Twelve Nights

by Remy, Carole

  “Come to Cincinnati and live with me while you go to school.”

  “I can’t be that dependent.”

  “Then get a college loan.”

  “I can’t be that poor. Starving graduate student doesn’t appeal to me much more than prostitute.”

  Aggie knew her sister well enough to agree. She couldn’t think of any more arguments, so she capitulated.

  “All right. I’ll do the interview.”

  Angela grabbed her sister in a breath-stealing hug.

  “I love you!” she screamed. “I’d love you anyway, even if you said no, but …”

  “Stop crying,” Aggie admonished her sister for the second time that evening. “You’re not making sense again.”

  “I don’t care,” Angela sobbed. “This has to work, Boo. It just has to work.”

  “I’ll do my best, Angela,” Aggie cautioned as her sister sat up and dried her eyes. “But he’s probably interviewing lots of people. Wait a minute.”

  Aggie stared at her sister.

  “You said the lawyer rejected your letter. Why do you need me to go for an interview with him?”

  “I never told you the rest of the story. Danny said to come to Vancouver anyway, and he’d figure out a way to get me in to the interview. I picked up a note from him at the Vancouver Hotel…”

  “Ah,” Aggie interjected.

  “Right,” Angela agreed. “We were supposed to stay there. He rented the Queen Anne suite for us. Sounds posh, doesn’t it?”

  “Why aren’t we…” Aggie paused as she figured out her sister’s reasoning. “We can’t be seen together. He can’t know there are two of us. No wonder you’ve been so nervous the last two days.”

  Angela nodded. “I have the room key, so he doesn’t know we’re somewhere else. Anyway, the note said to meet him at ten o’clock tomorrow morning in the lobby of the hotel. We don’t have much time.”

  Aggie felt her heartbeat quicken. Anticipation of the coming encounter made her feel more alive than she had in years. Since her sister moved away, she realized. Angela could do that, make the colors of life more vibrant, the days more fun. Aggie had almost forgotten the surge of adrenaline that foamed in her sister’s wake. She thought back to the personal ad. The man might have written it directly to her. Mingled with pure adventure was the tingle of sexual anticipation. If her sister hadn’t needed the money so badly… She suppressed the subversive thought. What about Andrew? Screw Andrew, she realized with a guilty shiver. One way or another, she was going to at least see the man who had placed the ad. She turned to her sister with a smile.

  “Let’s get started.”

  Chapter 9

  “What criteria did you use to select these women?” Jimmy’s voice boomed over the speakerphone.

  “Exactly what you said in the ad, Jimmy,” Richard replied.

  Jimmy heard no apology in his lawyer’s voice, but only a resigned weariness. Jimmy mentally accused and then quickly acquitted him of deliberately choosing unappealing women. Despite his good looks and intelligence, Richard found the female sex even more an enigma than Jimmy did himself.

  “So far I’ve met an obvious gold-digger. She was fake everything, boobs, hair, eye color, probably had liposuction too.”

  “I’m sorry, Jimmy,” the lawyer did apologize now. “I didn’t think to ask for a medical history. That was an oversight.”

  “It’s okay,” Jimmy relented. As his anger dissipated, he began to see the humor of the absurd situation. “Another one wore fake glasses to look intellectual. She had been well coached by someone, except she kept messing up the ten dollar words she had memorized. She said she admonished from drinking and she condoned cruelty to animals. A regular Mrs. Malaprop.”

  “Who?”

  “A character from a play. Never mind.” He thought of another question. “By the way, where did you put them?”

  “In the Vancouver Hotel,” Richard answered. “I had the reservation clerk spread the rooms out. Is there a problem?”

  “They found each other. I picture this gaggle of thirty year old spinsters cackling over breakfast and dissecting me like a sausage.”

  “Poetic, Jimmy.”

  “Poetic justice?”

  “I didn’t say it,” Richard laughed. “Look, what do you want me to do?”

  Jimmy treated the offer as genuine. “I want you to get in here and interview some of these women. You can at least weed out the worst of them.”

  “I’m covering a conference call on the Dallas merger at ten. It should take about an hour. I can be at your office by a little after eleven.”

  “Get here as soon as you can. Cut the call short. It’s like a siege.”

  “They’re waiting in separate rooms, right?”

  “Yes, but they’ve found the bathroom. That’s where they’re stirring the witches’ cauldron.”

  “I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

  Jimmy hung up the phone and swiveled his chair toward the window. What an idiot he was, brain smart but heart stupid. Thinking he could find a woman to love by offering money in a personal ad. A chuckle rose unbidden from deep in his belly as the absurdity formed a photograph in his head. A naked woman pouring tea in his apartment with a huge red heart painted on her chest and a giant dollar sign on her back. He relaxed into the fantasy. She was tall and thin with long, no make it short, auburn hair, the face of a Botticelli and the body of a Giacometti. And the sexual energy of … he searched for an analogy. Not a Don Juan, not a nymphomaniac. He gave up. The woman couldn’t exist. With a sigh, he turned back to face his desk and pressed his finger on the intercom.

  “Send in the next one, Julie.”

  “Right away, Mr. Buko.”

  The office employees thought Jimmy was interviewing for a newly created position at TransGlobe. They knew Jimmy was a hands-on owner and were only mildly surprised that he was doing the interviewing himself. They counted it up as another Buko eccentricity. As long as he and they kept making bundles of money, he could interview as many women as he wanted.

  Jimmy stood as the door opened and moved around the desk to greet the next applicant. His automatic smile became genuine as he recognized his companion of the previous week.

  “Monica.” Jimmy held out his hand.

  “Jimmy.”

  Her grip was firm in his.

  “I guess you’re wondering how I got through your lawyer’s screening,” she offered, “being a professional.”

  “Sit down, Monica.” Jimmy gestured to the sofa. His eyes walked the length of her from casually stylish light brown hair, past a conservative suit of beige wool, over slim calves wrapped in sheer flesh-toned stockings and ending with red heels just short of fuck-me.

  “You’re a sight,” he commented.

  “My other persona,” Monica explained. “I used it to get the interview. I really am working on my masters. I also work part-time for the Vancouver Sun.”

  “Did you leave out any other details besides the prostitution?”

  “A few,” Monica smiled.

  Jimmy raised his eyebrows.

  “That was all before I met you,” Monica defended herself. “I didn’t know you were the person who placed the ad until I walked in the door just now.”

  “It’s okay. Tell me what else you,” Jimmy hesitated over the word. ‘Lied’ would be too harsh. “You fabricated.”

  “I have a three year old daughter.”

  “Do you have a picture?” Jimmy smiled.

  Monica pulled her wallet out of her purse.

  “A few,” she admitted. She extracted three photos.

  “She’s a beauty.” Jimmy didn’t need to fabricate the compliment. The little girl was a miniature of her mother. “What’s her name?”

  “Jennifer Michelle. I call her Jen.”

  “She’s a lucky girl to have you for her mom.”

  “Not according to her father. He found out about my sideline and he’s threatening to go to court to get custody.”


  “I’m sorry,” Jimmy commented. Though his sympathies were aroused, he cringed mentally from the messiness of Monica’s entanglements.

  “I also lied about my age,” Monica admitted.

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “And you have a three year old and a university degree? That’s an accomplishment.”

  “I’m pretty determined,” Monica understated.

  Both smiled as silence fell into the room.

  “I answered the ad because I need the money for a lawyer.”

  “I understand.”

  “Since you gave me the five thousand dollars,” Monica began then interrupted herself. “Thank you, by the way. Anyway, now I don’t need the money as badly.”

  “I’m glad.” Maybe despite all the obvious difficulties, Monica could be the one he was looking for. Jimmy weighed the factors in his mind and came to a swift decision. Only one crucial question remained. “Are you seriously involved with anyone, Monica?”

  The glow on her face answered Jimmy’s question before the words reached his ears.

  “Yes,” she nodded and ducked her head.

  “Is he good to you?” Jimmy asked. Now that any possibility of relationship had vanished, his protective instincts resurfaced.

  “He’s wonderful,” Monica gushed. “He’s a jazz musician and he loves Jen to pieces.”

  “He doesn’t mind about the prostitution?”

  “I explained how cold it is, how clinical.” Monica colored as Jimmy smiled and shook his head. “Not with you, of course.”

  “With me too.” The truth was plain to Jimmy, however Monica might wish to color it. She was a prostitute and he was a john. Jimmy stood and reached for Monica’s hand. He bowed over it like a courtier, then raised her to her feet. He pulled a business card from his pocket and scratched a name on the back.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” he challenged. “Call this man. He’ll get you the best lawyer for your child custody case. At my expense. The deal is that you quit prostitution. Use the five thousand dollars to finish your degree and marry your musician.”

  Monica’s eyes widened and then narrowed.

  “I have debts,” she admitted.

  Jimmy shrugged. “It’s a good offer. I’ll pay for the lawyer on your handshake. You decide for yourself about the rest. If you want to make yourself into a serious liar, so be it.”

  For the first time, the businessman who had amassed half a billion dollars emerged from Jimmy’s homespun exterior. Monica hesitated for only a moment before she shook his hand solemnly.

  “I’m not a liar,” she asserted.

  “I didn’t think so,” Jimmy smiled, the homespun back in place. “Send me a photo of Jen once in a while.”

  “I’ll put you on my Christmas list,” Monica promised. She leaned up and kissed Jimmy on the cheek. “I’m glad you were my last trick.”

  After she left, Jimmy sat again in the chair behind his desk. He swiveled back to face the window. He didn’t for a moment believe that Monica’s arrival was pure coincidence. Richard must have planted her, knowing she had been his lay-of-the-week. Maybe he thought … Jimmy stopped. He couldn’t think of a single reason Richard would have gone to the trouble to find her.

  “Mr. Buko,” his secretary’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

  “Yes, Julie,” he called out to the intercom.

  “Your brother is on line one, Mr. Buko.”

  “Danny,” Jimmy picked up the phone and greeted his younger sibling. “What’s up?”

  “Meet me for lunch, Jimmy.” Danny’s sentence was characteristically terse and hovered between statement and question.

  “I’m doing those interviews today,” Jimmy reminded him.

  “Meet me for lunch at the Beach House,” Danny repeated. “At one o’clock.”

  “Okay,” Jimmy relented. “I’ll get Julie to make a reservation.”

  “I already did. Bye.”

  Jimmy shook his head as he hung up the phone. Danny was an enigma. As intelligent as anyone in some areas, he was naïve to the point of simplicity, almost an idiot savant. With perfect photographic recall, he could master any academic subject. But he seldom could apply any of the millions of facts at his command to useful purpose. Jimmy loved him with a fierceness that defied opposition, and protected him from the outer world with a diligence that only great wealth could purchase.

  Jimmy’s reverie was again interrupted by the intercom. “Mr. Buko, Mr. Urbano is here.”

  “Send him in,” Jimmy ordered.

  “Richard,” he greeted his lawyer. “The conference call?”

  “There was a slight hitch with the figures from Copenhagen but I persuaded Dallas to go ahead anyway. The adjustment was slight and shouldn’t affect profits over the long haul.”

  “How long is the long haul?” Jimmy queried, his voice sharp.

  “We’ll be down about a hundred thousand a day for the first three months. Then it will turn around. We should be back in the black within five months and showing a good profit within eight.”

  “What’s a good profit?”

  “Fifty thou a day, conservatively. The break-even on the initial investment comes at six months two weeks.”

  “That’s my man,” Jimmy clapped his lawyer on the shoulder.

  “It was your idea,” Richard reminded him. “I’m just the number-crunching, i-dotting, t-crosser.”

  “Time to get to the real work, Mr. Crosser.”

  “The women,” Richard groaned.

  “The women,” Jimmy agreed. “You sit here and weed through ’em.”

  He pushed the lawyer into the chair behind his desk.

  “There should be,” he looked at the list on his desk, “fifteen left. Narrow it down to two or three. Good looking but not flashy. Intelligent. Sense of humor. Just find me the perfect woman.”

  Richard’s head hung in his hands. The man could face down a hostile faction and save a profitable venture, but he cringed before a few eager women. Jimmy was still laughing as he walked out the door.

  Chapter 10

  Aggie stood in the lobby of the Vancouver Hotel. She wasn’t sure what Danny would look like. She had her doubts that he had managed to arrange an interview. She didn’t know if she could pull it off. At that moment, she had no idea what she was even doing in Vancouver.

  She pulled down the hem of her sweater. At the last minute, she had insisted on wearing the outfit Angela had bought her in Atlanta. She hoped the pants and sweater would bring her luck, that some shred of good karma clung to the wool. Besides, it was comfortable and conservative and it made her feel pretty. Angela had capitulated with bad grace, certain the look was too plain. As the minutes dragged on, a niggle of doubt twisted into Aggie’s brain. Maybe Angela was right. Maybe the outfit was too plain.

  “You are beautiful.”

  The voice spoke from right behind her.

  “Oh,” she turned and studied the young man who had startled her. He was tall and thin, his molded suit hinting at sleek muscles. His hair was blond and simply cut. His clear blue eyes stared into hers with unnerving intensity. He was a hunk. “Are you Danny?”

  The words came out more breathless than Aggie anticipated. She cleared her throat and tried again.

  “You must be Danny.” she thrust out her hand. “I’m Aggie Trout.”

  “I’m Danny,” the young man agreed solemnly. “I didn’t know you were so beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” Aggie blushed.

  “Come with me.”

  The young man turned on his heel and walked away. Aggie hurried to catch up. Danny strode through the lobby and out the main door of the hotel. Then he turned left and started down the street.

  “We’ll walk,” he announced.

  “That’s fine,” Aggie agreed. “I like to walk.”

  The young man shot her a sharp glance.

  “That’s good,” he commented.

  “Do you think we could go a little slower?
” Aggie asked.

  The man slacked his pace and Aggie adjusted her stride to approximate his.

  “Tell me about your brother,” she essayed when she had her breath back.

  “He’s a good person.”

  Evidently Danny wasn’t big on small talk. He quickly confirmed her estimation.

  “You talk,” he commanded. “Tell me about yourself.”

  “Well,” Aggie began, “I’m a librarian. I live and work in Cincinnati.”

  She waited for some response. None came, so she continued, trying to stick to the script she and Angela had agreed on. The words died unspoken as a sudden thought took precedence. Maybe she should turn on the tape recorder. She and Angela agreed that she wouldn’t be able to remember what she told the lawyer verbatim, that she should record every word. Aggie fumbled in her pocket and pushed what she hoped was the record button. Then she continued her monologue.

  “I like my job. I love books and obviously the library is full of them.” Do I sound as stupid to him as I do to myself, she wondered. She tried again. Maybe a direct question would get a response, take some of the burden off her. “Do you like to read?”

  “My brother does.”

  Silence again. Still, she stored up the morsel of information, hoping it might prove useful at some point. They walked in silence for some moments and Aggie studied their surroundings. They were walking down a busy street lined with small shops. It felt almost European. She looked around for a street sign. Robson. Maybe she and Angela could come back here once the inquisition was past.

  Several minutes and turns later, they walked by a huge mansion on the right. The next block held a more prosaic Safeway. The scent came to Aggie first, the familiar briny tang of the ocean. A moment later she began to recognize buildings and then their hotel came into view. If Angela was looking out the window she would see them, see Danny.

  “This is beautiful,” she commented to throw Danny off track. She didn’t want him to guess that she knew this view well. He glanced at her and smiled, almost as if he knew. But he couldn’t, she reminded herself. “What is this body of water called?”