First Class Killing

Chapter 21

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.

“This is absurd. You are putting yourself at unnecessary risk. I cannot support this. I will not. It is not worth it.”

“Think about this, Harvey. The risk is no more or less than it was half an hour ago. It’s the same scam. Angel might also be doing this on purpose. We know this is a test. Maybe the switch is part of it, and if I bail, they’ll know I’m a plant. I think we have to go through with it.”

I checked up and down the curb, looking for the crew van, hoping they hadn’t left without me. I wondered if I was in the right spot. I hadn’t flown into O’Hare that much for OrangeAir.

“Do you understand that you will be in a room by yourself with a complete stranger?”

“Yes, Harvey.”

“Have you considered the possibility that if you threaten him, he will not take it lightly? Have you considered the possibility that he could rape you? Or injure you? Or kill you? Please do not do this.”

He could have been right. Maybe he was right. But I also knew Harvey was inclined to give up, whereas my bias was toward never, ever giving up. I knew that I was capable of holding out beyond the point of all reason, trying to salvage what was clearly already lost. I just didn’t think this cause was lost yet. I closed my eyes and pressed the heel of my hand against my forehead. I had probably missed the damn shuttle.

“ Harvey, I appreciate the fact that you are worried about me, and I am really annoyed that this thing went off the tracks, but I don’t think it’s too late to get it back on. I believe we have to try, and if you won’t help me, I’ll do it myself. It would be nicer to have the information, but if I don’t, I’ll play the trump card.”

“Which is?”

“No matter who he is, he will not want the world to know he hired a hooker for his layover in Chicago. I’ll threaten to look him up and tell his wife. Or his kids. Or his boss. Or the good citizens of the PTA. Whatever makes him vulnerable. It might work.” I was talking to myself more than to Harvey. I hadn’t really given this option much thought until now. “I’m not asking him to do that much.”

“I knew from the beginning you would do it your way no matter what.”

“You were right. Will you help me or not?”

He hung up.

Even for a Days Inn, the hotel struck me as shabby, more so because it was supposed to appeal to families and may have at one time. Just off the lobby was a dingy game room with tired pinball machines and electronic games about one generation too old. It had an indoor swimming pool behind a greasy wall of windows. I knew because I had been walking the halls procrastinating and trying to get in touch with Harvey.

He hadn’t answered his phone for more than an hour, so it was no surprise when he didn’t answer again. He hadn’t categorically stated that he wouldn’t help, although that could have been one interpretation of his hanging up in my ear. I chose to believe that his line was tied up because he was working on his computer. That wouldn’t explain why his cell phone was off, but his cell phone was usually off.

His voice-mail tone sounded.

“ Harvey, I don’t know if you’re checking your voice mail, but I hope so, because I want you to know that I’m sorry. I had no right to pressure you, but I’m so wound up over this case. I feel somehow that if I don’t…if we don’t solve it, then everything I want to do will be out of my reach. That doesn’t leave much room for you and your point of view, and for that I’m sorry. If by any chance you have managed to find something on this Leland Cole, please call me on my cell phone. I’m going up there right now.”

I slapped the phone shut. A searing pain shot across the webbing that held my thumb to my hand. I had pinched it at the phone’s hinge.Dammit, that hurt. I jammed the throbbing wound into my mouth and paced around the lobby again. It was already four minutes after eight. If I waited much longer, my date would call hooker central and report me as a no-show. I could make up an excuse. Traffic. Illness. The dog ate the address. Monica ate the address.

I went to the elevator and pressed the call button. After waiting at least two seconds, I decided to take the stairs. With no other delay tactics available, I found myself at his room in front of his door. I raised my hand to knock and didn’t. I stood there, frozen in front of the last barrier between my client and me. If I was going to do this, I had to do it.

I knocked once, then three more times quickly.

Mr. 5F opened the door, and I realized how little attention I had paid him throughout the flight. Seeing him in this entirely new context, as a patron of hookers, was like seeing him for the first time. He was probably five-nine or five-ten-only slightly taller than I was-prissy, flat-chested, and fragile. His head was small compared with his squared-off ironing-board shoulders, and he had the posture of a man married to a woman who wore sleeveless shifts and tailored shorts and kept him on an allowance. If it came down to a fight, I could take him.

He looked at me with an expression of stunned surprise fluttering his almost-invisible eyelashes.

“I’m Alex. We have an appointment for this evening. You got my message, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but…” He poked his head out into the hallway and checked left and right; then he spoke to me with tight-jawed urgency. “You changed clothes.”

I looked down at my ensemble, a simple little black jersey dress and the obligatory high heels, a pair of strappy sandals. The outfit was more age-appropriate than the one I’d worn to the party in LA, and I thought it was perfectly acceptable for a faux date with a real john, and why did everyone feel obligated to comment on my clothing choices?

“Yes, I changed clothes. I also showered.”

“You weren’t supposed to change. That was my arrangement.”

Arrangement?“I wasn’t told of any special arrangements, but if you let me in, I’m sure we can work something out.”

“Like what? You’re wearing the wrong thing.”

Another door opened and closed a few rooms away. A woman with her two small children headed for the elevator. They were excited, going swimming in that chlorinated scum pond downstairs.

“Let’s talk about it inside, shall we?” I swept in, giving him no time to object. At least, if I was in the room, I had a chance of getting what I needed. Outside, I had none.

It was a standard hotel layout. The bathroom was a few feet inside the front door, which could be handy if a hasty escape was called for. The rest of the room was dominated by a bed that seemed gigantic, although I was pretty sure that was in my head, since it also resembled a large vat of quicksand.

When I turned back to find him, I saw that he was doing an inventory of his own, staring at my body in much the same way Tony the Actor had in LA. I was beginning to understand this cold and dispassionate precoital inspection was included in the purchase price. Still, I took his heavy sigh of disappointment personally. Couldn’t help it.

“You were supposed to come in uniform,” he whined. “You were supposed to come in the one you wore on the trip out. The one that smells like you.” He gestured with his hand, as if he could wipe me away. “This is not what I paid for.”

Great. A fetishist, and me here without the object of his fetish. Monica had not shared this crucial piece of information with me. “Look, I can’t give you the uniform, but I can give you anything else you might like.” I pulled the straps of my dress off my shoulders and tried to show a little cleavage as I posed for him. That’s exactly what I had-little cleavage. But I squeezed together and made the best of what was there. “After all, I wasn’t going to have the uniform on that long, anyway, was I?”

He stared for a long time. His thin lips parted enough that I could see the tip of his tongue playing across the edge of his straight white teeth. His eyes shone with a quavering anticipation, and when his weight shifted from one foot to the other, I knew I had him. Now, what to do with him?

I turned to drop my bag in the nearest chair. “So, you have a thing for flight attendants.” Before I could turn back, he was on me. He had slipped in and clamped his arms around me from behind, one arm pressed against my throat.

“Whoa-”

My first thought was that he wanted to hurt me. His arms were rigid and inflexible. But then I felt him awkwardly but persistently grinding his hips against me.

“I wanted to do it onboard the airplane,” he whispered. “I wanted to be in the Mile-High Club, but they said they didn’t sell those. They said I could get the uniform instead. They promised me that.”

He was much stronger than I would have guessed, and though he might not have wanted to hurt me, the faster he pumped, the tighter he squeezed my throat. I could feel his excitement mounting. I could feel his control slipping away and my head getting lighter. I reached up to pull on his arm, then thought of a more vulnerable target. I worked my arm around behind me, grabbed a handful of his most excited appendage, and squeezed through his pants. Hard.

“Owww!”When he released me, I released him. I spun out of his grasp and backed away, where I could observe from a safe distance.

He looked up, genuinely perplexed. “What was that?”

I rubbed my throat where his wristwatch had dug in. “I thought we were playing rough,” I said. My voice was squeaky from the pressure on my larynx. “Isn’t that what you were doing?”

“No. That hurt.”

“That’s the point, sweetie. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and powder my nose.”

As I headed for the bathroom, I spied the Spectravision tent card on top of the TV. Dirty movies. Perfect. “Hey…” I took the card and tossed it onto the bed. “Do you like to watch? Pick something to set the mood. I’ll be right back.”

I left him still holding his crotch and reaching for the remote.

There was no lock on the bathroom door, so I sat on the floor with my back against it and tried to calm down. My face felt hot, and the tiles were cold, and I closed my eyes and tried to split off, to make myself into two different people. That must have been what these women did, anyway, split off and disconnect from their bodies. How else could they do this night after night? One puny, horny guy had grabbed me from behind, and I was reeling.

I pulled my phone out of my bag and held it against my chest as though it could absorb the shuddering of my heart. I listened for the sound of the movie to begin on the other side of the door. For the first time, I began to really consider what Harvey had said about being in over my head.

The moment the cheap porno sound track kicked in, I flipped open the phone and called Harvey ’s number. This time, he picked up right away.

“Alex?”

“ Harvey, you were right. I shouldn’t have come here, but I did, and if you don’t give me something in the next thirty seconds that I can use, I’m in trouble. Please tell me you’ve been working on this. Please tell me you found something.”

“I was sitting down to call you. I think I have what you need.”

As I listened, I felt all the tension in my shoulders drain out. My core temperature came down from triple digits. After I hung up, I stood in front of the mirror and reorganized myself. I straightened my hair and smoothed my skirt. When I came out of the bathroom, my date was lying on the bed, staring at the small TV screen. Judging from the bulge under the sheet, he had started without me.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” he said.

“I can see that. I’ve been thinking about you, too…Reverend Cole.”