Chasing the Dime

12

At the appointed time Pierce picked up a pay phone outside of Smooth Moves and called Robin's number. Turning his back to the phone, he saw that across Lincoln was a large apartment complex called the Marina Executive Towers. Only the building didn't really qualify as a tower or towers. It was short and wide -three stories of apartments over a garage. The complex covered half a city block and its length was broken up by color gradations. Its exterior was painted three different pastels -pink, blue, yellow -as it worked its way down the street. A banner hanging off the roofline announced short-term executive rentals and free maid service. Pierce realized it was a perfect place for a prostitute to carry out her business. The place was probably so large and the turnover of renters so high that a steady procession of different men coming in and out would not be noticeable or curious to other residents.

Robin picked up after three rings.

"It's Henry. I called -"

"Hey, baby. Let me get a look at you here."

Without trying to be too obvious about it, he scanned the windows of the apartment building across the street, looking for someone looking back at him. He didn't see anybody or any curtain movement but he noticed that the windows of several apartments had mirrored glass. He wondered if there was more than one woman like Robin working in the building.

"I see you got my smoothie," she said. "You get that energy powder?"

"Yes. They call it a booster rocket. That what you wanted?"

"That's it. Okay, you look all right to me. You're not a cop, are you?"

"No, I'm not."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Then say it. I'm taping this."

"I am not a police officer, okay?"

"All right, come on up then. Go across the street to the apartment building and at the main door push apartment two oh three. I'll see you soon."

"Okay."

He hung up and crossed the street and followed her instructions. At the door, the button marked 203 had the name Bird after it. As in robin, Pierce thought. When he pushed the button, the door lock was buzzed without any further inquiry from Robin over the intercom. Inside, he couldn't find the stairs, so he took the elevator the one flight up.

Robin's apartment was two doors from the elevator.

She opened the door before he got a chance to knock. There was a peephole and she apparently had been watching. She took the smoothie from his hand and invited him in.

The place was sparsely furnished and seemed devoid of any personal object. There was just a couch, a chair, a coffee table and a standing lamp. A museum print was framed on the wall. It looked medieval: two angels leading the newly deceased toward the light at the end of a tunnel.

As Pierce stepped in he could see that the glass doors to the balcony had the mirrored film on them. They looked almost directly across to the Smooth Moves shop.

"I could see you but you couldn't see me," Robin said from behind him. "I could see you looking."

He turned to her.

"I was just curious about the setup. You know, how you work this."

"Well, now you know. Come sit down."

She moved to a couch and gestured for him to sit next to her. He did. He tried to look around. The place reminded Pierce of a hotel room but he guessed atmosphere wasn't what was important for the business usually conducted within the apartment. He felt her hand take his jaw and turn his face to hers.

"You like what you see?" she asked.

He was pretty sure she was the woman in the photo on the web page. It was hard to be certain because he had not studied it as long and as often as the photo of Lilly. She was barefoot and wore a light blue tank top T-shirt and a pair of red corduroy shorts cut so high that a bathing suit might have been more modest. She was braless and her breasts were huge, most likely the result of implants. Nipples the size of Girl Scout cookies were clearly outlined on the T-shirt. Her blonde hair was parted in the middle and cascaded down the sides of her face in ringlets. She wore no makeup that he could see.

"Yes, I do," he answered.

"People tell me I have a Meg Ryan thing going."

Pierce nodded, although he didn't see it. The movie star was older but a lot softer on the eyes.

"Did you bring me something?"

At first he thought she was talking about the smoothie but then he remembered the money.

"Yeah, I've got it here."

He leaned back on the couch to reach into his pocket. He had the four hundred ready in its own thick fold of twenties fresh from the cash machine. This was the part he had rehearsed. He didn't mind losing the four hundred but he didn't want to give it to her and then be kicked out when he revealed the true reason he was there.

He pulled the money out so she could see it and know it was close and hers for the taking.

"First time, baby?"

"Excuse me?"

"With an escort. First time?"

"How do you know that?"

"Because you're supposed to put that in an envelope for me. Like a gift. It is a gift, isn't it? You're not paying me to do anything."

"Yes, right. A gift."

"Thank you."

"Is that what the G in GFE stands for? Gift?"

She smiled.

"You really are new at this, aren't you? Girlfriend, sweetie. Absolutely positive girlfriend experience. It means you get whatever you want, like with your girlfriend before she became your wife."

"I'm not married."

"Doesn't matter."

She reached for the money as she said it but Pierce pulled his hand back.

"Uh, before I give you this… gift, I have to tell you something."

All the warning lights on her face fired at once.

"Don't worry, I'm not a cop."

"Then what, you don't want to use a rubber? Forget it, that's rule number one."

"No, it's not that. In fact, I don't really want to have sex with you. You're very attractive but all I want is some information."

Her posture became sharper as she seemed to grow taller, even while sitting down.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I have to find Lilly Quinlan. You can help me."

"Who is Lilly Quinlan?"

"Come on, you name her on your web page. Double your pleasure? You know who I'm talking about."

"You're the guy from last night. You called last night."

He nodded.

"Then get the fuck out of here."

She quickly stood up and walked toward the door.

"Robin, don't open that door. If you don't talk to me, then you'll talk to the cops. That's my next move."

She turned around.

"The cops won't give a shit."

But she didn't open the door. She just stood there, angry and waiting, one hand on the knob.

"Maybe not now but they'll care if I go to them."

"Why, who are you?"

"I have some juice," he lied. "That's all you have to know. If I go to them, they'll come to you. They won't be as nice as me… and they won't pay you four hundred dollars for your time."

He put the money down on the couch where she had been sitting. He watched her eyes go to it.

"Just information, that's all I want. It goes no further than me."

He waited and after a long moment of silence she came back over to the couch and grabbed the money. She somehow found space for it in her tiny shorts. She folded her arms and remained standing.

"What information? I hardly knew her."

"You know something. You talk about her in the past tense."

"I don't know anything. All I know is that she's gone. She just… disappeared."

"When was that?"

"More than a month ago. Suddenly she was just gone."

"Why do you still have her name on your page if she's been gone that long?"

"You saw her picture. She brings in customers. Sometimes they settle for just me."

"Okay, how do you know her disappearance was so sudden? Maybe she just packed up and left."

"I know because one minute we were talking on the phone and the next minute she didn't show up, that's why."

"Show up for what?"

"We had a gig. A double. She set it up and called me. She told me the time and then she didn't show up. I was there and then the client showed up and he wasn't happy. First of all, there was no place to park and then she wasn't there and I had to scramble around to get another girl to come back over here to my place -and there are no other girls like Lilly, and he really wanted Lilly. It was a fucking fiasco, that's what it was."

"Where was this?"

"Her place. Her gig pad. She didn't work anywhere else. No outcall. Not even to here. I always had to go to her. Even if they were my clients wanting the double, we had to go to her pad, or it didn't happen."

"Did you have a key to her place?"

"No. Look, you've gotten your four hundred's worth. It would have been easier just to fuck and forget you. That's it."

Pierce angrily reached into his pocket and pulled out the rest of his cash. It was $230.

He'd counted it in the car. He held it out to her.

"Then take this, because I'm not done. Something happened to her and I'm going to find out what."

She grabbed the money and it disappeared without her counting it.

"Why do you care?"

"Maybe because nobody else does. Now if you didn't have a key to her place, how do you know she didn't show up that night?"

"Because I knocked for fifteen fucking minutes and then me and the guy waited for another twenty. I'm telling you, she wasn't in there."

"Do you know if she had something set up before the gig with you?"

Robin thought for a little bit before answering.

"She said she had something to do but I don't know if she was with a client. Because I wanted to do it earlier but she said she was busy with something at the time I wanted. So we set the time she wanted, and so she should have been there but wasn't."

Pierce tried to imagine what questions a cop would ask her but couldn't guess how the police would approach this. He thought about it as if it were a problem at work, with his usual rigorous approach to problem solving and theory building.

"So before she was to meet with you she had to do something," he said. "That something could have been meeting a client. And since you say she worked nowhere else but the apartment, she had to have met this client at the apartment. Nowhere else, right?"

"Right."

"So when you got there and knocked on the door, she could've been inside with or without this other client but just not answering."

"I guess so, but she should've been done by then and she would have answered. It was all set up. So maybe it wasn't a client."

"Or maybe she was not allowed to answer. Maybe she couldn't answer."

This seemed to give Robin pause, as though she realized how close she might have come to whatever fate befell Lilly.

"Where is this place? Her apartment."

"It's over in Venice. Off Speedway."

"What's the exact address?"

"I don't remember. I just know how to get there."

Pierce nodded. He thought about what else he needed to ask her. He had the feeling he had one shot with her. No second chances.

"How'd you two get together for these, uh, gigs?"

"We linked on the website. If people wanted us both, they'd ask and we'd set it up if we were both available."

"I mean, how did you two meet in order to have the link? How did you meet in the first place?"

"We met at a shoot and sort of hit it off. It went from there."

"A shoot? What do you mean?"

"Modeling. It was a girl-girl scene and we met at the studio."

"You mean, for a magazine?"

"No, a website."

Pierce thought of the doorway he had opened at Entrepreneurial Concepts.

"Was it for one of the websites Entrepreneurial Concepts operates?"

"Look, it doesn't matter what -"

"What was the name of the site?"

"It was called something like fetish castle dot something or other. I don't know. I don't have a computer. What does it matter?"

"Where was the shoot, at Entrepreneurial Concepts?"

"Yeah. At the studios."

"So you got the job through L.A. Darlings and Mr. Wentz, right?"

He saw her eyes flare at the mention of the name but she didn't respond.

"What's his first name?"

"I'm not talking to you about him. You can't tell him you got any information from me, you understand?"

He thought he now saw a flash of fear in her eyes.

"I told you, everything you tell me here is private. I promise you that. What's his name?"

"Look, he's got connections and people who work for him who are very mean. He's mean. I don't want to talk about him."

"Just tell me his name and I'll leave it at that, okay?"

"It's Billy. Billy Wentz. Most people call him Billy Wince because he hurts people, okay?"

"Thank you."

He stood up and looked around the apartment. He walked over to the corner of the living room and looked into a hallway that he guessed led to the bedroom. He was surprised to learn there were two bedrooms with a bathroom in between.

"Why do you have two bedrooms?"

"I share the place with another girl. We each have our own."

"From the website?"

"Yes."

"What's her name?"

"Cleo."

"Billy Wentz put you with her, too."

"No. Grady did."

"Who is Grady?"

"He works with Billy. He really runs the place."

"So why don't you do doubles with Cleo? It'd be more convenient."

"I probably will. But I told you, I was getting a lot of business with Lilly. There aren't many girls that look like her."

Pierce nodded.

"You don't live here, do you?"

"No. I work here."

"Where do you live?"

"I'm not telling you that."

"You keep any clothes here?"

"What do you mean?"

"You have any clothes besides those? And where are your shoes?"

He gestured to what she was wearing.

"Yes, I changed when I got here. I don't go out like this."

"Good. Change back and let's go."

"What are you talking about? Where?"

"I want you to show me where Lilly's place is. Or was."

"Uh-uh, man. You got your information, that's it."

Pierce looked at his watch.

"Look, you said four hundred an hour. I've been here twenty minutes, tops. That means I get forty more minutes, or you give me two-thirds of my cash back."

"That's not how it works."

"That's how it works today."

She stared at him angrily for a long moment and then walked silently past him toward the bedroom to change. Pierce walked over to the balcony doors and looked out across Lincoln.

He saw a man standing at the pay phone in front of Smooth Moves, holding a smoothie and looking up at the windows of the building Pierce was in. Another smoothie, another client. He wondered how many women were working in the building. Did they all work for Wentz? Did he own the place? Maybe he even had a piece of the smoothie shop.

He turned around to ask Robin about Wentz and from the angle he was at was able to look down the hallway and through the open bedroom door. Robin was naked and pulling a tight pair of faded blue jeans up over her hips. Her perfectly tanned breasts hung down heavily as she bent over in the process.

When she straightened up to pull the zipper closed over her flat stomach and the small triangle of golden hair below, she looked directly at him through the door. She didn't flinch. Instead, there was a defiant look on her face. She reached over to the bed and picked up a white T-shirt, which she pulled over her head without making any move to turn or hide her nakedness from him.

She came out of the bedroom and slipped her feet into a pair of sandals she pulled from under the coffee table.

"Did you enjoy that?" she asked.

"Yes. I did. I guess I don't have to tell you, you have a beautiful body."

She walked past him and into the kitchenette. She opened a cabinet over the sink and took out a small black purse.

"Let's go. You've got thirty-five minutes."

She went to the front door, opened it and stepped out into the hallway. He followed.

"You want your smoothie?"

It was sitting untouched on the breakfast bar.

"No, I hate smoothies. Too fattening. My vice is pizza. Next time bring me a pizza."

"Then why'd you ask for the smoothie?"

"It was just a way of checking you out, seeing what you would do for me."

And establishing some control, Pierce thought but didn't say. Control that didn't always last long once the money was paid and the clothes were off.

Pierce stepped into the hallway and looked back into the place where Robin made her living. He felt an uneasiness. A sadness even. He thought about her web page. What was an absolutely positive girlfriend experience and how could it come out of a place like that?

He closed the door, made sure it was locked, and then followed Robin to the elevator.