As Pretty Does


I wake up twisted in a green chair, legs over one ratty arm, head lolling on the cat-clawed padding. It’s cold; the radiators won’t come on until nine. The buses aren’t running yet. The travel alarm, resting on the desk, says 6:30.

Last night’s bourbon bottle rests on the tile floor, beside my chair. I lever myself with wobbly arms out of the chair and cross on shaking legs to the john. I feel like hell, but I remind myself that I’ve earned it, and at least I’m not throwing up this time. I investigate my symptoms, running my swollen tongue around a parched mouth. My instinct is to know the truth, however ugly, like people who can’t help ogling roadside accidents. Maybe, like them, I get a kick out of it. I don’t put the light on—the glare would knock me down—but I take a long, careful look in the mirror.

It’s about what I expected. Eyes like pickled onions; scaly skin, chapped lips. Hair like a strawberry blond string mop. A narrow, dimpled chin once described as angelic. The pretty detective, Leigh McCourt, once a graduate of Stanford University, now divorced and, most evenings, very drunk. I’ve just turned 30, though, and my excesses rarely show. In fact, if I weren’t so hungover, I’d be downright adorable.

But I am hungover, and not in that, “The concert was fantastic and we got sooo wasted!” kind of way. This is more like, I’m alone and broke, I lost my apartment when it all fell apart, so I sit in this gray-walled, cigar-reeking, filing cabinet of a room and drink cheap liquor, watching the fog roll in at sunset and sweep the nighttime streets until either morning eventually arrives or I pass out.

The diner’s full by the time I’m presentable, so I perch at the bar with the drivers and cops and Molly pours me a cup of coffee. “The usual?” she says, in a businesslike way; harassed, but still somehow kindly. I nod, and a couple of minutes later, she sets a plateful of hot food down in front of me. I can’t even look at it; the scrambled eggs like brain matter and the round of sausage resting in gray-cream gravy—my stomach gives a heave. I choke down the coffee, pay the bill with a big tip for Molly and head back to the office. The fog chills and envelopes me, forming droplets on the inside of my nose when I inhale. My buttoned coat flaps around me—I’ve lost weight— and I can feel the heel on one shoe’s about to go. Right now, the only difference between me and the bums in the Tenderloin is that I’m still making it to work.

In front of my locked door stands a woman, a wealthy woman, all sleek furs and gold rings and lips like roses dipped in blood. She gives me the once-over, finds me appalling, but follows me inside anyway.

“You are Leigh McCourt?” she asks, ignoring my offer of a seat. I nod, being used to people mistaking me for someone else. I can’t help it: I just don’t look like a detective. I take the chair behind the desk, to keep the light out of my eyes, and ask what I can do for her. She stares at me for a moment, then lifts her shoulders in a tiny, who-cares shrug.

“My son is involved with a slut,” she announces, sounding annoyed. “A real little gold-digger. Pretty enough, if you like trash. He plans to marry her and I want him stopped.”

“I don’t usually take domestic cases,” I say blandly, lying outright because I don’t like the look on her face. The one good thing about working for yourself is being able to tell prospective clients to get lost.

The woman was distractedly smoothing a pair of cream kidskin gloves over a film-star manicure.

“She sees other men, so it shouldn’t take you long to get the goods on her. I’ll pay you a hundred a day and expenses. A bonus if he dumps her,” she says, acting like she never heard me. She hands me five fifties. My office rent’s three months late. I take the money.

“Here’s her address. Angie DeLucca. A ‘dancer’. A whore,” she says, handing me a sheet of paper and a photograph. A young man, maybe twenty. Handsome, boyish, serious.

“My son,” says the woman. “He can’t stay away from her. You’ll want to know him from the others. Get some pictures of her with another man, and he’ll change his mind. He’s a fool—but not that big a fool.”

“And what is your name?” I ask, trying to dig just a little under that cold exterior. She gives me that appraising look again, like I’m a dog she may have put down.

“Miranda Wright. My son is David Connors. My stepson, actually. This is very important. Can you start tonight?”

She’s lovely to look at and on a mission to save her son, but I don’t like her. I even hate her perfume, which is beautiful, a sweet, Oriental musk. In itself, it’s beyond reproach. It’s that rich-bitch air of absolute entitlement that infuriates me; contained composure bolstered entirely by financial support, probably by way of a rich husband; her total assurance that, if she throws enough money at me, I’ll do what she wants.

I’d prefer to kick her well-shaped backside downstairs, but instead, I shake her cool hand, pressing her big, square-cut emerald ring into her flesh until she jerks away. Then, I escort her to the door and close it quietly behind her. I pull the half-quart of bourbon from the bottom desk drawer, where I’d stashed it before heading to the diner. I promised myself I wouldn’t touch it until nighttime, but it seems I do that every day.

I unscrew the top and tilt it back. The liquor courses down the neck of the bottle, a hot river tasting of wood and metal and grain. It fills my mouth and the fumes hit me like a million stars falling and for just a minute, very faintly, I remember what it feels like to be alive...


PART 2.

This morning, with my clammy wrists pressing the porcelain of the toilet bowl, retching, resting and retching again, I am as far from alive as I‘ve ever been. The dry heaves persist long after the liquor’s been purged from my body. I’m drenched in sweat and trembling; from a distance, I see myself with loathing. Perhaps from further away, I could manage some pity, but I can’t get that far.

Between waves of nausea, I’m aware that my drinking is completely out of control. I don’t remember last night at all.


Eventually, the heaves stop. I lie on the cool, tile floor until I can pull myself up, wipe the place down and spray some Lysol around. That cool, aldehyde smell is almost a comfort in itself. It’s not even 8 a.m.; I have the building to myself.

I wash at the sink, scrubbing my skin viciously, an act of self-mortification. I plug in the hot plate. A cup of instant goes down and stays there; I look in the mirror over the sink; attempt a little makeup. In my gray skirt, white blouse, and low heels, hair pulled back, I feel invisible.

Recuperating, I spend the day at the Asian Art Museum, with its silent carved Buddhas and gilded screens. Around 3pm, I pay the parking attendant and drive to the Outer Richmond address Miranda Wright had written on a sheet of thick, laid rag paper. Her perfume has penetrated the fibers.

In the avenues, a sudden pall of evening fog hangs high over the street lights, sweeping over the pavement. I drive the two blocks to my station outside Angie DeLucca’s apartment, across the street. I hope the fog doesn’t thicken: I won’t be able to see a thing. I already checked the names and buzzers. Her place faces the street, with a wide window. Darned convenient.

It’s mildly chilly. In the car, I huddle in my coat with a thermos of hot coffee and a pint of brandy from a handy liquor store. Alternating sips, I watch and wait. A slim girl arrives and the apartment light goes on. She doesn’t close the drapes; it’s easy to see her moving from room to room, tidying, carrying a plate from the kitchen, eating alone at a tiny table overlooking the street, a book for company. She pours a glass of wine and I raise my bottle in a toast to loneliness. Angie DeLucca doesn’t act like an adventuress. She drinks a single glass of wine, takes her plate to the kitchen and spends the evening with her face in a book. She crosses the room to answer the phone, but puts it down again in less than a minute. Promptly at eleven, she rises, turns out the living-room lamp and retires. Conceivably the dullest stakeout I’ve ever been on.

But one night does not a stakeout make. I spend four nights sitting outside DeLucca’s place, slumped down in my seat, occasionally using binoculars for a closer glimpse. DeLucca’s dancing in the chorus at one of the more upscale night clubs, so she’s not home until after midnight, but her routine doesn’t vary. She’s good-looking, but not cheap. Her nails are unpolished, her heels are moderate, and she doesn’t smoke. She reads library books, not glossy magazines. I’d guess there’s a brain tucked under that smooth, shiny blond hair.

When she comes home, she looks like any woman who’s worked a long shift. She’s tired; the corners of her mouth turn down; her feet hurt and she slips off her shoes as soon as she’s in the door. She’s alone: no one ever comes; the phone rarely rings or, if it does, she doesn’t answer it.

On the fourth night, all that changes. I see her rushing in the door, picking up the phone and talking, becoming agitated, slamming the receiver down. She turns, the look on her face is anguished; she dials a number, waits a few moments, hangs up. Now, she’s rushing for her purse, her coat, but it’s too late. A tall man in a perfectly-fitted gray suit strides up the front steps and into the hall, appearing in her doorway. With a shock, I realize he must have called from around the corner, just steps from my car.

As I watch, he is talking, arguing and Angie is shaking her head, “No”. He draws back, slaps her face so hard I see her whirl around from the blow. She’s on the floor, not getting up, and he bends down to sock her again. He draws back a foot and it connects, but the wall below the window blocks my view of the floor. He has the look of a guy who’s just getting started, and that spells trouble for Angie DeLucca.

I don’t know what comes over me, but I’m out of the car, running across the street, fingering the safety catch on my gun, hoping I can get there before it’s too late...

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