Title: Hundred-Dollar Baby
Author(s): Robert B. Parker
Publisher(s): No Exit Press
Pages: 165
Year: 2006
Format: MOBY
Language: English
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We spent a few more minutes on the phone in adolescent sex talk. When we hung up, I went to the hotel window and looked down at Madison Avenue. Had April wanted Leonard to kill Ollie? If so, why hadn$prime;t she gone to Tony when Leonard suggested it? Or maybe she didn$prime;t need to because someone else had done it. Or maybe she had someone else in mind and it wasn$prime;t time yet. Or maybe Tony was lying, or Leonard, or April. Or all of them in concert.
I made myself a drink and stood sipping it at the window. It seemed that April and Lionel had, at least at one time, been engaged in trying to establish a chain of upscale bordellos, the first few of which at least they were hoping to steal from Patricia Utley. They seemed to have fallen out, but maybe they hadn$prime;t. April seemed to not only want Dreamgirl to happen, she needed it. She seemed positively obsessed with it. I was pretty sure she couldn$prime;t go it alone. She didn$prime;t seem to like men much, but she did seem to need at least one to depend on. Maybe at first it was Lionel. Then maybe Ollie. Then maybe me. Which would explain her making a pass at me. If she needed a man, sex was what she used. It was why she didn$prime;t warm to Tedy Sapp. On him, sex was useless.
I drank a small, pleasant swallow of my drink. There was a lot of ice in the glass. The drink tasted clean.
Sex hadn$prime;t worked with me, either. Now who? Back to Lionel? Maybe that was the real thrust of her talk with Leonard. Would you kill someone for me. Maybe it was a test. If he said he$prime;d kill someone for her, maybe he could be the man who helped her. Referring her to Tony meant he probably hadn$prime;t passed the test. Or maybe he had passed the test and was covering himself with Tony. There was a lot I didn$prime;t know. But working with what I did know, Lionel still seemed the logical choice to be re-anointed. Which was too bad. Lionel wouldn$prime;t take care of April. To him she$prime;d be prey.