"Pamela?"
"Yes."
"That’s not possible. Pamela didn’t use drugs."
"I know that, but I believe that anybody who knew anything about it had to die. Pamela was just runnin’ with the wrong people."
"I’ll try not to take that personally." She rolled her eyes at me and turned away, but she turned back quickly. "If that’s the case, then what makes you think that Jake isn’t dead too?"
"Because Chilly is still looking for him."
"How do you know that?"
"Trust me." I thought about telling her that he gave me five grand to find Jake, but she didn’t need to know that. Or the fact that he had somebody keeping tabs on her account and that Chilly wanted to know about the money that she gave Ben Josephs. "Anyway, as far as I could tell, Chilly hasn’t killed him. But he is nowhere to be found. So I guess that concludes our business."
"I guess it does" Mrs. Childers said and gave me a strange look. "Did you talk to Rocky?"
"That’s something else I wanted to ask you."
"What’s that?"
"What type of relationship do you have with Rocky?"
"He’s a friend of Jake’s. Why?"
"Your friend?"
"Well — "
"Well?"
"Well, not really. Me and Rocky don’t speak to each other anymore. We haven’t spoken since before I left Philly."
"Why?"
"I don’t think that’s any of your business."
"Mrs. Childers, you made all this my business. What happened between you two?" She frowned up and looked away. The waiter finally came to take my order. "Hennessy Martini for the lady, and I’ll have Johnnie Black, straight up." Once the waiter departed to get our drinks, I went back to the question. "What happened, Mrs. Childers?"
She rolled her eyes and looked away. "Do you remember me telling you that I did some things that I’m not proud of to get away from Philly?"
"And?"
"I asked Rocky for the money so I could get away from there. He told me he would give me the money and that I should come by his apartment to pick it up. When I got there he tells me to come in the bedroom. When we get in there, he tells me that I could have the money, but I had to fuck him first."
"Pathetic."
"I was a virgin, Nick, so I told him that I couldn’t do that. I started to leave, but I wanted to get away from there and I knew that nobody else was gonna give me the money. So I did it. I cried the whole time, but he didn’t care. After he was done with me, Rocky said he was sorry and gave me the money. I took it and left."
"I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed it." What else could I say?
"No, you shouldn’t have." When the waiter returned with our drinks, Mrs. Childers drank hers down like water. "Can we get out of here?"
"Sure. Where do you want to go?"
"I don’t care, anywhere." She threw some money on the table. "Just come ride with me." She got up without waiting for an answer. I shot my drink and headed out the door behind her.
We drove around for a while and ended up at her house in Nyack. After she opened up the house she went to make us a drink. I sat on the couch and watched her as she poured. I had noticed that she wasn’t making eye contact with me when she talked. There was fear and uncertainty in her eyes. She handed me my drink and sat down across from me and started to talk.