Janet bends over the keyboard and punches out a message to her cybervisitor. Straightening, she announces, “Larry, you’re still under arrest, so don’t try anything funny. Call me back in twenty.”
Once more she taps the keyboard and the screen goes black. Then she steps around the aluminum tripod racks on which the hot photo lights are mounted and jerks the plug from the wall. She swipes the shades off her face and tosses them on the coffee table.
“Wanna Bud?” she asks me.
“Sure.”
“Or something stronger?”
“Whatever you’re drinking is fine.”
We move to the kitchen, where the temperature is at least fifteen degrees cooler. Janet hands me her last beer and pops opens a cola for herself.
“See, it’s Meter Maid-Cam,” she says. “You know about this stuff? You on the Net? How it happened, I was sorta between jobs and this girlfriend a mine, about my age, tells me I can make real good money just by… well, she strips, you know, all the way down to her birthday suit. Myself, I stop with my undies. Anyhow, my girlfriend helped set it all up, got me my own Web site and 900 number and so forth. Her deal is Convent-Cam, she and three other girls dress up as Dominican nuns. You mighta read about ’em in Salon.” Janet tilts the Coke for a long drink.
“The meter maid theme is good,” I say supportively.
Janet nods. “It was my idea. Because most guys got a thing for lady cops. Don’t you?”
“I try not to sleep with authority figures.”
“I bet you could.” Janet’s tone is clinical, not suggestive. “Anyhow, you probably think it’s pretty sleazy, the whole setup.”
“I think it’s none of my business.”
“Four bucks a minute, Jack, that’s what these gomers pay me to give ’em a ‘parking ticket.'”
“In your bra and panties.”
“Yeah, but still… ”
“It’s good money,” I agree.
“This guy Larry”—Janet, cutting her eyes toward the living room—”he likes me to write him up for double-parking his timber rig in front of a massage parlor. That’s his secret fantasy, I guess. He’s calling all the way from Fairbanks, Alaska. Now, ask me do I care if he’s whacking off in Fairbanks, Alaska, while he’s staring at me in my underpanties on his PC? Not really, Jack. For four bucks a minute he can tie his cock in a knot and clobber a moose with it, far as I’m concerned.”
“Don’t give him any ideas.”
Janet laughs. “I try not to think about what’s going on at the other end, but half these guys, they do a play-by-play. I guess they learn to type with one hand or somethin’. Hey, you’re not drinkin’ that beer.”
“I went to your brother’s funeral today,” I say.
“Oh.” Janet adjusts the toy holster and sits down on a stool at the counter. “I couldn’t pull myself together. I got dressed up all in black and gassed the car but I couldn’t make the damn thing drive to the church.”
“I understand, believe me. You want a review?”
“Just tell me Cleo didn’t sing.”
“I’m afraid she did.”
Janet groans and slaps her hands to her cheeks.
“Not that ‘Me’ song!”
“It’s probably best you weren’t there.”
“Jimmy woulda puked. Don’t tell me any more, ‘kay?” Janet looks up at the wall clock.
I say, “The reason I stopped by—”
This is the ball game. Without Jimmy’s sister I’m done. I’ll never get the newspaper to go after the story.
“—it’s about the autopsy,” I say. “Are you going to pursue it? Do you want to?”
“How? I don’t have enough to take to the cops.” Janet shakes her head. “Anyways, I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“I do.”
Her smile is grateful but sad. “You know, I haven’t slept a night since he died. I can’t believe it happened the way they said it did. Fact, I can’t believe a word that greedy no-talent twat says.”
“Think she murdered him?”
“Well, somethin’s not right,” Janet says quietly. “I honestly don’t know. You’re the reporter, what do you think?”
“Did your brother have any money?”
“Any money left, you mean. Sure he did. Even in the bad old days Jimmy was pretty sharp—whatever he blew on dope, he’d make sure to send the same amount to Smith Barney. For a junkie my brother was very disciplined. That’s how come he could afford a place in the islands.”