The Baxter Trust

29

Carla Finley was lying nude on a slowly revolving table. Her knees were drawn up and her legs were spread wide. Her hands were reaching around the insides of her thighs to give a little assist just in case the position itself was not sufficient to be truly revealing. Her neck was craned up from the table, and she had a look on her face that was surely supposed to pass for unbridled lust.

Steve Winslow watched her through the window of his private booth, one of the dozen or so such booths that ringed the performing area. Steve, unlike the half a dozen other men whose faces appeared in the various windows, was studying her face.

Carla was heavily made up, but, on close inspection, the powder and rouge could not hide the fact that the face behind it was worn, that this was a woman on her way out, not on her way up, if such expressions applied in her chosen profession. Her face was lined, but that was not the thing that really gave her away. It was her eyes. For despite the devilish gleam she was attempting to affect, there was another, more sincere look she was unable to keep out of them.

They were tired eyes.

Steve’s minute was up, and the blind on his window began to close. He bent down, looking under it until it closed completely.

He fished in his pocket and pulled out another quarter, then dropped it in the slot.

The blind went up again. As it did, he could see that Carla was getting up from the revolving table. She stood, stretched, smiled and then began walking around the room, cupping her sagging breasts and smiling at the customers in the windows.

When she reached his window, he banged on the glass and pantomimed wanting to talk to her. She smiled knowingly, pointed toward the back of the shop, held up three fingers, and mouthed, “Booth three.” Then she moved on to the next customer.

Steve watched until she finished her rounds and left the stage.

He left his booth and headed for the larger encounter booths in the back of the shop. A stout, perspiring Hispanic in a white t-shirt stopped him.

“Goin’ to a booth?”

“Yeah.”

“Gotta buy a token, buddy.”

“I just want to talk to her.”

“Course you do, buddy. But first you buy a token, see.”

“Yeah. I see. How much?”

“Buck.”

Steve pulled a dollar out of his pocket and gave it to the attendant. The attendant gave him a metal token.

“I’ll need a receipt,” Steve said.

The attendant stared at him. “You shittin’ me?”

“No. I want a receipt.”

“What for?”

“My expense account.”

The attendant shook his head and laughed. “Now I heard everything.”

The attendant moved off, still chuckling.

Steve shrugged, and moved toward the booths in the back.

There were four of them. They were two-person affairs, arranged so the customers saw a side view of both compartments. One compartment was for the girl, the other was for the customer.

Two of the booths were occupied by customers. In those booths, curtains were pulled over the windows, hiding the occupants from view.

The other two were waiting for customers. The curtains were open. The girls sat on stools and smiled at the prospective customers. The doors to the client’s side of the booths were invitingly open.

The girl in booth three was Carla. She was wearing skimpy panties and bra, covered by a diaphanous something or other. She smiled at Steve as he approached. He smiled back, and entered the booth.

It was not unlike the booth he’d just been in. A window with a blind and a coin slot. The main difference was a telephone receiver hanging next to the window.

He closed the door and dropped his token in the slot. The blind went up, revealing Carla sitting on her stool. She picked up the phone receiver and gestured for him to do the same.

He picked up the phone.

“Hi, sugar,” she purred. “What can I do for you?”

“I just want to talk.”

She winked. “Sure you do, sugar. Why don’t you tell me what kind of things you like?”

“Are you Carla Finley?”

Her smile froze, and her face got hard. “Hey, what is this?”

“Robert Greely.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Sheila Benton’s lawyer.”

She stared at him for a second. “Get the hell out of here.”

“I will, but not just yet. I did pay for my time.”

“The cops told me not to talk to you.”

“You always do what the cops tell you?”

“In my business, you don’t cross ’em.”

Steve smiled. “And we don’t tell ’em all we know, do we?”

She looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean if you happened to tell me something, you wouldn’t have to tell the cops you told me. And I certainly wouldn’t tell ’em.”

Her face twisted with anger, making the age lines more pronounced. “Listen, Mister, don’t get chummy with me. Bob Greely is dead, and Sheila Benton killed him, and why the hell should I help you?”

“She didn’t kill him,” Steve said. “But someone else did. If you help the police convict her, you’re just helping the real killer get away.”

“Yeah. Sure. Tell me another one.”

He looked at her for a while. “All right,” he said. “Let me tell you something. You’re going to talk. Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. The hard way is I put detectives on you day and night until I catch you in a compromising situation with some prominent, upright citizen who can’t afford to let his name get dragged into this. Then I put the squeeze on him so hard he has to put the squeeze on you. It may not get me what I want to know, but it’ll sure as hell put a dent in your social life.”

He paused and let that sink in.

“That’s the hard way,” he said.

He reached in his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills.

“Now,” he said, “which would you rather be? Blackmailed or bribed?”