Dear Old Dead(73)

Gregor moved cautiously into the room. Maybe Robbie was in the men’s room. Maybe he had run downtown a block or two to buy cigarettes. The trouble was, if Robbie wasn’t in the cafeteria and he wasn’t out picketing, Gregor had no idea of where to look for him. The idea that Robbie might simply not be at the center today struck Gregor suddenly. It was a possibility that was both logical and appalling. Gregor knew from his long lunch with Robbie Yagger that Robbie didn’t have much of a life outside his self-imposed mission at the center, but he did have some life. Maybe he had gone home to live it. Did anybody know where he was from, what his address was, if he had a phone number? Would anybody be able to find him if he decided to disappear?

Gregor had had enough coffee while he was watching Hector Sheed eat lunch, but he hadn’t had any lunch, and he was starving. He picked up a cafeteria tray and one of those free copies of the New York Sentinel, ordered himself a couple of grilled ham-and-cheese sandwiches and a side of french fries, and then virtuously took a large bottle of Perrier water to drink with them. In his head, he could hear Bennis Hannaford counting up the cholesterol, but he ignored her. He got out his wallet and paid the woman at the cash register.

He was just about to put his tray down on one of the small tables against the wall when a young woman he vaguely recognized walked up to him, looking very tense. Gregor tried to remember where he had seen her before, but couldn’t. Whatever he associated her with seemed to be vaguely disturbing.

The young woman had her hands behind her back. She was shifting from one foot to the other. “Excuse me,” she said. “You may not remember, but we met. My name is Julie Enderson.”

“Julie Enderson,” Gregor repeated. It didn’t ring a bell.

“It was upstairs after Rosalie van Straadt died,” Julie said. “In the hall outside Dr. Pride’s office. My friend Karida and I watched the door for you when you went down to call the police.”

“I remember,” Gregor said, and he did, too. Karida was the one with the makeup. This was the pretty one.

Gregor put his tray down on the table and pulled out a chair. “Would you like to sit down? I was just about to have lunch. Could I get something for you?”

“Oh, I’ve had lunch already, thanks. I’m not hungry. It’s just—I mean, do you think you’d mind if I sat down for a while and, you know, um, well, talked to you?”

“No,” Gregor said. “I wouldn’t mind. Is it something important?”

“I don’t know,” Julie said truthfully. “I just thought I’d tell you and you could decide for yourself.”

“That sounds fair enough,” Gregor said. “Have a seat.”

“I will.”

Julie had a large, heavy book in her hands. As far as Gregor could tell, it was some kind of history textbook. Julie put it down on the table with a thump, pulled out the chair facing Gregor, and sat down.





2


IT MAY HAVE BEEN true that Julie Enderson had eaten lunch, but it was not true that she was no longer hungry. Gregor wondered what it was about the people he had met up here. Did living and working in Harlem make you hungry? It didn’t necessarily make you fat. Julie Enderson was thin as a rail. She had Gregor’s order of french fries in front of her, covered with enough ketchup to drown a cat. She was eating her way through them as methodically as a paper shredder ate through paper.

“It isn’t about Rosalie van Straadt I wanted to talk to you about,” she said. “I don’t know anything about that. It’s about Charles van Straadt. The first one.”

“I remember Charles van Straadt,” Gregor assured her.

“Yeah, well, Karida was with me that night, too, except Karida wouldn’t know, because Karida’s never worked anywhere but uptown. I used to work down in the Square, though, when I was younger. If you’re black and you get to maybe fifteen, sixteen, down there they don’t have any more use for you. You know we used to be hookers? Karida and me and all the other girls in refuge?”

Gregor knew that “refuge” was what the center called their program to help hookers leave their pimps. He wondered how old Julie had been when she started hooking. Young enough, obviously, to think of fifteen or sixteen as getting old.

Julie had finished the french fries.

“That’s where I first saw Michael Pride,” she said. “In the Square, I mean. He didn’t buy time with hookers. When all that stuff came out in the papers everybody was shocked, but I wasn’t. That’s how I ended up here the first time. Two years ago. He came up to me where I was standing and gave me a card with the center’s name on it and the address and the number. Then he said I was smart enough to know I couldn’t do what I was doing forever, and then he disappeared.” Julie laughed. “I told myself he was some kind of higher-class pimp and the center was a fancy house with million-dollar clients and women dancing around in their underwear, but I didn’t believe it. With Michael, I couldn’t believe it. Did you know there are rumors all over the center that he’s sick?”