Blue Screen by Robert B. Parker

leave this house?” I said.
    “I didn’t have this house when she left.”
    “When would that have been?”
    “Five, six years ago. I don’t know. Time don’t mean much to me.”
    “Who was the producer?” I said.
    “Buddy Bollen. Guy made her into Woman Warrior.”
    “And you didn’t object?”
    “Sure, I objected,” Gerard said. “But hell, Sunny, there’s thousands of women, and just one me. I decided to stick with me.”
    “Did you love her?”
    “Hell yes, still do.”
    “But?”
    “But I’m a practical man. Time to move on. I can get my ashes hauled whenever I want to,” Gerard said.
    “She work for you?” Sol said.
    Gerard looked at Sol blankly for a moment.
    Then he said, “’Course she did. I look like a guy runs a shelter for homeless pussy? She worked for me, and so did her sister.”
    “Her sister is Misty Tyler,” I said.
    “Edith? Yeah. I guess I didn’t know her new name. I give them the best outcalls. Clean guys. Movie guys. No whack jobs, nothing kinky. It mighta been how she met Buddy Bollen. I don’t remember.”
    “You should,” Sol said. “You were probably more hands-on then. Than now.”
    “I’m outta that business now, Sergeant. You should know that. I run an event-management service.”
    “You’re a pimp,” Sol said. “You used to be a small-time pimp, and now you are a big-time pimp. But a pimp is a pimp.”
    “Don’t be bitter, Sergeant,” Gerard said. “How about you, Sunny? I could make you rich.”
    “In event management?”
    “Four, maybe five events a week, a few hours, evening work,” Gerard said. “No heavy lifting.”
    I shook my head.
    “Enticing offer,” I said. “But I’ll pass. Talk more about Erin and Misty.”
    “Love those names,” Gerard said and laughed. “They wasn’t so much when I met them. They were kids. I think Erin was maybe eighteen, dragging her kid sister around. Didn’t know how to look, or talk. Didn’t know anything.”
    “How’d you meet?”
    “They hustled me at a club in West Hollywood,” Gerard said.
    “Tried to pick you up?”
    “Yeah.” He grinned. “Had I ever done two girls at once? Had I ever done sisters?”
    “And?” I said.
    “Well, truth is I never had done sisters before. But I seen something in them, especially Erin. I mean, she wasn’t much yet, but she already had that bitchin’ body, and I seen potential. One thing I know,” Gerard said. “I know women.”
    Sol was standing at the window, watching the bald man with the tan who was standing in the doorway watching Sol. Gerard looked at me as if he could see through my clothes.
    He said it again. “I know women.”
    “You know whores,” Sol said.
    Gerard grinned at me.
    “Same thing,” he said.
    “So you decided to, ah, represent them?”
    “Yeah.”
    “And you married Erin?” I said.
    “Wasn’t part of the plan, but…” Gerard spread his hands and shrugged. “I got her clothes and makeup and hair and took her places and taught her how to order. Got her a trainer. Hell, I even sent her to college. I mean, she was turning into something.”
    “And Misty?”
    “The little sister? She trailed along. Everywhere Erin went, there was little sister.”
    “And, I don’t mean to be indelicate, Mr. Basgall, but did you have a relationship with Misty?”
    “Relationship?” Gerard said and smiled. “What kinda relationship did you have in mind?”
    “Did you fuck her?”
    “Whoa, Sunny, pretty direct.”
    “Did you?”
    “Sure,” Gerard said, “I gave her a few pops. But I didn’t love her.”
    “You loved her sister.”
    “Like I said—did, still do.”
    We talked some more, but there was nothing else to learn from Gerard.

21
    O N THE DRIVE back downtown, Sol said, “It might have gone better if I didn’t ride Gerard like I did.”
    “I don’t think it made any difference,” I said.
    “I know better. In that kind of situation you don’t get anywhere antagonizing the subject.”
    “Gerard was going to tell