Michael Connelly - Chasing the Dime

"Because I didn't realize I had this problem and I already had change-of-address cards with the number on it printed and mailed out. It would be very expensive and timeconsuming to do that all over again with a new number. I'm sure if you told me how to contact this woman, she'd agree to alter her page. I mean, she's not getting any business off it if all her calls are going to me anyway, right?"

Wendy shook her head like his explanation and reasoning were beyond her.

"All right, let me see something."

She turned to the computer and went to the L.A. Darlings site and into the Brunette escorts list. She clicked on the picture of Lilly and then scrolled down to the phone number.

"You're saying this is your number, not hers, but it used to be hers."

"Exactly."

"Then if she changed her number, why wouldn't she change it with us, too?"

"I don't know. That's why I'm here. Would you have another way of contacting her?"

"Not that I can give you. Our client information is confidential."

Pierce nodded. He had expected that.

"That's fine. But can you see if there is another contact number and then you could call her and tell her about this problem?"

"What about this cell number?"

"I tried it. It takes voice mail. I've left three messages for her explaining all of this but she hasn't called back. I don't think she's getting the messages."

Wendy scrolled up and looked at the photo of Lilly.

"She's hot," she said. "I bet you're getting a lot of calls."

"I've only had the phone a day and it's driving me nuts."

Wendy pushed her chair back and stood up.

"I'm going to check something. I'll be right back."

She went around the partition behind the counter and disappeared into the back hallway, the slapping sound of her sandals receding as she went. Pierce waited a moment and then leaned over the counter and scanned all surfaces. His guess was that Wendy was not the only one who worked at the counter. It was probably a job shared by two or three minimum-wage employees. Employees who might need help remembering passwords to the system.

He looked for Post-its on the computer and the back of the counter's facade but saw nothing. He reached down and lifted the blotter but there was nothing under it but a dollar bill. He dug his finger around in a dish of paper clips but found nothing. He reached further across the counter to see if there was a pencil drawer. There wasn't.

Just as he thought of something, he heard the sound of her sandals. She was coming back.

He quickly reached into his pocket, found a dollar and then reached back over the counter. He lifted the blotter, put down the dollar and grabbed the one that was there. He put it in his pocket without looking at it. His hand was still there when she came around the partition, holding a thin file, and sat down.

"Well, I figured out one part of the problem," she said.

"What's that?"

"This girl stopped paying her bill."

"When was that?"

"In June she paid up through August. Then she didn't pay for September."

"Then why's her page still on the site?"

"Because sometimes it takes a while to clean out the deadbeats. Especially when they look like this chick."

She gestured to the computer screen with the file and then put it down on the counter.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Wentz wanted to keep her on there even though she didn't pay. Guys see girls like that on the site and they'll keep coming back."

Pierce nodded.

"And the number of hits on the site is how they determine the rates for the ads, right?"

"You got it."

Pierce looked at the screen. In a way, Lilly was still working. If not for herself, then for Entrepreneurial Concepts Unlimited. He looked back at Wendy.

"Is Mr. Wentz back there? I'd like to speak to him."

"No, it's Saturday. You'd be lucky even to catch him here during the week, but I've never seen him on a Saturday."

"Well, what can be done about this? My phone's ringing off the hook."

"Well, I can take notes and then maybe on Monday somebody could -"

"Look, Wendy, I don't want to wait until Monday. I have a problem now. If Mr. Wentz isn't here, then go get the guy baby-sitting the servers. There has to be somebody who can go into the server and take her page down. It's a simple process."

"There's one guy back there but I don't think he's authorized to do anything. Besides, he was sort of asleep when I looked in there."

Pierce leaned over the counter and put a forceful tone into his voice.

"Lilly -I mean, Wendy, listen to me. I insist that you go back there and wake him up and bring him out here. You have to understand something here. You are in a legally precarious position. I have informed you that your website has my phone number on it.

Because of this error I am repeatedly receiving phone calls of what I consider to be an offensive and embarrassing nature. So much so that I was here at your place of business this morning before you even opened. I want this fixed. If you put it off until Monday, then I am going to sue you, this company, Mr. Wentz and anybody else I can find associated with this place. Do you understand?"

"You can't sue me. I just work here."

"Wendy, you can sue anybody you want to in this world."

She stood up, an angry look in her eyes, and pirouetted around the partition without a word. Pierce didn't care if she was angry. What he cared about was that she had left the file on the counter. As soon as the sound of her sandals was gone he bent over and flipped open the file. There was a copy of the photo of Lilly, along with a printout of her ad copy and an advertiser's information form. This was what Pierce wanted. He felt a surge of adrenaline zing through him as he read the sheet and tried to commit everything to memory.

Her name was Lilly Quinlan. Her contact number was the same cell phone number she had put on her web page. On the address line she had put a Santa Monica address and apartment number. Pierce quickly read it silently three times and then put everything back in the file just as he heard the sandals and another pair of shoes approaching from the other side of the partition.

The first thing Pierce did when he got back to the car was grab a pen from the ashtray and write Lilly Quinlan's address on an old valet parking stub. After that he pulled the dollar bill out of his pocket and examined it. It had been face down under the blotter. He now studied it and found the words Arbadac Arba written across George Washington's forehead on the front of the bill.

"Abra Cadabra," he said, reading each word backwards.

He thought there was a good chance that the words were a user name and password for entering the Entrepreneurial Concepts computer system. While he was pleased with the moves he'd made in getting the words, he was unsure how useful they would be now that he had gotten Lilly Quinlan's name and address out of the hard-copy file.

He started the car and headed back toward Santa Monica. The address of Lilly's apartment was on Wilshire Boulevard near the Third Street Promenade. As he got close and started reading the numbers on the buildings, he realized that there were no apartment complexes in the vicinity of the address she had written on the advertiser's information sheet. When he finally pulled up in front of the business with the matching address on the door, he saw that it was a private mail drop, a business called All American Mail. The apartment number Lilly Quinlan had written on the info sheet was actually a box number. Pierce parked at the curb out front but wasn't sure what he could do. It appeared that he was at a dead end. He thought for a few minutes about a plan of action and then got out.

Pierce walked into the business and immediately went into the alcove where the mailboxes were. He was hoping the individual doors would have glass in them so he could look into Lilly Quinlan's and see if there was any mail. But the boxes all had aluminum doors with no glass. She had listed her address as apartment 333 on the info sheet. He located box 333 and just stared at it for a moment, as if it might give him some sort of answer. It didn't.