies do I see … I love that song.”
“That and “There’s a Small Hotel.”
“The first time my brother-in-law heard the song, he thought it was ‘There’s A Small Cartel.’”
“When I was younger,” Margaret said, “a lot younger, I sang in clubs. I was pretty good. Then…” She shrugged. “Rock and roll. No one wanted to hear ‘Blue Skies.’”
“Would you sing it?” Harry asked.
Margaret studied Harry, decided he was not teasing her, and started to sing. She tilted her face to one side. Closed her eyes. Her shoulders relaxed. She glowed.
* * *
In the Victoria’s Secret dressing room, Friday tried on the sexy outfit she had picked out. She vamped in front of the mirror.