Lynne Heitman - First Class Killing

“I chose them. Not the other way around.”

“If you don’t trust me, trust my motive.”

“Which is?”

“Money. Don’t have enough. Need more.”

“That’s not good enough, sweet pea. I never work with anyone who won’t get her hands as dirty as me, and here’s a little secret.” She leaned toward me, probably to whisper, but I didn’t want her tongue in my ear again, so this time I pulled away. That seemed to amuse her. “I’m not dumb. I know, for instance, that you being my business consultant would mean me showing you my business. The who, what, where, why, and therefore of things.”

“The more I know, the more I can help you.”

“The more you know, the more you can hurt me. But I tell you what. I will buy those lists from you. Name your price, we’ll haggle a bit, then we’ll come to an arrangement, and we can go on about our separate business.”

“It’s a package deal, Angel. If you want the lists of names, you take me with them.”

She retreated to the armrest again to think that over. “How about this? How about you spend the next couple of months getting to know and understand up close and personal the kinds of services we offer? Then maybe we can talk turkey.”

“You don’t have a couple of months, and I’m not interested.”

The door opened, and one of the pink coats stepped in. “Good morning, Miss Velesco. We’re ready for you in massage room three.”

“I’ll be right there, darlin’.”

“Of course. Take your time. You know the way back. Miss Shanahan, someone will be out for you shortly.”

After the pink coat left, Angel dropped her legs down and found her slippers on the floor. “I do give you credit, doll. You can play the game.”

I felt her slipping away. I felt my chance slipping away. “So can you,” I said. “You’ve built something of value, Angel. I don’t know if you fully appreciate how difficult that is. I can help you keep it. You don’t need me to turn tricks to prove it.”

“If I’ve learned one thing about the world of business, it’s this,” she said. “You can’t get ahead without being willing to spread your legs every now and then for the right person or the right reasons. In my business, it just happens to be for real.”

“Thirteen hundred client names, Angel. Going once…going twice…” She watched me closely. It was a standoff, and I knew one thing about negotiating. You had to be willing to lose. “Gone.” I drank down the rest of my lemon water and got up. “Keep the disk with my compliments. Thank you for your time.”

“I plan to keep it.” I was halfway out the door when she called me back. “You know what you need, sugar? You need some lessons from me. Life lessons.”

This was interesting. I came back in and leaned against the back of a chair. “I don’t want life lessons. I want cash.”

“You can have that, too.”

“I don’t want to be a hooker.”

“Could you say that one more time? I don’t think I got it yet. I’m talking about life lessons, sweetie. I want to teach you how the world works.”

“What do you care what I know about the world?”

She raised her arms to stretch and folded them over her head, a move that pulled her robe open and thrust her chest out, revealing almost everything she had to see from the waist up. “For every lesson you give me, I’ll give you one in return. I like the sound of that. It has a certain…what do you call that when it’s all balanced out perfectly?”

“Symmetry.”

“Right. That’s a good word, and that’s my counteroffer. What do you think of that?”

I didn’t like the fact that she was always coming up with the last word, the one final thing I had to do to get what I wanted. But she actually seemed vulnerable in her own brittle, cocky, self-serving way, as if she really, really wanted the chance to strut her stuff. Herother stuff. That was probably a good position to have her in-showing off.

“I’ll do it.”

“Good. There’s one more thing.” She stood and wrapped herself back together, then casually tossed one more condition on the table. “You have to go on a date.”

“No. I told you-”

“You could be a cop. You could be a spy from LA, for all I know. One date is all I’m asking. I’ll set it up. It’s a deal breaker, too, so think carefully before you make up your mind. If you want to tell me after your massage, that’s okay, too.”

“I’ll pass on the massage.”

“Suit yourself.” She winked. “But I usually do my best thinking with someone else’s hands all over me.”

She moved toward the door. Once she was through it, I knew it was all over. I thought about what little time we had left for the case. I tried not to, but I also thought about the way Jamie had looked at me in my flight attendant uniform. I thought about Harvey…well, best not to do that. I chewed the inside of my cheek. I stuffed my hands into my pockets.

“One date will make the difference to you?”

“There’s a world of difference, darlin’, between one date and no dates.”

I swallowed hard and handed my soul over to the devil. “Deal.”

“YOU TOLD HERWHAT? HOW COULD YOU? What were you thinking?”

Harvey was beside himself. The numbness in his legs made it hard for him to pace, but he made an exception in this case, pushing himself from one end of his office to the other, even once around the couch. It seemed I was always driving him to new heights of consternation.

“It’s a test, Harvey.” I sat in one of the more worn chairs, plucking at a flaw in the upholstery where two mismatched seams had been forced together. It was a weird role reversal for me to be sitting while he was moving. “Angel has to have a reason to trust me. I have to prove that I’m willing to get as dirty as she is. That means I have to go on a date.”

“If you go through with this ridiculous plan, you will be alone in a hotel room with a strange man who will be expecting you to have sex with him. Do you not find that the least bit intimidating?” His voice was on the rise, becoming more and more high-pitched.

“I’ve handled worse than a horny businessman trying to get some on the side.” I hated sounding so cavalier, but his tendency to leap directly to Defcon One always forced me to the opposite end of the reaction spectrum: cool nonchalance. I never knew if it was sheer contrarian stubbornness that made me do that or a genuine quest for balance. “Again, I won’t have sex with him. The plan is to make Angel believe that I did.”

“By blackmailing him.” Now he was barely getting the words out. His voice had a strangled quality, as if he had a tourniquet around his throat.

“Harvey, all I need…”I sat back and tried hard not to get pulled into his hysteria. “All I need him to do is call whoever he’s supposed to call and tell them I did the deed. What I need you to do is find me some leverage so I can convince him that would be a good idea.”

“Like what?”

“The names of his wife and kids.” I stared down at my hands on my knees, then looked up in time to see the withering look before he turned his back. “ Harvey, the man will be in a hotel room expecting to have sex with a hooker. He will not be entirely blameless.”

“My objection has less to do with his integrity than mine. And yours. I find this tactic despicable.”

“Me, too. But this is the business we’re in. We deal with despicable people, Angel Velesco chief among them. Besides, what else do we have? Do we have top swappers?”

“Not as of yet.”

I tried to think of the other avenues we’d been pursuing. “I just gave Felix the information yesterday. It’s too soon for anything there. What about that detective from Omaha? That woman’s murder. Did he ever call you?”