Lawrence Sanders - Private Pleasures

It wasn't timidity on his part. He just wanted everyone to be civil-a vain hope, as well I knew.

I'm a liar. I've lied all my life, I admit it. Not because I enjoyed it, but I had to lie if I wanted to survive.

Let me give you a for-instance. I told Marvin McWhortle I was twenty-one when actually I am twenty-six. Thank God I've got the body to get away with it. Besides, men are such shlubs about women's ages, ask them to guess, and they probably won't hit within five years.

Why did I lie to McWhortle? To make myself more attractive to him. I knew porking a twenty-one-year-old would give the geezer's ego a real charge, and that's how it worked out. Also, I call him daddy. He likes that.

If I had had a good education and learned to do something like run a computer or be a nurse, maybe I wouldn't have had to lie. But putting out for him a couple of times a week sure as hell beats selling pantyhose at K Mart. The house is in my name, he can't take that away from me. And the salary I get is I'm not complaining.

Marvin picked me up in a Miami hotel bar. He never asked me what I was doing there. Looking for a fish like him, that's what.

But let me say this, After he set me up in his town, I never cheated on him once-and that's no lie.

I had been living in my house about six months when a guy came to the door and wanted to talk to me. He was well-dressed and all, and his silver Infiniti Q45 was parked at the curb, but I made him for a grifter right away, and believe me I've met a lot of them. It's their cool way, hard eyes, and the way they never blink that tip me off.

"What's it about?" I asked him. "You selling something? " He handed me a card. He was William K. Brevoort, or claimed to be. No company name, no address, just the name and a phone number, engraved yet.

"Okay," I said, "now I know who you say you are and your phone number.

But you haven't answered my question, What do you want to talk to me about?

"About the Snakepit," he said.

I sighed. The Snakepit is a nude dance joint in Miami, and I worked there for almost a year. I quit after the place got busted for the fourth time. That's when I hit the convention circuit, which was how I happened to meet McWhortle.

"All right, Mr. William K. Brevoort, " I said. "What's the game-a shakedown?"

"Far from it," he said. "You don't pay me, I pay you.

The guy looked like a weasel-a long, pointy nose, you know-but he didn't look like a mad rapist or even a strongarm, so I let him in the house. We sat in the living room, and he looked around.

"Nice," he said.

"Is that what you wanted to talk about?" I asked. "My interior decoration?"

He took a notebook from his jacket pocket and began flipping pages and reading out loud, "Jessica Mae Fiddler. Born in Macon, Georgia.

Father deserted family when you were six. One brother in the navy, killed in a fire at sea. Mother died of cancer.

Raised by your Aunt Matilda. You were kicked out of high school as incorrigible. Pot and moonshine. Lied about your age and married Bobbie Lee Sturgeon, a gas jockey. Marriage annulled.

Moved to Atlanta. Busted for loitering for the purpose of prostitution. A fine but no jail time. Moved to Miami. Busted with the other girls at the Snakepit. No convictions. Now you're here in this nice house. Paid for by Marvin McWhortle, owner of McWhortle Laboratory. Have I got it all correct?"

"Close," I said, "but no cigar. You missed the time I got a ticket in Fort Lauderdale for double-parking. How much did it cost you to find out all that stuff?"

"Not much," he said. "It's easy when you know how."

"Why did you go to the trouble?"

"How about offering me a drink?"

"Talk first," I said. "What's on your mind? I know you're not law, your suit is too elegant."

"Nice, he said, stroking his lapel. "Italian gabardine.

You like?"

"Cut the bullshit," I told him, "and make your pitch. If it's blackmail, McWhortle is the one you should be talking to."

He shook his head. "Not blackmail," he said. "Not my style.

I buy and sell information. Buy from people who know and sell to people who want to know."

"So? What's that got to do with me?"

"Does McWhortle ever talk to you about his business?

"Sure he does."

"About new products his lab is working on?"

"Yeah, sometimes he talks about those."

Brevoort stared at me. "Well?" he said.

"What would you like to drink?" I asked him.

And that's how it started. Whenever McWhortle told me about a new project at the lab, or brought me a sample of a new perfume or maybe a new headache pill, laxative, or whatever, I'd give Willie the Weasel a call, and he'd come over to get it. He always paid in cash and he wasn't a tightwad, I'll say that for him.

I never did learn where his office was, if he had one, and I never asked who his customers were. I figured the less I knew, the better-in case he ever got busted for stealing business secrets, you know. I don't think he was spying for Russia or anything like that. His clients were probably competitors of the companies that paid McWhortle Laboratory to develop new products, and I imagined they paid Willie mucho dinero for the information and samples I passed along to him. I got a thousand dollars a pop.

So now I had the house, I was a salaried employee with a Social Security number and paying withholding taxes and all, and in addition I had a safe deposit box that was filling up with the cash Brevoort paid me.

After McWhortle left me on that Monday after noon, I waited a half-hour to make sure he wasn't coming back because he forgot something or wanted an instant replay of our roll in the hay. Then I called Willie.

Most of the times I phoned I'd get his answering machine, but this time he was in. I said I had something for him, and he said he'd be right over. He was there in fifteen minutes-which meant his office or home was nearby, right?

As usual, he looked spiffy. I'll say this for him, He never made a move on me. Of course, he could have been gay, but I don't think so.

I figured he didn't want to start anything because that would give me an edge on him, and he wanted to keep it strictly a business deal. As long as those hundred-dollar bills he handed out were good, I was satisfied.

I had a vodka martini and he had a club soda, while I told him about the big research contract the government had given McWhortle Laboratory to develop a pill that was supposed to make soldiers more aggressive.

"Nice," Brevoort said-his favorite word. "Did he happen to mention any of the ingredients?"

"Testo something."

"Testosterone?

"Yeah, that's it. They call it the ZAP pill."

"Uh-huh," he said. "Keep asking him about it, Jess. Here's a grand.

If they actually produce ZAP and you can get a sample, there'll be another two big ones for you.

"Oh-ho," I said. "That important, is it?"

"You have no idea," he said.

After he left, I had another drink and wondered if I had been wrong, maybe he really was selling my information to Russia or some other foreign place. But what the hell did I care. it's all about survival. And survival means money. I knew that at the age of four. And believe me, only people with money can afford morals-even if a lot of richniks haven't got any to speak of. But when you're poor, dirt-poor like I've been, morals are a joke. You scratch, claw, and do a lot of things you'd rather not do just to survive.

I had nothing against Marvin McWhortle personally. He was getting what he wanted, and I was getting what I wanted. It was strictly business.

Just like my deal with Willie the Weasel.

Sometimes I could kill them. Like tonight at supper, Mom is picking on Dad about buttered carrots. He don't like them, and she knows he don't like them. But she dumps a big spoonful on his plate and says,