Jane Sullivan - Tall, Dark And Texan

“So you think you can make it in Hollywood instead.”

She made a scoffing noise. “Of course I can. Ever seen Baywatch?”

Good point.

“And I’m not going it alone. I’ve got an agent. He’s a friend of a friend who has my head shots and résumé and thinks he can do something for me. Open a few doors. That’s all I need, you know. A few doors opened so I can wedge my foot in.” She smiled. “And the rest, as they say, will be history.”

He knew she was impulsive, careless and argumentative. Now he could add delusional to the list.

“The trouble is,” she said with a dejected sigh, “I kind of lost everything I own last night. That leaves me in a pretty precarious position.”

She turned those big brown eyes up to stare at him plaintively, and Wolfe felt a twinge of sympathy. He had to admit that while he’d met lots of people down on their luck, she was a little further down than most.

No. She wasn’t his problem. Pure chance was all that had led him to pick her up in the first place. He’d already done his good deed by letting her sleep on his sofa last night, and that was as far as he intended to extend his charitable contribution to the Society of Struggling Actresses.

“Do you have a family?” he asked her.

“Of course. But they live in Iowa.”

“So call them.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I have eight brothers and sisters. My parents work at the local factory and barely make ends meet. They’re lucky to put food on the table. The day I left town, I knew I’d be on my own. I promised myself I’d never ask my family for anything.”

“They wouldn’t help you?”

“Yes. They would. They’d give me everything I need and go without themselves, because that’s just what they do. So that’s not an option.”

“Friends?”

“No point in going to that well. It’s dry. I’m the rich one of the bunch.” She settled back on the sofa, a pensive expression on her face. “I can handle this situation. I just have to think, you know? Formulate a plan. I’ve been at rock bottom before and managed to climb out.” She pondered the situation for a few moments more. “The first thing I need is a little walking-around money. A couple hundred bucks, just so I won’t be destitute. Then I can start looking for a way to get to L.A.” She raised her eyebrows questioningly. “Any idea where I could earn a little quick cash?”

Wolfe started to say no. Then a thought occurred to him.

He’d scoped out Mendoza at Sharky’s last night, hitting a dead end because he couldn’t get the guy alone long enough to grab him. If Wolfe walked into that bar, he was liable to be recognized, and Mendoza’s buddies just might cause more trouble than Wolfe wanted to deal with. But if he could get her to lure Mendoza outside by himself, he could have him in handcuffs and into his car before Mendoza knew what hit him. After she did the job for him, he could give her some cash for her trouble, drop her off at a women’s shelter, and his conscience would be clear.

“What are you willing to do for it?” he asked her.

“What do you have in mind?”

“There’s a job I need to have done. I could go down to Harry Hines and pick up a hooker, but you’ll do.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Hey, I’m not sleeping with you, so get that out of your mind right now.”

“It never entered my mind.”

Well, that was a lie. But his random thoughts of the past half hour had nothing to do with the matter at hand.

“How much does the job pay?” she asked.

“You don’t want to know what you have to do first?”

“Does it involve getting naked?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll do it.”

“A hundred bucks. Of course, the wardrobe is coming out of your paycheck.”

“Wardrobe?”

“I’ll take you by the Trinity River Thrift Store. Cheap and trashy.”

“So what’s the job?”

“I’m going fishing.”

“Yeah?”

Wolfe gave her a deadpan stare. “And you’re the worm on the hook.”

A FEW MINUTES LATER, Wolfe had given Wendy the gist of his plan, and she felt a tremor of excitement at the very thought of it. A hooker. He wanted her to play a hooker.

Hot damn. Character roles were so much fun.

Wolfe went to the kitchen, grabbed a box from a cabinet, then brought it back and dumped its contents onto the coffee table.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Breakfast.”

She picked up one of the bars. “Protein Power?”

“Eighteen vitamins and minerals. Lots of fiber.”

“Any room for flavor in there?”

“No pain, no gain.”

She unwrapped one and bit into it. It tasted like sawdust and sand pebbles held together with Elmer’s glue. In the time it took her to gag one down, Wolfe had eaten three. She’d barely disposed of her wrapper in the trash when he grabbed her clothes from the dryer, tossed them to her and told her to get ready.

After she dressed, Wendy asked Wolfe if she could make a long-distance call, promising to pay him for it out of the hundred dollars she was going to earn. She mentally ticked off her siblings in her head, finally deciding to call her oldest sister, Terri. Terri was levelheaded and nonreactionary and would tend to ask fewer questions than anyone else in her family. Good thing, since Wendy intended to fudge a little on the truth of her situation.

When Terri came on the line, Wendy told her that since she’d gotten sidetracked in Dallas because of the storm, she’d decided to stay there with a friend for a few days. True to Terri’s nature, she didn’t question a thing. She merely made Wendy promise to call her as soon as she left for Los Angeles again.

Wendy hung up the phone, glad she’d bought some time. Now all she had to do was formulate a plan to get to the West Coast that didn’t involve taking money from her family.

Minutes later Wendy was following Wolfe down that big, creaky elevator to the first floor of the warehouse, where she was relieved to discover that the motorcycle wasn’t the only vehicle he owned. First in line was a nondescript white van. Next to it sat a gleaming late-model SUV, which she’d have salivated over if she hadn’t seen the black Porsche hiding on the other side of it.

“Oh, wow,” Wendy gushed, running her hand over its fender. “Now, this is a gorgeous car.”

“Hands off. We’re taking the Chevy.”

“Chevy?”

Wendy had been so preoccupied with the sports car that she hadn’t noticed vehicle number four. Like a mangy mutt sidled up next to a purebred, an ancient Chevy Malibu sat next to the Porsche, its crunched left rear fender crisscrossed with rust and its yellow paint faded almost to white.

Wendy blinked with confusion. “You have a Porsche, and you’re driving that?”

“We’re going into a bad area. We have to fit the profile of the neighborhood.”

“So when do you drive the other cars?”

“The van’s for surveillance, and the others depend on what I’m doing or who I’m after.”

Wendy looked longingly at the Porsche as she slid into the passenger seat of the Chevy. They left the warehouse and headed toward the police station. An hour later Wendy had filed the obligatory theft report with a very bored looking detective who had a splatter of coffee on his tie and a comb-over that hid nothing but his self-respect. It was pretty clear all around that she stood a better chance of getting hit by a meteor at midnight than recovering her car and belongings. It was a sickening feeling knowing she had literally nothing in the world but the clothes on her back, but she refused to give in to it. Instead, she let excitement take over.

After all, she was getting to play a hooker.