"I haven't had a lot of reason to trust straight men," she said.
"You used to turn tricks?" I said.
"Sure. You think I bought a franchise?"
"Just being polite," I said.
"A bunch of fat guys with hair on their back," she said. "Usually drunk, telling me they loved me. Telling me that they were going to give me the fuck of my life."
She laughed. It was a very unpleasant sound in the soft Georgia night. The yellow cat turned his head and looked at her without emotion.
I waited.
"What a hoot!" she said.
"You're a lesbian," I said.
"How'd you know?"
"I'm a professional detective," I said.
"Sapp told you."
"Yes, but I questioned him closely."
"Lot of the girls are lesbians," she said.
"What's love got to do with it," I said.
"Exactly," she said.
The yellow cat turned his head back toward the dark lawn, then silently disappeared off the railing. There was a scurrying in the bushes and a small squeak and then silence. I waited some more.
"Sapp's a good man," Polly said.
"Seems so to me," I said.
"You was smarter," Polly said, "maybe you'd ask me about Stonie Clive."
"Cord Wyatt's wife?"
"Yes."
"Tell me about her," I said.
"She worked for me for a while."
"When?"
"Two years ago."
"You know who she was?"
"Not at the time."
"How'd you recruit her?"
"She came to me. Said she'd heard about me. She said she had always wanted to do this kind of work and could I take her on? She was a nice-looking girl. Upperclass. I figured she'd do well."
"So she actually worked."
"Yes. But here's the cool part. I service a truck stop on the Interstate, up by Crawfordville. Normally I send the worst girls up there. Mostly it's head in the cab of some ten-wheeler at twenty bucks a throw. Stonie wanted that."
"BJ's at a truck stop?" I said.
"If you don't waste a lot of time talking," Polly said, "you can make a pretty good night's pay."
"Why would she need money?" I said.
A little light spilled out onto the veranda through the screen door. It was enough so that I could see her shrug.
"She's not still with you?" I said.
"No. Left about six, eight months ago."
"With no notice?"
Polly almost smiled.
"Nope, just stopped showing up. Lot of girls do that."
"How'd you find out who she was?"
"Saw her picture in the paper, some big racetrack thing."
"You're sure it was Stonie?"
"I know my girls," Polly said.
"She ever say why she wanted to do this?"
"Nope."
"You have any theories?" I said.
She rocked some more.
"Most of the girls it's simple. They got no education. They got no skills. They need money. So they do this. Some girls do it because they get something out of exploiting men."
"The men are often thought to be exploiting them," I said.
"Uh-huh."
I could tell that Polly had her own position on exploitation.
"Some girls just like it," she said.
"Truck stops at twenty bucks a pop?"
"Not usually. But everybody's different."
"You think Stonie liked it?"
"No."
"It wasn't the money," I said.
"I don't think it was the money," Polly said.
"Exploit men?"
"Maybe a little of that," Polly said. "But"
She rocked for a time, thinking about it.
"You know her husband's a chicken fucker?"
"I know," I said.
"I think she was getting even," Polly said.
SEVENTEEN
"SO WHAT DO you think?" I said.
I was lying in my shorts on the bed in the Holiday Inn in Lamarr, Georgia, talking on the phone to Susan in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She said she was in bed. Which meant that she had her hair up, and some sort of expensive glop on her face. The TV would be on, though she would have muted it when the phone rang. Almost certainly, Pearl was asleep beside her on the bed.
"I think you're trapped inside the first draft of a Tennessee Williams play."
"Without you," I said.
"I know."
"You're in bed?" I said.
"Yes."
"Naked?"
"Not exactly."
"White socks, gray sweatpants, a white T-shirt with a picture of Einstein on it?"
"You remember," she said.
"Naked makes for better phone sex," I said.
"Pretense is a slippery slope," she said.
Her voice was quite light, and not very strong, but when she was amused there were hints of a contralto substructure that enriched everything she said.
"Don't you shrinks ever take a break?" I said.
"So many fruitcakes," Susan said, "so little time."
"How true," I said. "What do you think of Polly Brown's theory that Stonie goes to truck stops to avenge herself on her husband?"
"It would be better if I had a chance to talk with her," Susan said.
"I'll be your eyes and ears," I said.
"Have you talked with her?"
"Once, at a cocktail party, for maybe a minute."
"Oh, that'll be fine then," Susan said. "No therapist could ask for more."
"Gimme a guess," I said.
"Her husband is actively gay, with a special interest in young men," Susan said.
"Yes."
"Would you say that she would experience that as him having sex in the most inappropriate way possible?"
"Yes."
"And is that what she's doing?"
"Seems so. So it is revenge?"
"Could be. Tit for tat. People often are very crude in their pathologies."