Lynne Heitman - First Class Killing

“Oh, dear. I still have not heard back from my contacts. I believe we are short of the critical facts we need for him.”

“We have several hours yet. I’m not meeting him until nine o’clock. I’m sure you can come up with something by then.”

“Is everything all right?” he asked. “You sound-”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? We can call this off.”

I took a deep breath and tried to let my heartbeats space out. “Thanks for worrying, but I’m okay. I’ll call you after we land.” As I was hanging up, the toilet flushed, and my date for the evening emerged, gut first, tugging at his pants. About then is when what he said really started to sink in. He wanted rough sex.

Please, Harvey, please, come up with something good.

Malcolm took my rejection cheerfully. I wished he’d been a little less cheerful. Once I knew he hadn’t tried to buy me for the evening, I had spent time talking to him-maybe flirting was more like it-throughout the service and after, mostly to keep from having to look at the chiropractor in 3E. Every time I looked his way, he seemed to be leering back at me.

We landed routinely, and as the passengers filed out, I stood at the door to bid them adieu and ask them to fly us again sometime. Malcolm slipped me his business card as he deplaned, which I tucked into a safe place. The baby titan dragged himself off, still looking distraught and listless. He did thank me for the Advil. My date went by with a wink that might not have seemed lewd to a casual observer.

I was gathering my own things, getting ready to leave, when my colleagues from coach started to filter up from the back. One of them, Monica, tapped me on the shoulder as she went by.

“I need to talk to you,” she said. “Meet me out front.”

Monica’s name was as much as I knew about her. Besides one point late in the flight, when she’d come forward foraging for snacks, we hadn’t spoken except to introduce ourselves. She didn’t look happy when I approached, and I wondered if I had screwed something up again without even knowing it.

“We’re switching,” she said.

“Switching what?”

“We’re swapping dates.”

For about five seconds, I had the luxury of not completely absorbing the meaning of what she’d said. But then confusion gave way to understanding, which turned immediately to the highest state of alarm, and as she stared back at me and it all started clicking into place, I wondered why I had never come across her name or her face in my investigation.

“No. No way.” I worked hard to keep my voice from turning shrill. “I’m not swapping dates with you.”

“I know the chiropractor,” she said, smiling a smile that could have been carved with a razor blade. “He’s a big tipper, and I have seniority, so I’m taking him.”

A big tipper? The guy cleaned out in his divorce? It had never occurred to me to look for another hooker onboard. Even if I had, what were the odds she’d recognize my date and decide to swipe him? I was so screwed.

“I’m not telling you where he’s staying.” I said it with more than a little desperate belligerence.

“Sweetheart, it’s done. I’ve already talked to him. I’ll be at the Seven Oaks tonight.” She held up her very own cocktail napkin. It had notes scribbled on it in big, loopy, cheerleader handwriting. “You’ll be here.”

When I didn’t take it from her right away, she let it go, and it fluttered to the floor. “Your code word isDallas, and his response isAlice. He’s expecting me.”

“You didn’t tell him you switched?”

“He’s a first-timer. You’ll do. And by the way, Curt prefers me to you, anyway. See ya.”

Picking up the napkin seemed like a gesture of surrender that I didn’t want her to see, so I waited until she was on her way before reaching down for it. Apparently, I was going to the Days Inn, which was bad enough. Worse than that was the time we were supposed to meet-eight o’clock. I checked my watch. I had two and a half hours to turn this thing around. I had to get to Harvey. I looked again at the napkin. No name. I checked the front and the back. There was noname.

Monica was almost out of sight. I felt like a cartoon with my rolling bag flying and sweat popping off my forehead as I maneuvered through the concourse to catch up with her.

“I told you it’s done,” she said, when I finally caught her, panting and gasping. “Don’t bother me, or I’ll give you a bad report, and you’ll never get in. I know this is your test run.”

“There’s no room number here.”

“Duh. He hasn’t checked in yet.”

I could barely talk, and not because I had exerted myself to catch her.

“Go to the hotel, and ask for him by name. He said he would leave word with the front desk that he had a guest coming.”

“I don’thave his name.”

“You served him all through the flight.”

“I did?” Oh, no. “Who-”

“I don’t remember his name, but he was in 5F. Have fun, sweetie.”

Monica pulled ahead quickly as I slowed to a stop and tried to think. 5F…5F…5F…was themadras plaid shirt, the man I had eliminated and proceeded to ignore for the rest of the flight. Leland Cole drank club soda with no ice, dressed older than he was, and that was the extent of what I knew about him. I couldn’t even remember what he looked like.

I was so screwed.

THIS WAS A CHALLENGE. IKEPT REPEATING THAT to myself as I rolled down the concourse. The situation was not impossible. If I concentrated hard, I could find the way out. I could recognize the thread of an idea that, if followed to the logical conclusion, would spin itself into a workable plan, and where the hell was my cell phone? Miniaturization run amok. Electronic devices so small you can’t find them in a space the size of a grocery bag.

By the time I’d reached the escalator, I had my phone in hand and Harvey ’s number ringing.

“Hello?”

“Harvey, it’s Alex.”

“Good. I have what you need. I could have used a few more hours, but I think I have managed to come up with something that will be useful to you.”

“ Harvey -”

“You already know that your chiropractor is thirty-eight years old and divorced, so nothing there. But listen to this. He coaches his thirteen-year-old daughter’s soccer team. This all seems so unseemly to me, but-”

“ Harvey.”

“Yes? What is it?”

“Forget the chiropractor.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“We have a new target.”

“We have a-I do not understand. How could the target change?”

I hated even to go into it with him. I was barely staying afloat in my own whitewater rapids of anxiety. “There was another hooker onboard, and she decided to take that guy.”

“Take him?”

“Yes. I have a new one, and I need you to do it again. I need you to check him out.”

For the longest time, he didn’t talk, but his breathing was perfectly audible, a faint whistle through his perennially blocked nasal passages. It grew shallower and quicker until he finally exploded. “This is absolutely preposterous. What in the world have you gotten yourself into?”

“ Harvey, I know how ridiculous this seems…is, but I need your help. I can’t do what you do. Give it a shot, please. If we can’t do it, we can’t, but let’s at least try. Maybe there is something obvious we can use. If not, I’ll have to bail.”

“How much time?”

“I’m meeting him at eight o’clock my time.”

I stepped outside to the curb. It wasn’t until the cool breeze coming off Lake Michigan hit me that I realized how much I had been sweating. A shower would definitely be in order if I were going to pretend to have sex with a man I didn’t know.