"You talk with Utley?" I said.

"Not yet."

"What's in the deal for you?" Corsetti said.

"Fifty percent."

"Management?"

"We don't put a bunch of money in something, we don't get a say in how it goes."

"They cool with that?" I said.

"He was. I'm not so sure she was," Arnie said. "Don't know about Utley, if she's still in it."

"You think she might not be?" I said.

"No idea," Arnie said. "Long as we got our guy in place, we don't care who's in or out."

"Any other problems," Corsetti said.

Arnie shrugged.

"Stuff needed to be cleared up. Property acquisition in each city. Who had to be greased in each city. Sources of employees… I mean, your average young housewife in suburban Dallas or someplace may not want to be a whore."

"Hard to imagine," I said.

Arnie shrugged. "You don't invest a lot of money in something," he said, "without knowing the answers to all your questions."

"Due diligence," Corsetti said.

"Exactly."

58

"How did you know where I live?" Patricia Utley said when she let me into her apartment.

"I'm a detective," I said. "What happened to your face?"

She shook her head without answering me, and we sat in her living room. Her face was swollen and bruised.

"Somebody hit you," I said.

She shook her head again.

"Would you like coffee?" she said. "A drink?"

"Coffee," I said.

She went to the kitchen. She didn't move as if she were hurt. She was steady on her feet. I looked around the livingroom. Tasteful, expensive, maybe too preplanned, maybe a little too much the look of a decorator. But nice. In a small while she came back and gave me my coffee in a big white mug with a painted red apple on it. Then she sat across from me on the sofa. She looked as pulled together as she always did, which was impressive since I had arrived in midafternoon, unannounced. Her makeup was covering her bruises as artfully as it could.

"You did not come here for coffee," she said. "What do you want?"

"What's going on among you and Lionel and April?" I said.

I felt good about "among." Spenser, gumshoe and linguist.

Patricia Utley looked at me for a while. She was too smart to think she could pretend there was nothing. She knew that I must know, or I wouldn't be asking the question.

"After I talked to you last," she said, "I called her and asked her about Lionel and the other houses. She denied everything. Said Lionel had been trying to horn in, but she had refused. Said he tried to force her and she had to hire you. She said you put a stop to it. But that you seemed somewhat too interested in the business yourself and she had to fire you."

"Always wanted to be a pimp," I said.

"I know. I was skeptical of her, and when she told me that, I knew it wasn't true and I wondered if anything she told me were true. I pressed her. She became very upset. She said she was grateful to me for giving her the chance to run the Boston house. She said that she had nothing further to do with Lionel, and the harder I pressed her on that, the more upset she became. Finally I said, 'Okay, we'll agree that Lionel is history, and that he is not now, nor will he be, involved with your business-and mine.' She agreed."

The light from the declining sun was reflecting off a window in the building across the street and making a small prismatic rainbow on the wall behind Patricia Utley. She didn't appear to notice. She was looking at her hands, clasped in her lap. I waited. She didn't say anything.

"And?" I said after a while.

"She began to talk about her Dreamgirl idea. She wondered if I might wish to invest."

"Did you?"

"No. She assured me that she would not exploit our business in Boston, or anywhere else, but that she was looking for financing and, if I didn't want to be involved, did I know anyone."

"Who could lend her money so she could compete with you," I said.

Patricia Utley shrugged slightly.

"That doesn't seem a serious threat to me," she said. "This is a girl's fantasy. I'm going to be a princess as soon as I can find the right prince to help me."

"Did you send her to anyone?" I said.

"No. I have contacts in this city, financial sources. But I didn't want to compromise them. I didn't want to be the one to send her to someone who would regret doing business with her."

"She's unraveling," I said.

"Yes. Before our eyes," Patricia Utley said. "I have liked her especially, partly because you sent her to me, but…" She shook her head. "The life she has led is catching up to her."

"Your life hasn't unraveled you," I said.

"My life is not her life," Patricia Utley said. "I got into the sex business because, frankly, I liked sex, and it seemed easy money. And, early, I got into the management end of it."

"Where liking sex didn't matter."

"Where I could choose who to have sex with," she said, "and never mix it with business."

"For April, sex mixes with everything," I said.

"Your girlfriend could probably explain it," Patricia Utley said. "I only know that it's so."

"My girlfriend can explain everything," I said.

"You are very lucky," Patricia Utley said.

"Yes," I said. "I am."

"More coffee," she said.

"Thank you, no."

We were quiet again.

"We'll get to the bruises eventually," I said.

She was still looking at her hands. She nodded slowly.

I waited.

"I got a visit," she said gently, still looking down, almost as if she were talking to herself. "From a man named Arnie Fisher."

"You know Fisher?" I said.

"I knew of him. We had never met. He told me that April and Lionel wanted investment money from the DeNucci family," she said.

"He said DeNucci?"

"No. He said his people, but I know who his people are."

I nodded.

"He said that they told him I was the third partner in the deal," Patricia Utley said. "That I had a proven track record running this sort of thing. They said that they had already established three Dreamgirl sites."

Patricia Utley shook her head sadly.

"One in Boston," she said. "One in Philly. One in New Haven."

"These are bad amateurs," I said.

"Yes. Imagine scamming the DeNucci family?"

"You spoke up?" I said.

She raised her head and smiled at me without very much oomph.

"Yes. I said I had nothing to do with Dreamgirl, that April was an amatuer, and that Farnsworth was dishonest and incompetent."

"What did Fisher say?"

"Very little. He listened. He nodded. When I was through he thanked me and said he'd like to talk with me again, if I were willing."

"Were you willing."

"I said I was always willing to talk."

I sat back a little on my chair, looking at the rainbow on the wall. It had shifted position as the sun sank and the angle of reflection changed. It had also elongated.

"And when they had lunch downtown," I said, "with Arnie and Brooks DeNucci, Arnie told them no deal unless Lionel were out. And, maybe, you were in."

She shrugged.

"And they came roaring up here to talk you into it and there was an argument and somebody hit you."

"April," Patricia Utley said. "She was crazy. She said it was her chance and she was going to make it happen. We talked and talked, but I wouldn't budge. They said it was a lock if I were in, that was Farnsworth's word, a 'lock.' And I said I was not in and would never be in, if he were involved. We argued about that some more until I said that it was futile and asked them to leave. I stood. We walked to the door. And she started quite suddenly and without a word to hit me. First a slap and then with her fists."

"What did you do?" I said.

"I was as much startled as hurt at first, and I covered up and backed away. She came after me, hitting me."