Stuart Woods - Choke

“Was it a woman you were avoiding?” he asked the girl.

“You could say that,” Charlie replied. “You could also call her a snake.”

“Is her name Clare Carras?”

“It was Clare Connor when I knew her.”

“She’s checked out by now; the coast is clear.”

They paid for their groceries and started back to the boat.

“Where did you know her?” Chuck asked.

“In Vegas; she was a pro.”

It took Chuck a moment to figure out that she wasn’t talking about tennis. “You mean she was a hooker?”

“No, I was a hooker; she was my boss.”

“Oh?” Chuck said, his eyebrows going up.

“Don’t be so shocked,” Charlie said. “Dan knows about it; it’s okay with him.”

“I didn’t mean to seem shocked,” Chuck replied. “It’s just that I was…”

“Shocked,” Charlie said.

“Okay, shocked.”

“Clare was running a string out of the Empress Hotel, and she was married to the tennis pro at the hotel. She was an absolute bitch.”

Chuck stopped and looked at her. “What was the tennis pro’s name?”

“Connor, I guess. I never knew his first name.”

“That is really strange,” Chuck said. “The guy I work for here is named Connor, and he’s a tennis pro.”

“Probably not the same guy,” she said.

“Probably not.” Chuck was thinking about that.

“Go ahead, ask me,” Charlie said.

“What?”

“Ask me the question.”

“What question?”

“The one every man asks me: What was it like being a pro?”

“Okay, what was it like being a pro?”

“It was fun.”

“Fun? I always thought it would be damned hard work.”

“Well, the hours could be long, but the money was great, and the sex was good.”

Chuck stopped in his tracks. “The sex was good? Even when you were…”

“Doing it all the time? Sure it was. Most of the girls I knew-those who weren’t dykes-were in it for the sex.”

“Not for the money?”

“Sure, for the money, too, but think about it: If you like sex, and I sure do, then you can have all you want by turning pro. People are always saying-if they like their work-that they would do it even if they weren’t being paid for it.”

“I guess I’ve always thought about my work that way,” Chuck admitted. “I’ve always enjoyed it.”

“So did I,” Charlie said. “Do you think that makes me a bad person?”

“No, I guess I don’t.”

“Good,” she said, apparently satisfied.

“Clare was your madam, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“Did she ever…”

“Turn tricks? I’m not sure I would call it that-not for the kind of money she got for it.”

“What kind of money?”

“Well, most of us were in the two-to-five-hundred bracket,” Charlie said. “Then there were a few absolute knockouts who got a thousand to fifteen hundred, but Clare, rumor had it, got five grand a pop.”

“Five thousand dollars?”

“For an hour.”

Chuck wondered what his tab would have been if he had been paying. “That’s astonishing.”

“Well, it was just a rumor among the girls. We never knew for sure, but once in a while-every couple of weeks or so-some dandy John would turn up, and Clare would disappear with him-always for a drink, she would say.”

They had reached Choke and were ready to go aboard.

“Charlie,” Chuck said, “would you do me a favor?”

“What kind of favor?”

“There’s a guy I know I’d like you to meet.”

“No thanks, Chuck, I’m out of the game,” she said.

“No, you don’t understand; he’s a cop, not a potential client.”

“Is this connected with the trouble you’re supposed to be in?”

“Yes.”

“Well, if I can help, sure.”

“Thanks, Charlie; I appreciate it very much.”

“No problem.”

They went aboard and Chuck surrendered the steaks to Meg. All through dinner he thought about what Charlie had told him, but he couldn’t make any sense of it. Maybe Tommy Sculley could.

Tommy and Daryl had just taken seats in the chief’s office when the chief’s secretary came in. “There’s a Chuck Chandler to see you,” she said to Tommy.

“Chief,” Tommy said, “do you mind if we see Chandler before we bring you up to date?”

The chief leafed through his calendar. “In an hour and a half,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Tommy said, and led the way from the room. Chuck was in the foyer with a very pretty woman. “What’s up?” Tommy asked.

“There’s some new information you ought to know about,” Chuck replied. “Can we talk somewhere?”

“Sure, follow me.” Tommy led them to an interrogation room, and everybody took a seat.

“This is Charlie,” Chuck said. “Detectives Sculley and Haynes.”

“How do you do?” Tommy said.

“Tommy, Charlie is living aboard the boat next to mine, and yesterday we were in the Waterfront Market when we saw Clare Carras. Charlie, tell him what you told me.”

Tommy listened, rapt, as Charlie told her story, not interrupting her. When she had finished he sat there grinning.

“Is this helpful?” Chuck asked.

“Very possibly,” Tommy replied. “Folks, I thank you for the information, and I’ll be in touch.” He stood up and shook Charlie’s hand.

“Aren’t you going to ask Charlie any questions?” Chuck asked.

“Charlie is a very thorough young lady,” Tommy said. “If we need to know more we’ll get ahold of her. And Charlie, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know if you should decide to leave town.”

“Sure,” Charlie said.

“Let’s start again,” Tommy said to the chief. “We’ve just had some new information that’s very interesting.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” the chief said. “Tell me.”

“At our last meeting I told you my theory of another man who helped Clare Carras murder her husband.”

“I remember,” the chief replied.

“Now we think we may know who the man is.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Listen to this: the Olde Island Racquet Club is run by a man named Merkle Connor, called Merk. We looked into his background and learned that he has a history of playing around with other men’s wives. In fact, it almost got him court-martialed when he was in the army. He was having it off with his commanding officer’s wife.”

“Interesting parallel,” the chief said.

“Right, and there’s more. As a result of his philandering, Merk got shipped up to the Aleutians, where his daily work was setting explosive charges on a road they were building.”

“Ties in nicely with the exploding yacht, doesn’t it?”

“Right. And remember, when the yacht went up, both Chuck Chandler and the other instructor, Victor Brennan, were having dinner with the Carrases at Louie’s.”

“But not Merk.”

“Not Merk.”

“I like this, Tommy.”

“There’s more, Chief. We’ve just had the most enormous break in tying this all together. A girl who’s visiting on the island recognized Clare Carras in the grocery store. She knew Clare from Las Vegas and said that the lady was a high-class madam there, and get this, she was married to a tennis pro named Connor.”

“Our boy Merk?”

“That’s my guess, Chief.”

“They’re divorced now?”

“Right. We knew that Merk had gotten clobbered financially in a divorce, but we had no idea it was a divorce from Clare.”

“So they got back together?”

“It’s happened before. How many guys get divorced, then marry their ex-wives again? Happens all the time.”

“Except this time, the lady already had a husband.”