Blue Screen by Robert B. Parker Page A

us what he told us and nothing more,” I said.
    Sol nodded.
    “Probably right,” he said.
    “You know him before?” I said.
    “I used to work vice,” Sol said. “I know about Gerard.”
    “Tell me,” I said.
    “He turned up in the early nineties—I’m sure he was pimping for a long time before he jumped onto our screen—he was running a high-class call-girl operation on the west side. Girls were all well-spoken, good-looking, well-dressed. No shortage of those out here. He’d find the ones that looked right and clean them up and train them and send them out to only the best clients.”
    “No shortage of them out here, either,” I said.
    Sol nodded.
    “Lotta money out here,” Sol said. “Not many scruples.”
    “Nor brains,” I said. “How did he do business. How did he connect the john with the hooker?”
    “Mostly hotel staff. Lot of high rollers in a lot of expensive hotels around the west side,” Sol said. “He’d have a doorman or a bellman or a bartender on commission, occasionally a concierge. He had a lot of limo drivers on the payroll, too.”
    “No cabbies,” I said.
    “No. He wasn’t interested in johns that took cabs.”
    “Nice little synergy,” I said. “The best clientele would attract the best girls, and the best girls would attract the best clientele.”
    “As long as you kept the discipline,” Sol said. “No blow jobs in cars, no stag shows at bachelor parties, no dirty movies—even if it was quick and easy money. Girl broke the rules, she got beat up and fired.”
    “Gerard do the beating up?” I said.
    “Sure, early years. Now he has employees.”
    “He’s got a number of arrests for assault.”
    “Gerard’s a tough guy,” Sol said. “But a lot of the assault busts are in the early years when he was just a street pimp protecting his investment. Beat up a few johns who got out of line with the whores. No jail time.”
    “So why do you suppose the OC squad is interested in him now?”
    “He’s spreading out,” Sol said. “He runs the upscale call-girl business on the west side and in the Valley. He’s spreading into Ventura County. He’s also, they tell me, trying to expand, maybe spread the whore business, maybe diversify—drugs, gambling. Nobody knows for sure. What they know is he’s got a connection now with a guy named del Rio, who sort of runs things around here.”
    “Should I talk to this del Rio person?” I said.
    “No.”
    “No?” I said. “Just like that?”
    “Reason number one,” Sol said. “You annoy him and I can’t protect you; for crissake, Cronjager can’t protect you. Reason number two, your vic got her neck snapped. Three thousand miles away. It’s not his style. He had to have her killed for some reason it would be neat, one bullet in the brain, and no trace of anyone or anything. Mr. del Rio is a dead end, any way you approach it.”
    “Maybe he could tell me a little more about Gerard,” I said.
    Sol smiled at me.
    “You can’t get to see him,” Sol said. “If you could, he wouldn’t tell you anything. If he did, it wouldn’t be true. Forget del Rio.”
    “Okay,” I said.
    “Besides,” Sol said. “Sooner or later Gerard is going to annoy del Rio. He’s too restless, too ambitious. He’ll do something he shouldn’t have, and he’ll be dead.”
    “Like that,” I said.
    “Like that.”
    We were quiet for a while.
    “You know what doesn’t quite work with Gerard?” I said.
    “All that chop chop about how he still loves her,” Sol said.
    “Maybe it’s true,” I said.
    “And maybe it don’t rain in Indianapolis,” Sol said. “In the summertime.”
    “So why would he keep saying it?” I said. “It doesn’t fit with the rest of him, you know, whore and woman are two words for the same thing? I loved her but I banged her sister? That Gerard makes sense. But to admit he still loves a woman who dumped him for another guy?”
    “Sympathy?” Sol said.
    “From us? He knows better. And even if he