SHE WAS STILL quite attractive, hair still cropped short. Not a Halle Berry lookalike, more a Reminds You Of. She had to be in her fifties, at least, but her face was still remarkably unlined. It was either good genetics or the joys of Botox, a subject about which I knew I was becoming far less judgmental as time passed.
She was waiting with the door open, wearing a pale-blue crewneck sweater, cargo pants, and old-fashioned high-top sneakers. Spike would have known the brand instantly.
“Ten minutes,” she said again, gesturing me into the apartment.
“Does that count stair time?” I said.
She sighed, and showed me in.
The living room had the look and feel of a place that had been lived in for a long time. The wall behind the couch, which I thought might be a Thessaly, featured a floor-to-ceiling bookcase. There were a lot of plants, and a chair that seemed to match the couch, and a flat-screen television. As far as I could see, there was not a single photograph in the room.
She took the couch. I took the chair. There was no offer of refreshment of any kind and, I was fairly certain, none forthcoming.
“You were staking out a strip club?” she said. “For real?”
I smiled. “Kind of,” I said.
“You followed me there?” she said.
“I was more interested in Gabriel,” I said. “So, technically, I followed him out of there. I didn’t know you were with him until later.”
“Why were you following him?”
She crossed her arms in front of her, waiting. There was a faint scent of jasmine from a lit candle on a small table on the other side of the room. Or was it gardenia? I could never keep them straight.
“He’s involved in a case I’m working,” I said. “Perhaps he mentioned it.”
“A case involving the asshole to whom I was once married,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
She said, “I had my reasons for turning tricks for him. What’s yours?”
“I’ve worked for a lot of assholes,” I said. “Mary Lou Goddard comes almost instantly to mind.”
She almost smiled.
“Well,” she said, “you got me there.”
“You two still stay in touch?” I said.
“As far as I know,” Natalie said, “there’s no cell service in hell.”
“I know how my business could involve Gabriel,” I said. “What I’m trying to figure out is what business you might have with him.”
She tilted her head to the side. Her face was still all hard angles and planes. But she was pretty, no getting around it.
“There’s no business,” she said. “We’ve just known each other a long time.”
“Tony clearly sees him as a threat,” I said.
“Tony sees almost everyone as a threat,” she said. “Inside his organization and out.”
“But how much of a threat might Gabriel present?”
“I forget the color schemes for threat levels,” Natalie said. “But what’s the highest?”
“Red,” I said.
“Go with that,” Natalie said. Again she almost smiled. Maybe it was the best she could do.
“Why?” I said.
“Just say they go way back.”
“They have history, then,” I said. “Gabriel never mentioned that.”
“What’s the old saying?” she said. “The friend of my enemy is my enemy?”
“It’s actually the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” I said.
She shook her head. “You’re still a smart-assed bitch,” she said, “aren’t you?”
“But I’m making progress with you after all this time,” I said. “You used to call me a honky bitch.”
She wore a big watch on her wrist and made a show of looking at it now.
“What do you really want?” she said.
“I want to know if you might know something that might help me find the most recent woman in Tony’s life,” I said.
Natalie laughed, somehow managing that without changing expression, the sound harsh.
“You mean his latest whore?” she said. “At least she wasn’t fool enough to marry him the way I did.”
“You don’t think he could possibly have real feelings for her?” I said.
“You mean other than in his pants?” Natalie said. “He’s probably just worried she could fuck him over the way he’s been fucking people over his whole life.”
“Is that why your friend Gabriel wants to find her first?” I said.
“If she can help take Tony down, I hope he does,” she said.
“Are you and Gabriel somehow involved in this together?” I said.
“Involved how?”
“However.”
She sighed. “Now you do sound like a dumb honky bitch,” she said.
“You know,” I said, “it was Abraham Lincoln who said that knavery and flattery are blood relations.”
“You really do talk a lot of shit, don’t you?” Natalie said.
“I’m trying to quit,” I said.
“Are we done yet?” she said. “I’ve let you stay here longer than I intended.”
“How do you and Gabriel know each other?” I said.
“I told you,” she said. “We go way back.”
“Could you be more specific?”
“No,” she said. “Anything else?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m thinking that if you were really picking a side here, it might be the missing woman’s. Because in a lot of ways, you were her once.”
“Before Tony became my enemy,” she said.
She stood. I stood. She walked around the couch and opened the door, standing there with her hand on the knob.
“Gabriel,” she said, “is going to take Tony down with or without Lisa Morneau. He just feels that having her on his side will make it more enjoyable for him. And perhaps streamline the process.”
“A lot have tried to put Tony out of business,” I said.
“They were likely not as motivated as Gabriel,” she said.
“Why?” I said.
“Good talk,” she said.
As I walked past her she said, “I know Tony has threatened to kill you in the past. But if you get in Gabriel’s way on his way to Tony, Gabriel just might.”
“He told me he’s not a killer,” I said. “But thanks for the heads-up.”
“I were you?” Natalie Goddard said, “I’d think twice about following him again.”
There was nothing for either one of us to add to that. So I walked back down the stairs and out onto Revere Street, into a bright winter sun.
Yeah, I thought.
Good talk.