Conspiracy Theory(105)

“Not out here, there isn’t.”

“Yes, I see that. Why is Adelphos House here? Surely there had to be other neighborhoods, closer to what Adelphos House does. They couldn’t all have been too expensive. Do hookers work this street? Who do they sell to?”

“Hookers do not work this street,” John Jackman said as the car began to slow up. “From what I remember—I was working out on the Main Line at the time—she tried to buy something closer to the strip where the girls work, but she ran into all kinds of trouble. Zoning problems. Permit problems. Building code problems—”

“This sounds like a setup.”

“It probably was. I don’t have to tell you that there have indeed been some members of our esteemed city government who have been known to patronize underage prostitutes. Not that they admit to knowing the prostitutes are underage, you understand. But that hardly matters. And Anne Ross Wyler was a pain in the butt to those people before she ever opened Adelphos House.”

“Was she taking pictures back then too?”

“Uh, yeah,” John Jackman said. “She even landed in the hospital for it once. I don’t know how many cameras she’s lost over the years. This is it. Notice the windows—no boards. We’ve tried to tell her that junkies have no consciences because they aren’t really conscious, but she won’t listen. We haven’t told her that the people she annoys aren’t above and beyond taking potshots at her at home, but she probably already knows it. She won’t listen to that, either.”

“Has anything ever happened at Adelphos House?”

“From the outside, no. There have been a couple of incidents of the girls losing it. She lets girls stay if they want. She puts them back in touch with their families if they want. That isn’t always possible. Sometimes, the families sold the girls into prostitution to begin with. Don’t you just love junkie culture?”

“I think it’s wonderful,” Gregor said.

“That’s why I think we should end the drug war,” Jackman said. “Make it all legal. Let them kill themselves with it. I don’t give a damn. But free up police resources to go after things like child prostitution. We spend millions of dollars every year in this city chasing potheads, and there isn’t enough left over in the budget to even try to put an end to the people who put eleven-year-olds out to peddle their asses on the street.”

The car had pulled to a stop at the curb. “I never thought of junkies having a culture,” Gregor said. John Jackman climbed out onto the sidewalk. Gregor climbed out too.

“Everything has a culture these days,” Jackman said. “Mollusks have a culture. They probably also have an indigenous language they’re trying to protect from the cultural imperialism of the squid.”

Adelphos House was in one of those brick buildings—like the one Gregor lived in on Cavanaugh Street—that was built right up next to the sidewalk, so that all it took to get from the street to the front door was to go up a few small steps. Gregor went around the car to join John Jackman on the sidewalk. As he did, Aldelphos House’s front door opened and a gigantic woman stepped out, her hair pulled back in a bun, her flowered dress floating in the stiff cold wind. For a split second, Gregor was confused. His first impression was that he was looking at Kathi Mittendorf again, but that passed, and then he didn’t know why he’d thought it. Kathi Mittendorf was lumpy, but this woman was obese. Gregor wondered how she managed to get up and down even this small set of steps every day. Kathi Mittendorf had hair dyed so falsely blond it hurt to look at it. This woman seemed to be content with her salt-and-pepper natural, pulled back against her skull and pinned untidily at the back of her head. Besides, Gregor thought, Kathi Mittendorf would never have been caught dead in a neighborhood like this one. It would have been far too threatening, far too close to being the thing she was most afraid of happening to her life.

“Lucy,” John Jackman said, holding out his hand. “Go back in the house. It’s got to be nine degrees out here. You’re going to freeze.”

“I’ve been freezing for an hour,” the woman said. “The heat’s out. We’ve got the oil company wheezing and whining and trying to get out of coming out here, even though they know they have to come out in an emergency, and this is surely an emergency. Is this Mr. Demarkian? Annie told me all about you.”

“I’m Gregor Demarkian, yes,” Gregor said.

“Lucinda Watkins,” the woman said.

“Let me get to a phone,” John Jackman said, “and make a few calls. Maybe we can straighten out your heat problem for you while we’re here.”