by Julie Smith
“Yes. Tell me everything.”
“Let’s sit down first. Did you make a reservation?”
She had. In moments, we were seated at a good table with a liter of white wine on the way. For the umpteenth time, I told my story. The wine came, and we both ordered petrale, and it came.
Jeannette was properly impressed with the yarn. When I had supplied every scarifying detail she asked for—except, of course, Senator Handley’s identity—I asked about the proposition she’d mentioned the night before.
“It’s this way,” she said. “We need a lobbyist. We’ve been using one of our members, and she’s been reasonably effective, but she wants out. She says the legislators don’t take her seriously because she’s been a prostitute. And furthermore, they expect her to put out. Can you beat that?”
“I’m supposed to be surprised?”
She ignored me. “The stigma follows you for the rest of your life. No one ever thinks of you as Jeannette, with a mother and dad in Iowa, or Jeannette with a degree in English lit; they just think of you as Jeannette the prostitute. Does that seem fair to you?”
“It only makes sense. People think of me as a lawyer. So what?”
“It’s another example of horizontal hostility. And male chauvinism as well.”
“I think it’s an act of male chauvinism for a legislator to proposition a female lobbyist, but I can also see the problem of getting him to take an ex-prostitute seriously. I’m sorry, Jeannette, but it’s cultural bias and you’re stuck with it.”
“Well, that’s what I’m getting to. We don’t want to replace her with another member. How would you like the job?”
“What, you’re not satisfied with my work?”
“We are very satisfied with your work. Otherwise, I wouldn’t ask. You’re well known and well respected. And we can trust you.”
I shook my head. “No thanks. I’m one of those rare people who actually like their work. No sense taking any chances.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. Can you recommend anybody?”
“Not offhand. I’ll give it some thought. Right now, I’ve kind of got my mind on other things. Would you mind if I pumped you about Kandi?”
“Not at all. Though I didn’t know her very well, and from what I gather, that’s just as well. She was a tramp.”
I laughed. “Isn’t that horizontal hostility?”
“No. You’re exhibiting it. You just made it clear that you think a tramp and a prostitute are the same thing.” She patted her neat publicist’s coif, as if to emphasize her own respectability and worth. “There’s an ethical code among prostitutes, which is very strongly adhered to by HYENA members.”
“Kandi wasn’t a member?”
“No. She wasn’t a feminist. She didn’t get along with other women at all. She was a kind of hanger-on, and she came to a couple of our meetings, but she actually laughed out loud if anyone mentioned the word ‘sisterhood.’ Used to say we were fools if we believed in it. And she made fun of Elena’s co-op. I say ‘Elena’s’ because it’s easier, but I hope you understand that I don’t think of it that way—Stacy and Renée and Hilary are just as much a part of it.”
I nodded, to pacify her.
“No one liked her. But Elena kept her because she brought in a lot of business. She was very popular with the customers, although I suspect she had as much contempt for men as she did for her sisters.”
I almost said I could see how the nature of the business might easily breed that, but I thought better of it. Instead, I asked how often Kandi had worked at the co-op.
“Once or twice a week, I think. Even though she was popular, Elena was uneasy about her. After she started working there, she became the favorite of a couple of Elena’s best clients. Influential men, well known in the community, who’d been clients of Elena’s—I mean of the co-op’s—for quite a while. They started asking for Kandi specifically, and then after a while they stopped going to Elena’s.”
“Elena thought that had something to do with Kandi? That she was driving them away?”
“Either that, or seeing them somewhere else, so she wouldn’t have to split the money with Elena. That’s what I mean by ethics. An ethical prostitute wouldn’t do that.”
“But you don’t know for sure that it was that?”
“No. In fact, Elena thinks it may have been something worse. She may literally have been driving them away. By blackmailing them.”
“Oh. So why didn’t Elena get rid of her?”
Jeannette shrugged. “She didn’t have any real basis for thinking that. It was just a feeling. Remember, Elena is a very shrewd businesswoman, and Kandi did bring in business. After all, it could have been a coincidence; maybe the clients had found someone they liked better at another house. So she decided to wait and see if it happened again. The three-strikes-and-you’re-out theory.”
Coffee had come, and I helped myself to cream and sugar. “How,” I said finally, “did Kandi get the job at Elena’s?”
“That’s the ironic part. Through me, helping out a sister. Kandi came to HYENA in big trouble. Or what she thought was big trouble. She’d been working for an escort service run by somebody named George. But she started cheating him, taking his clients, the same way she may have been taking Elena’s. George found out about it, called her up, and threatened to kill her.
“She was a mess when she came to me. George is a pretty big operator in this town, and she knew it. She was new to the business, and she thought he might kill her.”
“Did you think so?”
She waved a scornful, well-manicured hand. “Of course not. He was just being macho. I told her not to worry about it and gave her a stern lecture on ethics. She said she wasn’t aware she was doing anything wrong. It was she the clients liked, and she didn’t see why she shouldn’t pocket the entire fee. I told her that wouldn’t do at all, and she seemed very contrite, very willing to learn. You know those innocent kitten eyes of her. I fell for it. I knew Elena was looking for some part-timers, so I sent her over there. I told Elena the whole story, of course, but she seemed satisfied Kandi was reformed. Until she got nervous about losing the two clients.”
“What about this George? Was he at Elena’s party?”
“I don’t know, but he could be an FDO for all I know. I’ve never seen him. Rumor has it he’s a respectable businessman who runs the escort service on the side.”
We’d dawdled over our coffee for a long time, so long that most of the restaurant’s clientele had turned over once. Jeannette excused herself for a trip to the ladies’ room.
From where we were sitting in the dining room, you could see through a large open doorway to the bar. Idly, I looked that way. A man I recognized stared back. It was Frank, the fellow I’d met at Elena’s who’d wanted to call me Becky and negotiate an illegal transaction. He’d obviously been watching me.
Seeing his chance, he left the bar and came over to my table.
“Hi,” he said. “I nearly didn’t recognize you. But everybody knows Jeannette von Phister. Since you’re with her, I figured you had to be the lovely Rebecca, looking wholesome instead of exotic. That’s quite a trick you’ve got. Not unappealing at all.”
I gave him my standard freeze line: a haughty “What can I do for you?” But I forgot it might sound different coming from a supposed prostitute than from a lawyer. He seemed to take it for an invitation: “I thought we might continue the conversation we started last night.”
That was my cue to ’fess up to being a clean-living American girl. But for the second time that day I failed a test of character. Somehow it just seemed easier not to, especially since Jeannette was on her way back from the ladies’ room. I flicked my eyes in her direction. “Perhaps,” I said, “some other time.”
“I’d like that,” he said. “Maybe we could do a little business. I’ve been looking for someone like you.”
He produced a business card and laid it on the table. It read
“High-Life Escort Service” and gave a phone number. That was all. “Just ask for Frank,” said Frank, nodding briefly to Jeannette as he walked away.
“Who is that man?” I asked her when she sat down again.
“Never saw him before in my life. I thought you knew him.”
“He was at Elena’s party last night.” I looked at my watch. “I’d better go if I’m going to watch myself on television. Just one last question about Kandi. What was the name of that escort service she worked for?”
“I don’t know. The Top Hat or something. No—I’ve got it. The High Life.”
Chapter Eleven
I debated calling a taxi to take me home, but decided that was silly. It was only a few blocks, and the November air would do me good. Anyway, I was wearing my invincible black leather jacket ($250 at Saks). A walk would be a good opportunity to digest not only petrale, but information as well.
As I saw it, I had discovered three possible motives for killing Kandi. George, whoever he was, had been double-crossed by Kandi and had actually threatened her. And one of his agents had been at the party. Or maybe Frank was actually George. No matter what Jeannette said, I imagined pimps, even high-class ones, might be dangerous. Maybe George felt he’d had to knock Kandi off to keep the rest of his women in line. Or maybe he’d just argued with her and lost his temper. Or maybe she’d stolen something from him and he was trying to get it back.
Or maybe he was in love with her: you always hurt the one you love.
Then there were the two clients who’d mysteriously cut themselves off from the lubricious ministrations of the co-op. If Kandi was blackmailing them, she was probably using some object as a threat, something to prove she had enjoyed an illicit liaison with the blackmailee. Letters were the usual thing, but I’d never heard of anyone writing incriminating letters to a prostitute. Still, you never know about people’s sexual whims; look at Senator Handley’s preferences.
It didn’t have to be letters, though. Just some personal object: maybe an inexpensive and easily identifiable pen, a photograph—perhaps of the wife and kids themselves—lifted from the client’s wallet, or some other piece of identification; even a driver’s license. Who knew? Maybe a pair of silk monogrammed boxer shorts. I stopped myself. Now that really was ridiculous. Anyone would miss his undershorts.
Whatever it was, perhaps one or the other of the influential johns had some reason to think Kandi had it with her that night and had killed her for it and then searched my apartment until he found it. But the problem was that he apparently had found it. That got me no closer to knowing what it was, which got me no closer to knowing where to look for it. I would just have to ask Elena for the clients’ names, that was all, and see if I got any brilliant ideas when I had them.
Just to make sure I didn’t overlook anything, I tried to think whether Jeannette had said anything that suggested a motive for either herself or Elena. But I was damned if I could put my finger on one. A pimp might kill a double-crosser, but would a madam? A feminist madam at that? Maybe I was being sexist, but I couldn’t see it. I even considered whether Jeannette would kill her for giving the profession a bad name, but that was dumb. The Chronicle had once called Jeannette, much to her horror, “the suzerain of San Francisco’s strumpets.” It might have been tacky, but it was true. Jeannette would have had the power to see that Kandi never worked any lucrative house in San Francisco again. She didn’t need to murder her.
I let myself into my apartment. This time it looked like home. I went straight to the bedroom, which is as light and airy and feminine as the rest of the place is modern and hard-edged, and I put on the old-fashioned white muslin nightgown Mickey had once made me for a birthday present. Then I poured myself a brandy and settled down on the rose satin comforter I inherited from my favorite Aunt Ellen and I turned on the eleven o’clock news.
Your honor may take judicial notice that the witness is prejudiced, but I thought I was terrific.
* * *
Sunday morning dawned as clear and crisp as the Saturday before it. At least I assumed it did. It was like that when I got up at ten.
I went downstairs, got the Sunday paper, and threw it on my bed. Then I made myself some bacon, orange juice, coffee, and two poached eggs on toast—done perfectly, if I say so myself. I arranged these delicacies artfully on one of those wicker breakfast-in-bed trays that you get at Gump’s (a gift from my parents) and carried it into the bedroom.
“Breakfast, Rebecca,” I hollered cheerfully. “Rise and shine. Don’t want your eggs to get cold.”
“Oh, you sweet thing!” I answered. “You really shouldn’t have. Just look at those eggs!”
Whoever said living alone is lonely? Gary only made me breakfast in bed on my birthday. Rebecca is much more solicitous.
I got back into bed with my tray and reached for the paper. In San Francisco, the Sunday paper is a kind of hybrid, the result of a merger some years ago between the Chronicle and the Examiner. The Chronicle became a morning paper, and the Examiner took the afternoon slot, with Sunday thrown in as a sop; the Sunday news sections, that is. What makes the paper a hybrid is that the Chronicle has certain sections in it: the comics, something called “The Sunday Punch,” and a magazine offering.
You may wonder how I managed to restrain myself from reading the murder story before I made breakfast. I might not have if it hadn’t been for the events of the day before—I mean telling Mrs. Phillips I was Isaac Schwartz’s daughter and failing to tell Frank I wasn’t a prostitute. I did it as a character-strengthening exercise. After those two lapses, I figured I needed it.
The Examiner had managed to dig up a picture of Kandi from somewhere—maybe from San Francisco State—so she smiled out at me from two columns on page one, looking like everybody’s favorite homecoming queen. And guess whose Semitic mug occupied the adjacent two columns? Mine. The caption said, “Discovered body in her apartment,” not “Attorney for the unjustly accused brother.” But you can’t have everything.
I guess someone took the picture at my al fresco press conference, because I was wearing my white silk blouse and coral necklace. It wasn’t at all bad, and neither was the story, which was written by someone named Silvia Estevez. She got my quotes right and used the ones I cared about. And she didn’t hint that Kandi had been anything other than a wholesome, innocent college student. Thank God for libel laws.
I perused the rest of the paper only superficially, allowing enough time to pass until I judged it was a decent hour to call Elena. This occurred at 11:45.
Elena had spent several grim hours with Martinez the day before, and she sounded beaten. “Parker had to tell him who I am,” she said. “So Martinez made me explain about the FDOs and give him the president’s name. I guess he’ll go over the guest list, and I’ll never get any of those people as clients. Not that I have anyplace to entertain them anymore. I’ve closed the house now that the cops know about it. Have to start looking for a new location tomorrow, but you can’t move wallpaper and carpets. All that’s down the drain. I’m still getting calls and parceling out tricks in hotels, if the clients are willing to spring for it, so we still have a little income. But even that makes me nervous. They probably have the phone tapped by now.”
I murmured something flip about the wages of sin, but luckily Elena didn’t hear it. Luckily because I remembered the whole quote: “The wages of sin is death.” I changed the subject.
“Listen, Elena, you know that favor you owe me? I’m ready to collect. May I come over and ask you about a zillion questions?”
“Sure,” she said resignedly. “Stacy’s here—is that okay?”
I said it was.
Elena had left the curtains drawn. Gloom pervaded the house like a miasma. What had seemed so amusing a parody before was now a grisly mockery, in my eyes at least. But I don’t think Elena would have put it quite so dramatically. She was more concerned with financial than aesthetic hardship.
The kitchen, at least, was still cheerf
ul and was populated by Stacy, with whom I exchanged hellos. She, if you recall, was the tiny one who dressed like a little girl at the FDOs party. She was my client, of course, but I’d never known her well and never especially cared for her. She wasn’t wearing make-up that day, and she looked about twelve—a hard, pinched, colorless twelve, with sharp little teeth.
Elena had made a pitcher of bloody Marys and we sat around the kitchen table with them.
“As you know,” I began, “I believe Parker is innocent. That means someone else must have killed Kandi. So the questions I’m going to ask are aimed at trying to find out who it might have been. Can you bear with me?”
Elena nodded. Stacy let her expression slide from bored to slightly contemptuous.
“Okay, what happened after I left the party?”
Stacy shrugged. “It fizzled.”
“Elena?”
She ruffled her hair with her mandarin nails. “God, I was furious. As soon as I realized the raid was a phony, I started to worry about those blank shots, which really could have brought the police, despite the soundproofing.” She stopped, snapped her fingers, and looked glum.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“She’s just remembered how much soundproofing cost,” Stacy said. “And now it’s no good to us. Shit!”
Elena snapped, “Stacy, do you have to talk like a streetwalker in front of Rebecca? Lighten up a little.” She turned back to me. “Anyway, once I realized what those overaged adolescents were up to, all I wanted to do was get them and their tiresome boyish mirth off the premises, but it was only midnight and they’d rented the house till two o’clock. I didn’t want a scene, of course—”
“Hell, no,” said Stacy. “There was still a chance some of them might want to come back as customers.”
“That was one reason,” said Elena icily. “So I went to the president and told him I’d be happy to return a portion of the money, but I was sorry, they’d have to go, and would he make an announcement to that effect?”
