That's the name of the book I just finished reading. It's by one of my favorite authors, Robert B. Parker. He created the characters Spenser, Hawk and Susan Silverman (eventually made into the tv show Spenser: For Hire starring the late Robert Urich). It's one of his newer books I don't own yet (I have most of them and at least a third of them in hardback), so this copy is from the library.
I can usually fly through these books, they are an easy read (I started it last night about 24 hours ago and just finished) and quite involved. One thing Mr. Parker does is maintain a continuity in his characters. Ones that appeared 15-20 years ago (the first book came out in the early 70's) still pop up every now and again. To get to the meat of why I'm posting this, we have to go back and look at a couple earlier books.
First was The Widening Gyre. It's about a baseball player married to a wonderful girl who used to work as a call girl. Someone's trying to blackmail them because of her. Spenser comes in and stops it. This book introduces us to Patricia Utley who was the "madame" (for lack of a better term) who the wife used to work for (and how she met her husband).
Then there was Ceremony. Ceremony is about a young girl named April Kyle who was abused sexually by her father and then turned out for "being a whore." It was made into a decent tv movie starring Robert Urich (a couple of the others based on the books, made by Lifetime, weren't so hot), but they changed the ending drastically. In the book, April is shipped from one spot to another, diving deeper -- not by choice -- and deeper into the worst type of prostitution imaginable. At the end of the book, Spenser realizes that April is either going to remain a prostitute (not a good choice) or will go into the protection of the state of Massachusetts (also not a good choice at the time). So, he opts for the former, but in a different way. He takes April to Patricia Utley in New York, where she learns proper etiquette, how to order properly in fine restaurants, how to walk, talk, speak properly, be informed, etc. To become an escort in the broadest sense of the term, not just the sexual. It seems like the best Spenser can do to save her.
Taming a Seahorse is one of my favorite titles for a book. Mr. Parker is quite well-read in classical literature and Spenser is as well, as a matter of course. Most of the titles are literary quotes to one point or another. I don't remember where this one came from and I don't really want to go look it up at the moment. Taming a Seahorse has Patricia Utley calling in Spenser this time to help with April Kyle once again because she has "fallen in love" and run off. There is some philosophical discussions as to whether a whore can fall in love throughout the book. Oh, I forgot to mention that the love of Spenser's life, Susan Silverman is a practicing "shrink" with a PhD from Harvard. His discussions with her about his cases give him some insight into motivations of the other characters. Spenser and Susan's discussions about April continue to grow in this book and about "love." One of April's clients has convinced her that he loves her, has her leave Ms. Utley's employ and still turn tricks for him, but they plan on starting their own escort service starring April. And that's why she's still turning tricks for him. Spenser steps in and saves her from herself again, but it costs him. He can see that it isn't easy.
And now with a return after about 20 years since Taming, we have Hundred-Dollar Baby. I was shocked when I read the line, "It's me, April." I knew Spenser was in for some tough times, with what he's been through "saving" her before on two occasions. This time was no exception. I'm going to put the rest behind a cut because I plan on putting some major spoilers in, so those of you wanting to continue, you can check behind the cut.
April is still working for Patricia Utley (after Spenser returned her in Taming a Seahorse) and is now in the Boston area running a "franchise" for Ms. Utley. April is in charge of a mansion that has some local escorts, all as elegant, trained, and sensual as she is. She asks Spenser for help because she has someone harassing her. Throughout the whole book, she lies to him, telling only half-truths and enough to keep him going. One thing about this character is she despises men, but needs to be dependent on one in her life. She constantly turns from Spenser to Ollie, to Hawk, to Lionel (a player who's playing her and helping reinforce this hatred of men, but she returns to him more than once) to be dependent on a male.
April, with the help of Lionel (who did time for swindling money out of women) is attempting to embezzle money from the franchise that she is running so she can open her own franchise as sole owner (with Lionel). But she doesn't want to depend on a man for anything. What she doesn't get (and its one of the major flaws in her character) is that her business RELIES on men as customers. It constantly eludes her.
Spenser refuses her sexual advances when she tries to get him to kill Ollie, as does a couple other men. And she doesn't like the homosexual thug that Spenser brings in to help because she can't use sex on him at all to try and control him. When Spenser causes her plans to come crashing down (it's not HER fault, it's got to be HIS, he's a MAN), she comes on to Hawk to ask him to kill Spenser. Hawk, of course, tells Spenser this for reasons way too involved to go into here. When Spenser confronts April with all his information the next day, she tries to remain aloof, or act like it's absurd, nothing is true... Until he brings up Hawk. Then she realizes she can't get out of it. She pulls out the gun she used to kill at least two people, points it at Spenser (who's expecting it and is wearing Kevlar under his clothes that she is unaware of), screams "Fuck you," then puts the gun in her mouth and pulls the trigger.
He knew it was coming. He knew that if he didn't kill her, that if she killed him, Hawk would kill her.
I knew it was coming, but for some reason it still disturbed me. It's not that I didn't like the ending. It was the only logical ending that book could have. And it says a LOT about Spenser's character, as well as Mr. Parker's writing that it could move me like this. But knowing that no matter what Spenser did (and his efforts are truly Herculean), he couldn't save this one poor girl, one more time. Especially not from herself. And that disturbs me because I am SURE there are people out there, not just women but men/boys too, that are in similar predicaments. One part of Ceremony that I'll never forget is when Spenser is in The Combat Zone (the sleazy part of Boston much like the old Times Square before it got cleaned up) showing pictures of April to the other hookers, asking if they'd seen her. One asks why he's looking for her. He replies he's trying to save her. "Oh yeah? You gonna save me too?" she responds. And it hits him that he can't save them all and the only reason Spenser is looking for April Kyle is because he was paid to. That made April HIS responsibility. But if he could have, I'm sure that he would have tried to save them all. And knowing things like that doesn't help me sleep any better at night, especially with a baby on the way.
