Dead to Me by Mary McCoy Page A

left their children sleeping in the backseat of Rex’s car while Alex took their pictures.
    “Was it just you, Rex, and the girls?”
    “Most of the time. That lady came a few times,” Alex said, pointing at Ruth’s picture. “She helped out with the makeup and wardrobe. And he had a partner who used to come
in the beginning, but by the end, he wasn’t coming around anymore. Older guy with a mustache, wore nice suits. He said he was with one of the studios, and chatted up the girls. They all liked
him a lot.”
    Women did like my father a lot. At parties, my mother’s friends always swarmed him. He was charming, never said a word about himself, and made them feel like the most beautiful,
interesting people in the room. Not that I was certain Alex was talking about my father, but the odds seemed decent.
    “Was there ever a girl named Annie here?” I didn’t want to know, but I asked anyway.
    “I don’t know,” Alex said. “It doesn’t sound familiar, but most of them didn’t use their real names.”
    “When did you stop taking pictures for Rex?” I asked.
    “About a month ago.”
    “And he just let you walk away?”
    Mr. Fleming snorted. “Not by a long shot. We pay that piece of garbage twenty dollars a week now. We do that, he stays away, doesn’t ruin us.”
    “So when I showed up in your showroom with those pictures…”
    “All Rex’s messengers are girls,” Alex said. “At first. Then he sends the guys who put cigars out on your arm.”
    “Was that why you stopped taking the pictures?” I asked. “Because you were scared?”
    “No, it wasn’t that.” Alex’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Like I said, some of the girls that Rex started to bring in were in real bad shape. And at first, I
figure it’s none of my business. I mean, they’re all adults and can do what they like, right?”
    “But then something happened,” I said, trying to help him along with this story he clearly didn’t relish telling.
    He nodded, his face suddenly stricken. “It was when they brought in that young girl.”
    I took out the picture of the underage Jean Harlow look-alike and put it down in front of Alex. “You mean her?”
    He reached out and took me by the wrist. “I didn’t take that one—you have to believe me.”
    I recoiled from his touch. “If you didn’t, who did?”
    “Rex shows up with the girl, and she’s out of it, like she was drunk or drugged or something. And Rex is barking orders at her, telling her to do what he says or else. I tell Rex
I’m calling the police. He says, I do that, and he’ll make sure me and my dad take the fall for it. Says he knows the right cops and nothing will ever stick to him.”
    Alex’s face turned red and blotchy as he fought to keep from sobbing.
    “I should have called them anyway. I should have at least taken that girl away from them and gotten her to a hospital or something. But I was scared. In the end, I told Rex I
wouldn’t do it, that we were done, for him to get out.”
    “So that’s how it ended?” I asked, knowing full well it wasn’t. Rex didn’t seem like a man accustomed to being told no. “He just took the girl and
left?”
    “No,” said Alex. “I didn’t throw them out. I tried, but Rex let me have it pretty good. While I was down, he dragged me into the showroom and locked me there. He took the
pictures himself, and then he left. Took my camera with him, too.”
    “Too bad,” I said, not very convincingly.
    “Lay off,” he said. “I don’t have to tell you any of this. And I wouldn’t, except that little girl is on my conscience.”
    “What was her name?”
    “I’m not sure,” he said. “Like I said, nobody around here uses real names anyway.”
    Alex kept talking, making excuses for the role he’d played, trying to confess this girl off his conscience. Some parts I believed, others I didn’t. The longer he went on, the more it
became the version of the story that Alex had decided was the