Triptych

“It’s Mama,” she told one of her many children. “I need you.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

Angie was dead tired by the time she finished her shift. Thanks to her hard work, a pair of visiting propane salesmen, a truck driver and an unemployed father of three were sitting in jail right now, trying to figure out how they were going to explain to their wives that they had been arrested for soliciting a prostitute. If their explanations were anything like the ones they gave Angie-My wife doesn’t understand me… I get lonely on the road… my kids hate me-they were looking at a long night in a cold cell.

In the scheme of things, Angie figured what she did every day was a pointless endeavor. The Johns still kept coming back, the girls still kept going out. No one was interested in getting to the root of the problem. Angie had spent the last six years getting to know these women. They all had the same stories of sexual abuse and neglect in their pasts; they all had run away from something. It didn’t take a Harvard economist to figure out that it’d be a hell of a lot cheaper spending money on helping keep kids safe when they were younger than it was to put them in jail when they were older. That was the American way, though. Spend a million dollars rescuing some kid who’s fallen down a well, but God forbid you spend a hundred bucks up front to cap the well so the kid never falls down it in the first place.

Jasmine Allison was probably one of those lost kids who would never be found. She’d end up on the street with a new name, new attitude, new addictions that a pimp could use to control her. Angie could tell from the way Will talked about the girl that he was worried. He had good reason, considering Jasmine had been paid to make that phone call the night Aleesha was murdered. Angie also knew that there could have been a million other little things that chased the girl from her home. Still, she’d called a couple of guys downtown and asked them to look into the case.

Angie looked at the directions she’d scrawled on the page she’d torn from the phone book. Ken Wozniak was living at a nursing home on Lawrenceville Highway. The charge nurse who had given Angie directions had sounded excited to hear the man was going to have a visitor. Angie had only met Ken a couple of times. She doubted he would even remember her.

Visiting hours were over at ten. Judging from the empty parking lot, Ken wasn’t the only person who didn’t get many guests. The lobby was sparse but clean, with the usual white tiles and fluorescent lights. Some fake flowers were on a table in the small waiting area and a water cooler burped as she walked to the receptionist’s desk.

The man leaned back in his chair, a knowing smile on his face as he looked Angie up and down, taking in every inch of her whore’s outfit with the kind of sneer that said he knew exactly what she was and how much she should cost. He laced his fingers behind his head, making his shirt ride up so that she could see his bloated, hairy belly.

He licked his lips, asked, “How much?”

Angie reached into her purse and pulled out her badge.

The guy literally fell out of his chair. He scrambled to stand back up, mumbling, “I was just-”

“I’m here to see Ken Wozniak.”

“Oh, God.” His voice shook as he tried to right the chair. “I need this job.”

She wondered if he needed it so he could diddle the old ladies while they slept in their beds. “Take a pill, Cletus, I’m not here to bang you up.”

“I just-”

“Wozniak,” she repeated. “Where is he?”

His hands trembled as he tapped something into the computer keyboard. “Up the hall and to the left. Room three-ten. Jesus, lady, I’m sorry, okay? I’ve never done this before.”

“Yeah, right. Me, either.”

Angie’s spiked heels clicked as she walked up the hallway. She could still see the way the prick receptionist had leered at her when she walked in the front door. That knowing look on his face like she was just a hole he was going to fuck. By the time she got to room three-ten, she felt about two feet tall.

“Hello?” she called, knocking on the door. Over the blare of the television, she heard a pleasant kind of grunt that she took as an invitation to come in.

“Ehn,” Ken said when he saw her, his mouth curved up on one side as he tried to smile. He had lost about sixty pounds sitting in his wheelchair, and she wondered how he managed to wake up every morning knowing this was the life he had to look forward to.

“Remember me?” Angie asked.

He gave a deep, knowing laugh, as if to say, “How could I forget?”

Angie pulled a chair over and sat across from him. Ken fumbled with the remote in his lap, trying to mute the television. She hated nursing homes almost as much as she hated hospitals, and here she was visiting both in the same day. The chemical stench of disinfectant, the white sheets and flickering lights, reminded her of the first time she had seen her mother after the overdose. Deidre had been lying in bed, her body completely still, her mouth hanging open as if she had been surprised to find herself here. Irreversible coma. Angie was only a kid, but between General Hospital and Days of Our Lives, she knew exactly what that meant: baby, you are fucked.

“Deh,” Ken said. He had finally managed to mute the television.

Angie tried to sound cheerful. “How you been?”

One shoulder went up. He’d certainly been better.

“Stupid question, huh?”

Ken allowed a smile on the side of his face that he could control.

“You can’t talk well?”

“S’bad,” he admitted.

“I’m here about Michael Ormewood.”

He looked at the silent television for a couple of minutes. Finally, he blew out a puff of air.

Angie cut to the chase. “I know he’s an asshole, so you don’t have to bother telling me that.”

Ken nodded.

“Did you know he beats his wife?”

Shock flickered in his eyes.

“Guess not,” Angie said. “I saw her this morning. She looks like he took a bat to her.”

His jaw set and his good hand clenched in his lap. Still a cop, even though he probably couldn’t go to the toilet without someone there to wipe his ass.

Angie leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “I know you didn’t like him. Why? What was it about him that you didn’t like?”

He blew out a noisy stream of air in answer.

Angie shook her head. “I’m not following.”

He blew out some more air.

“Oh,” she said, finally getting it. “Hot air. He’s full of hot air.”

Ken nodded, excited, and she felt like she was playing a painful game of charades.

Still, she couldn’t stop now. “When Michael worked Vice,” she confided, “he was taking advantage of the girls.”

Ken shrugged.

“Is that a ‘what do you expect’ shrug or an ‘I’m not surprised’ shrug?”

He looked at his hand in his lap, the index and middle finger slowly pointing up to show it was the second choice. I’m not surprised.

“I told him to leave or I’d report him, so he left.”

“An ah ga…” His mouth closed. She could see he hated trying to talk. “Ah gah hih.”

“Yeah,” she said. Michael had been assigned as Ken’s partner. “You got him.”

They both sat there, Ken’s mouth working but no noises coming out. Angie tried to keep her face blank, tried not to let on how hard it was seeing him like this.

Finally, he said, “You,” clear enough for anyone to understand him.

“You what?”

He just stared, and Angie realized he was looking straight down her shirt. She straightened up, laughing. “Jesus, Wozniak. You old poon hound.”

“Nah.” He waved her off with his hand. “Nah dah.” He glanced around the room as if he needed a prop. Finally, he looked back at his hands. She watched as he forced his right index finger straight out, then made a circle with his left thumb and index finger. He slid the circle up and down the finger.