Copp In Deep, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series)

by Don Pendleton

  "Yes. We found Beth finally. Her group had taken a side trip from London to Stonehenge, but she called just a few hours ago. She'll be back tomorrow."

  I glanced at my poop sheet. "How is Morris Junior taking it?"

  "Well now he is head of the family, isn't he? I believe that he is the only thing keeping his mother sane right now," Mary replied chattily, warming to me. "He won't be returning to UCLA until—well, for a while."

  "Must have been devastating for Barb to find out that way," I guessed again.

  "Well, yes, she just couldn't get it out of her mind that he'd been lying here dead while she was partying in Aspen. But she's coming to grips with it. Thank you for calling, Joe. I'm sure it will be a comfort to her."

  "She may not remember, I just met her in Aspen. But tell her anyway."

  Mary's voice was tinged with an unspoken question as she replied to that. "Oh, of course, I'm sure she will

  remember. Are you ... in town now? Coming for the funeral?"

  I said, "No, probably not, it's a private time, I respect that. Just tell her I called. And uh . . ."

  "Yes?"

  "Well I was wondering about Toni Delancey. Have you heard . . . ?"

  "Oh, you're with the company."

  "Not exactly, but . . ."

  "Yes, Toni came by today, she's okay, quite a trooper. She's planning cremation for George as soon as the authorities release the body."

  I said, "You're quite a trooper too, Mary. Thank you very much."

  That voice was warm and almost intimate as she said good-bye. "Thank you too, Joe. Come see us when it's convenient."

  With that tone of voice, she could have meant "safe" instead of "convenient." I'd heard it before, that tone, when women share delicious secrets. So what kind of partying, I wondered, had Barbara Putnam been enjoying in Aspen while her husband lay dead?—and how tight a marriage could it have been if the impression was accurate and the death and burial of a husband was a mere inconvenience?

  But of course I could have been entirely off base on that. I had called merely to satisfy the curiosity about why the bodies had not been discovered before I stumbled onto them. Apparently I had the answer to that.

  Wife vacationing in Aspen, daughter apparently touring Europe with a group, son living on campus at UCLA.

  But now I had to call the other widow. Just had to.

  Damned glad I did, too.

  I recognized the voice, you see.

  Had just a light touch of very soft accent, one of those indeterminate foreign touches that can be so very pleasing when the mood and the moment is right.

  It was not all that pleasing this time but I recognized it with the first hello.

  I disguised my own voice the best I could as I inquired, "Mrs. Delancey?"

  "Yes. Is this Mr. Williams?"

  "Yes. How can I . . . ?"

  "I must leave for Europe as quickly as possible. How much longer must my husband's body be detained?"

  I guessed that she'd been expecting a call-back.

  But I did not know what to tell the lady about her husband's body so I merely hung up the phone and went on to the party.

  But something else had been settled, as well. Gina's name was not Terrabona or Sarastova or even Gina. It seemed that her official name would turn out to be Toni Delancey, and wasn't that a shocker.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It is quite a large place, sits well back off the street behind high walls and even higher shrubberies in a solid atmosphere of inpenetrable wealth, swankily private. Best little whorehouse in Beverly Hills, bet on that, and with strictly a carriage trade. The automobile gate was standing open and two pleasant looking young men in tuxedos were manning it. Both were eyeing the old Cad a bit nervously until I identified myself, then I was waved through with a proper flourish and I checked the car with a valet at the front door.

  The Cad got tucked into very good company already assembled there—I figured maybe a million bucks in rolling stock, allowing fifteen grand per wheel—and I was ushered into the entry hall where two more tuxes eyeballed me, checked me off a list, and passed me on through.

  Inside, it looked like any other high society cocktail gig you might find anywhere. Ladies in flowing gowns and gentlemen in black tie stood about in small groups

  engaged in genteel conversation, uniformed waiters moving restlessly, bearing silver trays ladened with interesting fingerfoods and drinks—forty to fifty people, at quick estimate, about evenly divided between male and female. That translated to no less than twenty johns, and the evening was very young.

  Found myself wondering how much my pass was worth, decided that Cherche knew whereof she spake— I couldn't afford Angelique or anyone else in this joint— and I wondered why she'd wanted me there. The smooth blonde whom she'd introduced as her secretary came over and took my arm, stopped a waiter and hospitably urged me to partake of the rich offerings. I said no, thanks, I'd had a TV dinner, but I accepted a glass of wine just to show that I was no party pooper.

  "Where's the party?" I asked her, looking around at it.

  She showed me a smile that contained a secret and stepped closer to murmur, "Depends. We call this room our depressurization chamber. Mostly, first-timers are brought in here. Gives them a chance to, you know, acclimatize just a bit."

  I said, "Uh-huh. Then what?"

  "Depends," she repeated.

  "On what?"

  "On what it takes to fully please our guest. Where would you like to go from here?"

  "What's on the program?" I asked, genuinely curious.

  "That's up to you, isn't it?"

  "Is it?"

  "Sure. Whatever you'd like. You'll find young ladies in the game room if you'd like to just sit and talk, get better acquainted with someone, whatever."

  I asked, "Are all these girls . . . ?"

  "Hostesses, yes. Take your pick."

  "That would be like a kid in a candy store," I told her. I gave her a closer look, then, and asked, "How 'bout you?"

  She smiled and said, "That would have to, uh, be arranged in advance. I am generally not included in the pick."

  "Like Cherche?"

  She rolled her head to one side and gave me a side- wise gaze. "Sort of like that," she said soberly.

  "And Angelique?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Is she here tonight?"

  "Angelique? I'm not sure. Later, perhaps."

  I kept trying. "Suppose I don't see a girl here who turns me on?"

  "Then you're in real trouble, aren't you," she replied with a teasing smile.

  "Let's say that I am."

  "Is this for real, or . . . ?"

  She excused herself quickly to greet two new arrivals, distinguished looking men in their sixties, chatted with them briefly then passed them off to another girl, rejoined me with an apology. "Sorry. What were we—? oh yes, we—"

  "Cherche asked me here for a reason. I think I know now what the reason is. She wants me to see her operation. So why don't we just get to that."

  She gave me a briefly speculative eye then took my hand and walked me toward a door at the far side of the room. "Sex is like food," she told me as we were getting there. "There is hot dog sex and gourmet sex. You can get a hot dog on any corner. But if you want fine cuisine ..."

  We'd stepped into a broad hallway. It was carpeted and decorated with fine art.

  ". . . usually you'll want to see a menu, first."

  A ladies powder room was just down the hall. We were headed that way.

  "Of course, those who demand the best are usually prepared to pay for the best. We cater to the gourmet appetite. And we specialize in full course meals with all the trimmings."

  She'd stopped me at a door next to the ladies' room, opened it invitingly.

  "You could find an appetizer in here, or perhaps simply an intimate look at a particular dish. Careful, you may find it a bit dark at first. I can't go inside with you but I will be nearby when you are ready to leave."
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  I went in and she closed the door firmly behind me. It wasn't all that dark, just a twilight effect—long narrow room with easy chairs lined up at a trick mirror, you know the kind, mirror on one side but transparent from the other, and of course this was the transparent side. Two men were sitting there in total silence, one of them nervously puffing on a cigarette, watching two girls primping at the mirror.

  It was just a game, of course. The girls knew the guys were there but were acting like they didn't, and they were helping each other with their hair and cosmetics, adjusting their bras and fooling around with their hosiery, that kind of stuff. I knew where it was headed so I stepped back outside.

  There were trick-mirror "appetizers" all over the joint, designed for varied tastes, but I sampled only one more—it was quite enough, really—featuring a guy and two gals in a live sex show.

  For some people, I figured, the appetizer would be the entire meal. For myself, I always figured sexplay as a participator sport and I said as much to my guide.

  She shrugged and told me, "You may participate as you wish, but not here. This house is merely the kitchen."

  I said, "Oh. It's carry-out."

  She said, "Yes. Except by special arrangement."

  "What could be specially arranged? A room upstairs?"

  "Yes. Or . . ."

  "Or what?"

  "Special parties."

  "Here?"

  "Uh-huh. Game room, and at the pool."

  I said, "But I could take one of these girls home with me tonight."

  She rolled that oblique gaze at me again. "Or one of them could take you home."

  That gave me a glimmer. Maybe it explained why "Sarastova" was the occupant of record at the apartment where I'd had the encounter with Walter Mathison. I didn't voice it, just tucked the thought away for future reference.

  "You could also arrange a video taping," my guide informed me.

  "Why would I want to do that?"

  She delicately shrugged, showed me that secret smile, replied, "I am told that it can be a powerful aphrodisiac to re-live one's most powerful fantasies, to be the star in one's own pornographic film."

  I told her, "What I keep seeing here is bundles and bundles of money."

  "Well, we are not selling hot dogs here. We do not cater to that trade. For those to whom we do cater, the cost is secondary and probably inconsequential. What is a few thousand dollars to these men who deal daily in millions?"

  I suggested, "You could be selling total disaster to some of these people if the truth came out, though. These are big men. They must be nuts to risk . . ."

  We were standing outside the game room, beside the pool. It was a warm night and the moon was high. She placed a hand on my shoulder and asked me, "Can I tell you a trade secret, Joe?"

  I said, "I'm always game for those."

  "The bigger the men," she told me, "the bigger the demand for our kind of services. And these men did not get where they are through timidity. You think these men are afraid of risks?"

  "I guess you're right," I said. "But there's such a thing as plain stupidity too."

  "Not where sex is concerned."

  "No?"

  "No. Especially not when it is the only gratification left."

  I asked her, "Do all you girls talk this good?"

  "We can talk any way our guests desire. Would you like me to get down and dirty?"

  I chuckled and told her, "I couldn't afford it."

  She laughed, too, and told me right back, "Oh, I think you could."

  "Really?"

  "Catch me on a good day."

  "Is this a good day?"

  "This is a terrible day. Introductory nights are but once a month and require exhaustive preparation. It is very tiring."

  "That's what this is? All first-timers?"

  "Yes. It is like a showcase. Mainly what we sell tonight is stock."

  "Stock? Like shares?"

  "Sort of like that, except they do not pay dividends. Well, not cash dividends."

  "It's a club," I guessed.

  "A company," she corrected me. "Money passes hands no other way and we sell nothing but stock. The dividends may be taken however and whenever the member chooses."

  "Quite a wrinkle," I commented, "... for the oldest profession."

  "Oh it is not the oldest," she said.

  "No?"

  "No. Not even the most enduring."

  "What is?"

  "Dominance," she said soberly.

  "Think so?"

  "Oh absolutely. Without dominance there could never be prostitution." She inclined her head toward the game room. "These men here—these big men—theirs is the oldest and most enduring profession."

  I figured probably she had something there.

  On reflection later, I knew damn well she did. They owned us all, guys like these did, in one fine way or another, and they manipulated us all according to their needs.

  It was a whorehouse lesson for me, and I would never forget it.

  It even helped move me toward the resolution of this case.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The dumbest whores in the world have a view of us men that is quite unlike any we could ever have of ourselves. They get us at our best and our worst, our strongest and our weakest, and they know us in very special ways. The dumb ones maybe cannot verbally express that knowledge in any coherent way, but when you get a smart whore—an intelligent, educated, refined whore—then you're just so much clear glass, pal, whether you've slept with her or not.

  I did a lot of time as a vice cop so I think I'm speaking with some authority on the subject. I've dealt with them all, from the fourteen-year-old runaway druggies hustling cars from street-corners to the aristocratic madams such as Cherche who consort with world leaders, and I have to feel that any natural woman in any walk of life could become a whore in certain situations. I forget who said it but some very wise man has been quoted as saying that every woman has at least a bit of whore in her, and I think he meant it as a compliment.

  Maybe I wouldn't go that far, but of course a lot depends on what you mean by the term.

  I have known whores who do it as a hobby, not from financial necessity but just for fun. I have known a few who did it merely to cover their own indiscriminate appetite for sex, and I have suspected one or two of doing it because really they hate men and see it as a way of cutting them down to size. For most, though, it is simply a means to an end, a business, and many of those feel in no way degraded by their business.

  Cherche's operation was sort of unique not only in the way she worked it but also because of the quality of her women. There were no kids here, no druggies, no dummies. These women could have made it anywhere, in any calling. They were bright, well-educated, mature, personable, highly attractive, classy. So why did they become whores? I don't know why because that is something that you just don't ask, so I stopped asking it a long time ago, especially of whores like these.

  The "secretary" was called Alexandra. That is her professional name and all these women here had great names like that. She was solid class from head to toe, and I have already exposed you to her depth of thought. To "buy into" this company, a guy had to submit a financial statement and undergo a severe background check. I gathered that the women were selected just as carefully. They were medically certified "safe" on a regular schedule—and it was my understanding that the examining doctors were also "stockholders" in the company,

  so their own good health could have been at stake in those checkups.

  Each woman had her own apartment around town and the rent was paid by the company; some senior women lived in condos owned by the company. Personal relationships with outside men were severely frowned upon, and they definitely "worked" for no one but the company. The lifestyle was high, as provided primarily by the company, and the direct salary excellent, with an equivalent amount invested on the woman's behalf in solid portfolios.

  I didn't get all this in one piece, of course, a
nd I give it to you here merely as background and to show that your perception of whoring may not exactly fit the circumstances here.

  Alexandra was quality stuff, like "Angelique"— who, by the way, obviously did not fit the employee profile if what I thought I knew about her was true—as were all of them I encountered that night. Cherche, of course, was in a class by herself, the brains and heart of the whole operation—and Cherche was centered somehow in all the problems confronting me at the moment. I knew that, or at least sensed it, so I was not just dallying among the lilacs in that visit to Beverly Hills that night. Don't think I was somehow immune to the very powerful sexual aura of the place, I was not—but it was a time for work, not play, and I was working every damned thing I could at the moment.

  I was left to my own devices for about an hour, just nosed around on my own—an obviously square peg in

  this gathering of millionaires—and tried to keep out of the way. One white-haired gentleman did accost me and bluntly asked who I was and what I was doing there. I replied that I was seeing to his security and he made a remark to the effect that I should have been in black tie like everyone else—wouldn't stand out so. I told him that my tie was at the cleaners and promised to wear it next time. That drew a short laugh but he kept eyeing me in a way that made me uncomfortable—I was beginning to feel like a dividend—so I was glad for more than one reason when I was finally summoned to Cherche's apartment, which occupied an entire wing upstairs.

  It was designed and fit for royalty, of course, and Cherche looked totally at home in the midst of that. There was a lot of red in silks and velvets, an equal amount of black in laces and leathers—the hot-cold, yin-yang of sexual opposites in every touch and look— and some of the most startling pornographic art in both canvas and statuary as these jaded eyes have ever seen, truly masterworks from around the world and obviously worth a fortune.

  This of course was merely the sitting room and there was ample comfort for a dozen sitters. I didn't see the bedroom except a glimpse through a curtained doorway suggesting more of the same in there.

  My hostess wore silk lounging pajamas all in one piece with a plunge in front to the navel and slits up both legs above the knees, red and black of course. I wondered what it must be like to live one's entire life, night