First Class Killing

Chapter 3

THE FLIGHT PASSED WITHOUT INCIDENT… without major incident. Tristan did spill a carton of orange juice on a man wearing a business suit. He made him happy with the promise of a free upgrade. That in spite of his suspicions that the savvy passenger had knocked the carton out of his hand on purpose, expecting exactly that result.

“That’s not a suit,” he fumed. “It’s a polyester sponge from off the rack at the Men’s Wearhouse. It’s probably his designated spill suit. His real suit is up in that Tumi bag he stashed overhead.”

Eventually we made it to Boston, flying hard, low, and late into an early-autumn rainstorm. With the wings rocking and the tail hammering, the cabin was quiet, filled with the brittle tension that hardens inside an airborne machine that seems to be rattling too much. But if there were silent prayers and last-minute promises to God, they all evaporated when the wheels touched the runway and we landed safely in the steady, soaking rain.

It was still raining an hour later when I emerged from the T station at Copley Square in the Back Bay. My standard flight attendant’s umbrella, which was the size of a salt shaker when folded up, kept me dry from the waist up, but it was too small to protect my lower half. By the time I had walked the two blocks to the restaurant, my stockings were damp, and my dark blue leather flats, the best pair of working shoes I owned, had turned black. I was bitter about it. I couldn’t afford a new pair.

Inside the restaurant, it smelled like rain and felt like the onset of winter. Maybe it was the dim lighting. Maybe it was the rack full of raincoats inside the door. Maybe it was the lack of progress on a case that had begun back when it was summer and the Red Sox were still in first place.

“Hello, Miss Shanahan.” The hostess took my coat and umbrella. “Mr. Harvey is in the back.”

“Thanks, Yumiko.”

Harvey would be in his favorite booth in the back. I couldn’t see him, which was the point, but Harvey Baltimore was always where he said he would be and always at least twenty minutes early.

The first time I’d heard the name Harvey Baltimore, I had assumed it was a nickname, a street moniker bestowed upon a swaggering private investigator who happened to hail from Maryland. In fact, Harvey was a person as mild of manner as I had ever met and Baltimore was his real name. His great grandfather had emigrated from Poland in 1898. When asked at Ellis Island for his destination, he’d told them. According to Harvey, in later years, the old man would pronounce that he was glad he hadn’t been going to Schenectady. His name, he would always add, had not been too dear a price to pay for his new life in America.

I knew enough by now to get myself settled before walking into Harvey ’s line of sight and unsettling him. I slipped off my raincoat, shook out the little umbrella, stomped the water out of my soggy shoes, and stowed my bag behind the bar. Only then did I make my way back, where Harvey sat, hunched prayerfully over his cup of tea. As I approached, his head popped up. He blinked at me, and didn’t even wait for me to sit down.

“What is happening? Is something wrong? Why did we have to meet today?”

“Hello, Harvey.” I slipped into my side of the booth. “I’m fine and it’s nice to see you, too.”

He was dressed in his gray suit with the windowpane plaid-one of the two suits he always wore when he left his big house in Brookline-and the expression of deepest gloom, which he wore at all times.

“Sorry. So sorry, but your phone call had me worried. What is happening?”

“I didn’t mean to worry you and I’m sorry to drag you out in this weather.” I picked up the menu and signaled for the waiter. “Let me just order some dinner and I’ll tell you what’s happening.”

“Dinner? It’s not even four o’clock.” Harvey didn’t like the natural order of things to be disturbed.

“I’m starving and I didn’t have time to eat on the flight. Are you having something?”

“Soup. I will have soup.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

When the waiter came, I gave him my order for two bowls of miso soup, a California roll and…and…

“A plate of mixed tempura, please.”

I put the menu aside with a twinge of regret. What I really wanted was the sushi special-seven different varieties of raw fish on cubes of rice that I could drench in soy sauce, ginger, and wasabe. But every once in a while, I succumbed to the screeching warnings about the health hazards of eating uncooked fish. It must have been the proximity to Harvey and the influence of his chronically jangled nerves.

Harvey spent the majority of his time in a high state of agitation, convinced that if a meteor fell from the heavens tomorrow, it would fall on him. But he had good reason. He had been diagnosed five years ago with multiple sclerosis. It was a devastating blow that had peeled away the last defenses of a chronically nervous, fifty-one-year-old man and left him feeling vulnerable and scared. Working with Harvey was by turns murderously frustrating and heartbreakingly sad.

He reached up with his napkin and dabbed at the dew on his forehead.

“What did your doctor say?”

“I am still, unfortunately, as diseased as ever. Perhaps a little more.”

“I’m sorry, Harvey. I know you were expecting better news.”

“No matter.” He said it with that offhand nonchalance that left no doubt about how much it did matter. “What did you do?” he asked me. “Did you get fired? Is that what you are keeping from me?”

That was the other thing about Harvey. He was highly perceptive.

“I’m not keeping anything from you, which is why we’re here.”

“Then you did get fired.”

“No, I did not.” I slumped back in the booth. “I got a stern letter of warning.”

“I knew it.” He launched immediately into his quietly hysterical mode. “This thing is falling apart. I knew it would. Did I tell you? Did I not tell you this?”

“It’s not falling apart.”

“How can they fire you after only six weeks? What did you do?”

“I am not fired. I am warned, and all I did was melt a couple of ice buckets, which were not supposed to be stored in the ovens in the first place. I’ve had a few customers gripe, and a couple of trips ago-” I glanced up at him. There was no point in unsettling him further.

“How will you conduct an undercover investigation if you cannot hold on to your cover? You have to be a working stewardess to do this job.”

“Flight attendant.”

“What?”

“I’m working as a flight attendant, not a stewardess. I’m also working for you as an investigator, which means I am working virtually around the clock. I spend more than half my time on the road. When I’m not flying, I’m on surveillance. When I’m not on surveillance, I’m writing reports. It’s hard to smile all day and be nice when you’ve had no sleep for three nights running. All things considered, I think I’m keeping up pretty well. Did you get the pictures I sent from last night?”

“I never should have let you talk me into this. This is not what I do. Insurance fraud, background checks, forensic accounting. That’s what I do. What do I know from hookers and pimps? Nothing. That’s what.”

“ Harvey, I thought you should know what’s going on, but if this is the way you react, you will discourage any further impulse I might have to keep you in the loop.”

“I do not wish to be in the loop. I would rather not know. Dear God.”

“Is that true?”

“No. But I am no longer convinced this case is worth it for me anymore.”

“Look, maybe I am-” The waiter appeared with our soup. I waited for him to set the lacquered bowls in front of us and retreat. “Maybe I do cause you undue aggravation, but you have to be fair. This case has been worth a lot of money to you. Shall we review the billings we’ve generated from this job over the past few months?” It wasn’t enough to buy new shoes, but it certainly was enough to pay the rent.

He stared into his cup of miso. He tugged on the sleeves of his worn suit coat. He tried to pull the collar of his pressed white shirt into the next larger size. With his fortunes as a private investigator deteriorating along with his health, he had agreed to take me on because he needed cash fast and I brought a presold job with me. I had agreed to be taken on because I needed to work for a licensed investigator for three years before I could qualify on my own. I thought we were the perfect match. He had the contacts, the license, and a lot of things I wanted to learn from him. I had the mobility and the enthusiasm for the work that had been sapped by his condition, although I had to wonder if he’d ever had much enthusiasm to begin with.

“Do you know how the client will react if you are terminated from this job after they have invested twelve weeks in you?”

“Eleven weeks, half of that in training, which doesn’t really count.”

“The point is the client is dismayed that this case is taking as long as it is and disappointed in our lack of progress.”

“We have progress. If you get the photos out, I’ll show you.”

He pulled a manila file out and slipped it across the table. He must have had it tucked under his thigh, because it was still warm. I opened it and quickly reviewed the report that was on top, reminding myself of what I’d written in the middle of last night. I thumbed through the stack of photos. Not bad images, considering the distance from which I’d had to shoot and the bad lighting and the fact that I’d almost been busted by the target. I pulled out the best image of Angel.

“That’s Angela Velesco. She calls herself Angel, of all things, and she runs the hooker ring.”

“Alex, as we have yet to establish the validity of your ring theory, I would prefer that we not refer to it as such until we have firmly-”

“There are constants in every transaction. The women involved almost exclusively work the first-class cabin. They only turn tricks when they’re on the road. They never do business in Boston. They do not solicit onboard, and they never flash the cash in the open, which means there is some sort of scheduling and payment system behind the scenes, and I’ll bet any amount of money it’s on the Internet.” I had to stop and take a breath. “This is a prostitution ring, Harvey. It’s all very smooth and organized and sophisticated, and she”-I pointed to the picture of Angel-“is the one who made it that way.”

“Can you prove that?”

“Proof, no, but I know it’s going on. I heard something interesting today, that Angel is trying to expand her operation to the West Coast.”

He cleared his throat, straightened his napkin, and cleared his throat again. “We are supposed to be winding down, not expanding the scope.”

“ Harvey, the case is what it is. I’m not expanding it. I’m trying to keep up, and I’m trying to do it given the severe limitation imposed by the airline.”

“Limitation?”

“You know the one I mean. We’re conducting this investigation as if were after the men. We’re after the women, which means we have to prove that money is being exchanged for sex. If I can’t ask the men, how am I supposed to do that? Photos aren’t enough, but they would be enough to leverage statements from the johns. We have the names. I could approach-”

“No.” He sat back in his booth and shook his head hard enough to make his cheeks ripple. “Absolutely out of the question.”

I sat back in my booth. “Option two would be me hiding under the bed while they have sex.”

“I know I do not need to remind you that the client has asked us, I dare say demanded, that we leave their passengers out of the investigation.”

“Can we refer to the client by his name? Can we please call him Carl? I prefer to think of our client as a person, a human being who can be influenced by other reasonable human beings.”

“Very well. As the director of corporate security, Mr. Wolff has made it clear on behalf of the airline that we are not to approach their passengers under any circumstances. We abide by his wishes. It is part of being a good investigator.”

“Oh, and me thinking the goal was to solve the case.”

“Your goal is the client’s goal, and might I remind you that we sold this case on the idea that you could infiltrate the group, that there would be no need to approach the passengers? Metaphorically speaking, you promised them you would be able to get under the bed to get the evidence we need. I am loath to say this because I know how hard you are trying, but we are three months in, and you are not any closer today to becoming an insider than when we started.”

There was that perceptive Harvey again. I had collected lots of information and taken lots of pictures but had yet to make the right contacts to get really inside, mainly because I had overestimated my ability to fit in with a cadre of gorgeous women at least ten years younger than I who had sex for a living and aggressively rejected anyone who didn’t. I stared at the delicate rice paper partitions that separated our booth from the next one.

“Is there some reason you bring this up?”

“The client-Mr. Wolff-is scheduled for his budget review in two weeks. He plans to present one of two scenarios. Either we brought the case in and he is a hero, or we failed to bring the case in and he has fired us.”

“How can they fire us when they’re under pressure to deal with this problem?”

“Apparently, the wife who complained and threatened to go public has been mollified with the promise of several free tickets to destinations of her choice.”

“So they fixed the immediate problem. This ring is not going away. In fact, it’s getting bigger. More wives will find out about it. At some point, one of them will decide not to be bought off and she’ll go public. An airline that is aware of illegal activity going on in the operation and doing nothing to stop it would make a great investigative report, don’t you think? If they’re allowing prostitution, what else are they turning a blind eye to? Smuggling? Maintenance problems?”

“The client is aware of what is at stake. Do not forget that he has the option to hire someone else to take our place.”

My tempura had materialized in front of me sometime during the debate. It looked heavy and smelled greasy compared with the clean and simple sushi I should have ordered. Another opportunity missed.

“What do you want to do?” I already knew the response, but every once in a while, I held out a hope that Harvey might surprise me.

“We should put what we have in a final report and turn it in with our last invoice. They are not going to court. All they want is for the suspects to resign quietly. For that, they need reasonable evidence, which we have given them.”

“It won’t work. I’m getting to know these women, or at least about them.” I picked up a photo. “If you put these in front of one of them, she will not dissolve in tears. She will not implicate her friends. She will say, ‘So what? I went out on a date with a passenger in Pittsburgh. That’s not against the law, and let me introduce you to my union rep.’ The union is solidly behind these women. If we confront them now, we will drive them further underground, which is exactly what happened the last time they tried to get them without the proper evidence.”

“What is your suggestion?”

“Give Carl a plan that gives me until the end of the month, when I have to go back to flying reserve. That’s the two weeks up to his budget review.”

“What will you do in two weeks that you have not already done?”

“Find a way to get under the bed.”