Lynne Heitman - First Class Killing

“The last man I was with held a powerful position in the company where I worked.”

“At Majestic? Ooooh. This sounds good. Tell me everything, because you know you want to. Give me all the sweaty details. Was he worth it? Was he good? Did he have a big dick?”

“It ended badly, at least for me. I lost my job.”

“Was the sex good?”

“Yeah.”

“How did he like to do it?”

“Why do you need to know this stuff?”

“I like to hear you say it, because I know you don’t want to. Why did you do it? What was it about this man?”

“He liked to take what he wanted, and he lived his life as if there were nothing he couldn’t have. He could be a real bad boy, which could be very appealing. He was smart and sexy and charming. And I liked his power.”

“There it is. That’s what did it for you right there.”

“Maybe. Until he used it to threaten and humiliate me. Eventually, he fired me. When I told him I’d sue him for sexual harassment, he told me he would have his lawyers turn me into a public joke. I knew he could do it. I knew him well enough to know he would. I backed down. I lost my career and everything I had invested in that company.”

“You made a mistake.”

“Obviously.”

“I mean, in how you came at him.” She rolled her ball closer, until our knees almost touched. “You can’t threaten a man like that with a lawsuit. It wouldn’t scare him.”

“There wasn’t much that scared him.”

“Everybody has something to hide, and everybody has something to lose. You have to find what it is, those deep, dark desires that a man-or a woman-has no choice but to give in to. For some men, it’s young girls. For others, it’s boys. Some get off on getting beaten or dressing in women’s lingerie. When you know those things, that’s when you truly have control. You find what it is that can hurt them, and then you squeeze until you get what you want.” She curled her fingers into a fist to demonstrate. I looked at her face, and I knew there was nothing in this world she would not wrap those fingers around and squeeze to get what she wanted.

“I’m guessing you’re not a big fan of romantic love.”

She laughed. “Love is for losers, darlin’. It’s nothing but another form of payment, when it comes down to it.”

“Payment for what?”

“Sex. ‘I’ll let you screw me if you love me.’ How is that different from ‘I’ll let you screw me if you pay me’?”

“Because love is more than sex. It gives you things you can’t get from a purely physical relationship.”

“Like what you got from that big dick boyfriend of yours at Majestic? You loved him, right?”

She smiled at my awkward hesitation. She had a way of creeping up on you one slow, silent step at a time, until she was upon you and it was too late.

“Everyone has their own way of looking at things.” I said it, even knowing how feeble it sounded.

“This is my way of looking at things. We all have our price. For some, it’s love. For others, it’s less. It’s always good to know what it is for you. Now…” She reached toward me, and I flinched. But all she was after was a dry corner of my gym towel. Without taking it from around my neck, she used it to dry her forehead.

“Let’s go do some business.”

ANGEL SLAMMED HER CELL PHONE CLOSED and flung it into her gym bag. Then she picked up the bag and flung it into the corner, nearly knocking the smoothie right out of its tall, soda-shop glass.

“What’s the matter?”

“I just lost another one,” she snapped.

“Another what?”

“One of my gals just got her transfer to LA. They’re like cattle thieves, picking them off one by one. Picking me clean is what they’re doing. I should brand their butts.”

We had settled in the Sports Club juice bar at a table isolated in one of the corners. It was called a juice bar, and it did serve juice. It also served baked cod with pineapple salsa-not your usual juice bar fare.

“That’s where we need to start. What do you call the women who work for you?”

“Grubbing, griping, greedy bitches.”

I looked at her. She looked right back. She was steaming.

“Why don’t we call them your assets?”

“Asses?”

“Assets. In your business more than most, your people are your assets. When they walk, they take their clients with them, and the clients take their revenue stream.”

“I can replace both. It’s just a goddamn pain in the ass, is what it is.”

“It’s more than that. You might be able to replace the business, but you can’t do anything about what it does for your competitor. That’s business they don’t have to develop on their own. You might as well stuff a bunch of bags with hundred-dollar bills and send them over.”

She put her elbow on the table and leaned her head against her palm. It mussed her hair, which was loose around her face. It made her look like a young girl. “I hate this already.”

“Tell me why they’re leaving.”

“Because they’re stupid. They think they’re going to be instant zillionaires with merchandising deals and their own Web sites and starring in their own videos. ‘Sell your lace panties, and make a million bucks.’ It all sounds really sexy, and it’s allvery LA, but it won’t work.”

“Why wouldn’t it?”

“Our thing works for one reason and one reason only. It’s low-profile. You cannot have your face or your tits or anything else plastered all over the Internet. Someone will find out; then the airline will find out; then you will lose your job.”

“If I’m making enough on the side, why would I care about my low-paying flight attendant wages?”

“The job is the key to the whole deal. We have builtin access to customers who sit in first class, the ones who think a little tail on the road is part of their executive privilege and have the expense accounts to make it happen. My clients don’t troll porno sites on the Internet. They want exclusive and discreet, and they’re willing to pay for it. That’s my thing, and it works. Plus, it helps to be able to fly around for free.”

She sat back and sipped her smoothie through a straw. She was still dressed in a way that displayed her own best assets. But when she talked about her business, the extracurricular posing and flaunting fell away, leaving a calmer, more focused version. She sounded like the head of any small business, which was a place where we could relate to each other in some way besides predator and prey.

“You have to find a way to make them care about your business in the same way you do.”

“They don’t care about anything except collecting their fees. The ones making the most want more. The ones making the least want more. The gals in the pool are jealous of the ones who aren’t. The ones who aren’t in the pool don’t like having to change their schedules at all, and why are you smiling?”

“Was I?” I knew I was smiling inside. “What’s the pool?”

“When they first start out and don’t have any clients, I put them in the pool. All that means is they have to be on call and go where I tell them and be with whoever I tell them to be with. For the clients, mostly the new ones, it’s like a well drink in a bar. They get whoever I send them.”

Which meant Tony the Actor had not been referring to a cabana girl, after all. His “just a pool girl” was a woman drawn from Angel’s hooker pool. He hadn’t bothered to learn her name. Mystery solved.

“What about the other clients? Who do they get?”

“Regular clients get to know who they want to see, and I try to give them who they ask for, or at least something close. When a gal gets enough regulars requesting her, she climbs out of the pool and has more say in things.”