212 eh-3

by Alafair Burke

  According to Jasmine, the head of the operation was an older man she knew only as Uncle Dave. According to the articles of incorporation that Prestige Parties had filed with the attorney general’s office, the company’s CEO and sole shareholder was named David Taylor. Jasmine knew only a little more about the two sisters who helped Dave find girls and book dates. Their names were Corliss and Cadence LaMarche.

  Jasmine suspected she wasn’t supposed to know their last names, but Corliss had let it slip once. She’d asked Jasmine if that was her real name, and Jasmine had confirmed that it was and then asked Corliss the same. “Yep. Corliss, Cadence, and our brother Caleb. I guess our mom figured that with the last name LaMarche we may as well double down on trying to sound like royalty.”

  “She only mentioned it the once,” Jasmine said, “but I remember because I kept repeating it to myself. Corliss LaMarche. Really classy. A lot better than Jasmine Harris, you know?”

  Jasmine paused intermittently to wonder aloud whether she was “shooting herself in the hip.” That was a phrase that Jasmine seemed to favor.

  This time when she invoked the saying, it was after she took a big sip from the bottle of Mountain Dew that Ellie had fetched for her from the DA’s vending machine. “You know, I keep thinking that I’m shooting myself in the hip.” She let out a tiny burp of carbonation from the soda and then covered her mouth and giggled. “Even giving Prestige half the cash, I’ve been taking home between seven and twelve hundred bucks a night when I work for them. They only use me every couple of weeks, but combined with what I’m making at Vibrations, I’ve been doing pretty good. I can’t go back to hundred-dollar dates with the pricks I meet at the club.”

  Someone at Prestige Parties had managed to persuade Jasmine that she had earned her way into that elite category of high-class, high-price call girls. They had sold her on the idea of a fantasy world in which smart, beautiful women earned financial independence and a kind of feminist empowerment by taking money from weak but adoring men for something as easy as sexual contact.

  But working decoy operations on patrol, Ellie had gotten to know the girls on the corners, the ones with the callused feet, hardened eyes, and faded bruises. And she knew that the line that divided them from the Prestige Party girls of the world was nonexistent. Just as a lawyer could use his skills to move from job to job and industry to industry—defending gas companies and then drug makers and then the latest indicted politician—sex workers moved from stripping to porn to dominatrix dungeons to street corners to three-thousand-dollar-a-night hotel penthouses.

  “You’ll land on your feet,” Ellie assured her. “Think about it this way, Jasmine. Are you any prettier now than you were when you were getting a hundred dollars a date?”

  “Hell, no,” she said, smiling. “I’m only getting older, and thanks to my kid, I’ve got stretch marks on my belly.”

  “And are you doing anything drastically different for these men now that they’re paying a thousand dollars a night compared to what you were doing before?”

  She shook her head. “No pervs. I strictly cover the basics.”

  “So if you’re the same attractive woman, doing the same exact thing, why do you think these men are paying more?”

  “Beats the shit out of me.”

  “Because they’ve been told you’re worth it. Tell a guy that you’re worth a hundred bucks, and that’s how he’s going to treat you. But force them to pony up a couple grand, they’re already convinced you’re the most beautiful girl they’ve ever seen. They truly believe you have secret skills to rock their tedious worlds. When Prestige Parties is over and done with, all you’ll have to do is look the next guy in the eye and tell him what it costs, and that’s what you’re going to get.”

  Jasmine took another sip of her soda. “Damn fucking straight I’m worth it. A thousand bucks a night isn’t even that much in the city. I’ve heard of girls who make as much as ten.” Her eyes gleamed at the thought.

  “Now tell us again about the women who book the dates.”

  The truth was, despite Ellie’s assurances that Jasmine would find some way to make the money up, she honestly didn’t care. Persuading Jasmine to cooperate was a necessary step to bringing down Prestige Parties, which was a necessary step to finding Katie Battle’s murderer. If Jasmine wound up broke and desperate again, it wouldn’t be because of Ellie.

  It took Jasmine another hour to tell them everything she knew. Uncle Dave. The two sisters, Corliss and Cadence. Six dates in the last three and a half months, all involving sex for money. And now she was in the district attorney’s fifteenth-floor conference room, eating a package of Hostess Cupcakes from yet another trip to the vending machine, while they conferred in the hallway.

  “It’s still not enough,” Max announced.

  “How is that possible?” Ellie asked. “That girl, despite all the old drugs and recent refined sugar flowing through her veins, has one of the best memories I’ve come across in a witness. She’s willing to let us use her name. She’s got no criminal history and no apparent motive to lie. Her word, plus what we already got from Stacy Schecter, has to be enough.”

  “It’s the same problem you always have with these agencies. The entire purpose of an escort service is to look legit. She knows this guy as Uncle Dave, which is about as creepy a name as I can think of for a pimp. But on paper, according to the AG’s office, he’s David Taylor, the CEO and sole shareholder of a legitimate corporation that provides legal and luxurious entertainment. They dot their i’s and cross their t’s. They’re lawfully incorporated. They had Jasmine fill out a W-4 to pay taxes on that income. I’m sure he pays the LaMarche sisters with reported funds, too, as well as paying taxes on all the company’s earnings. These people aren’t stupid.”

  “No, but they are guilty of promoting prostitution in the third degree. We get the arrest warrant, hook them up on the felony charge, seize all their assets, and then use the money and the criminal case against them to get some answers about Katie Battle and Tanya Abbott.”

  “The problem is they’ve covered their asses. You heard Jasmine. They told her not to engage in sex with the client. They even had her sign a piece of paper acknowledging that any sexual contact with the client was automatic grounds for dismissal.”

  “And she also said she knew when she signed that document that it was just for show. When Corliss first approached her at Vibrations, she even asked her if she ever dated.”

  “You and I know that dating is code, but Uncle Dave will argue it means innocent companionship.”

  “We don’t need a conviction. I just want the leverage. I want some answers.”

  They heard the creak of the conference room door. Like most of the doors in any building with a Centre Street address, it could use some WD-40.

  “Um, is everything okay?”

  “Just fine, Jasmine. If you can wait a few more minutes, we can explain what we’re going to do next.”

  “It sounds like you guys are fighting.” Jasmine looked at her with the worried eyes of a child, and Ellie realized that some part of Jasmine’s personality would always be frozen in adolescence, suspended in time at that first knock on her bedroom door, the knock that had finally led to the police report when she was thirteen years old.

  Ellie assured her once more and waited for the conference room door to close before speaking again in a quieter voice.

  “Let’s take it to Judge Bandon. He’ll do anything for us right now. He’ll sign the warrant.”

  Max shook his head. “That’s not right, Ellie, and you know it. We need more evidence.”

  This wasn’t the first time Ellie had butted heads with a prosecutor. Prosecutors were always worried about trying their cases before a jury, having every thread of every last detail knotted and tucked away to create a smooth, impenetrable layer of proof. Police needed enough evidence to know in their gut they had the right guy.

  Usually, though, when Ellie didn’t see eye to eye with a prosecutor, the p
rosecutor wasn’t a man who shared her bed a couple times a week. That tiny little distinction had Ellie on better behavior than she otherwise might have been.

  But she still wanted her answers.

  “I’m sorry, Max, but I’ll go to Bandon for the warrant myself if you don’t have some other suggestion.”

  Max swallowed and shook his head. She held his stare defiantly but felt one corner of her mouth move upward.

  “Damn, you’re sexy,” he said.

  “I’m also right. We can’t be this close and just stop.”

  He stepped toward her. She felt his breath whisper across her forehead. “You know I never stop when we’re close. I just might need to take a little detour.”

  His body was so close to her now that she felt his hand move near his hip. She closed her eyes. Just when she thought he was reaching for her, she heard the creak of a door, followed by Max’s voice from the threshold of the conference room.

  “Jasmine, sweetheart, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you for one more thing.”

  Ellie pushed past him through the doorway. “You’re a tease.”

  “You said you wanted a suggestion.”

  The phone rang three times before a woman answered in a professional tone. “Prestige.”

  “Hi, is this Corliss?”

  “I’m sorry. Who’s speaking, please?”

  Ellie gave an encouraging nod to Jasmine, who was clutching the handset of the conference room telephone so tightly that her knuckles were turning white. Ellie listened to the conversation through a headset plugged into a digital recorder, which was in turn attached to the base of the phone.

  “It’s Jasmine Harris.”

  “Oh, hey there, Jasmine.” The woman’s businesslike demeanor melted into the voice of a girlfriend. “We haven’t forgotten aboutcha. I’ll give ya a call as soon as we’ve got some work for ya.”

  “It’s actually that, well, I guess I have work. Or at least a chance to work. One of my dates from last month saw me at Vibrations last night and wants an appointment for tomorrow. Guess his wife is visiting her sister or something.”

  “Well, I haven’t gotten any calls asking for you, babe. Sorry.”

  “No, I mean, he’s just planning to come by the club tomorrow to meet me. I wasn’t thinking about it last night, but then it dawned on me that might not be cool with you guys. I don’t want to mess up what I’ve got going with you just for one trick, you know?”

  “You mean an appointment, Jasmine.”

  “Right, an appointment. Sorry.”

  “It’s good you called. The models are definitely not allowed to date Prestige clients except through the company. Every once in a while, we’ll have a client get really close to one of the girls and want to see her on a regular basis, but we expect a buyout in exchange for making that initial introduction. Do you think it’s that kind of a situation?”

  “Nah, he just happened to come in with some of his buddies. Who knows whether he’ll even show up tomorrow. If he does, I’ll tell him he’s got to talk to you guys.”

  “It’s for the best, Jasmine. Uncle Dave’s a real stickler about that. If he finds out the models are booking privately, they’re gone. He puts the word out to other agencies, too.”

  Ellie knew that last part was a bluff.

  “No big loss,” Jasmine said. “Dude was kind of a freak anyway. It was the guy from Labor Day weekend. Kept trying to take the rubber off during oral. I was trying to go down on him and kept winding up with his little dick and his stubby fingers in my mouth. I couldn’t tell what was what.”

  They’d rehearsed the line with Jasmine at least six times before placing the call, but she still managed to deliver it with that silly giggle of hers. It worked, because Corliss laughed and dropped her guard. “I’ll look up the name and make a note of it. We tell everyone to keep it safe, but some of the girls still accept bareback on oral. And, don’t forget, watch it on the phone, Jasmine, okay?”

  “Yeah, sorry.”

  “No problem. And I’ll try to find something for you this week to make up for tonight, all right?”

  “Thanks, Corliss.”

  Jasmine hung up the phone and worked the kinks out of her knuckles. “Was that okay?”

  Ellie couldn’t help but grab the girl’s hands across the table. “That, Ms. Harris, was unbelievable.”

  But it wasn’t Ellie’s approval that Jasmine yearned for. She looked up with wide eyes toward Max, who was sitting with one hip against the conference table. “Was that good? Did it sound good?”

  “You were perfect, Jasmine.”

  She removed her hands from Ellie’s and used them to pull Max’s sweatshirt up over her chin. Ellie knew that sweatshirt would smell good, like a blend of truffles and cedar and lavender and coffee. Like Max. Like home. It was the kind of smell that made a woman feel safe.

  For a second, Jasmine looked happy.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  12:35 P.M.

  “Idon’t know how many times I need to explain this to you, Detectives. I’m a business owner.” David Taylor tugged at the lapels of his navy sports jacket as if the attire spoke for itself. “I spent what seemed like a lifetime owning a bar on the Upper East Side in the nineties. Check it out. No marks on my license. A good relationship with the boys in the Nineteenth. Call Ed Devlin up there. He might be retired by now, but he’ll tell you, I’m good people.”

  Ellie had been pacing behind Taylor in the interrogation room as he repeated his mantra that he was a legitimate businessman. Now she leaned one hip against the table in front of him. “You don’t own a bar anymore, Uncle Dave, and the boys in the Nineteenth don’t know bupkes about Prestige Parties. Or, if they do, they’re not exactly going to tell me, now are they?”

  “The bar”—Taylor pronounced it “Bah,” with a northeast accent—“closed down almost ten years ago. Made a mistake not buying the building when I had the chance. Couldn’t keep up with the rents, you know. Turned out okay, though. All those hours keeping bar, I saw how things work. Hardworking men with a lot of money but not a lot of time just want someone pretty to spend an evening with. Classy, smart, attractive girls.”

  “Prostitutes,” Ellie said. “And you’re their pimp.”

  “No way, ma’am. I know better than that. I want no part of such a thing. I’m a Catholic, for God’s sake. Pretty sure the pope frowns on pimping. I even had a lawyer draw up documents for the girls to sign, just in case they got the wrong idea. No sex allowed. No way, no how, or they’re out the door.”

  She’d had Taylor in this room for twenty minutes now, and his story wasn’t budging. Rogan was down the hall in another interrogation room with Corliss LaMarche. The last Ellie had heard, Cadence was rock solid, so Rogan had moved her to a holding cell so he could work on the weaker sister alone.

  “We’ve got your employee Corliss on tape, Taylor.” She hit the play button on the digital recorder and heard Jasmine’s voice as clearly as if she were sitting in the room with them.

  “Just for one trick, you know?” Taylor smiled with satisfaction as Corliss corrected her: “You mean an appointment, Jasmine.”

  His face fell slightly when Corliss explained the buyout requirement for private dates. “Uncle Dave’s a real stickler about that.”

  “Oh, wait,” Ellie said, “here comes my favorite part.” She caught a slight chuckle in Taylor’s breath as Jasmine described performing oral sex as her date attempted to remove the condom.

  “We tell everyone to keep it safe, but some of the girls still accept bareback on oral. And, don’t forget, watch it on the phone, Jasmine, okay?”

  Ellie hit the stop button, and Taylor shook his head. “I can’t believe Corliss would stand for such a thing. If she and some of the girls have been engaged in this kind of conduct, it was certainly not with my knowledge. I’ve been absolutely clear—”

  “I know, I know,” Ellie said. “No sex. They signed the papers.”

  “Exactly.”

 
; She heard a knock on the door and cracked it open to find Rogan.

  “Wait a second,” Taylor said. “Don’t tell me. This is the part where someone comes in and tells me that that airhead Corliss dimed me up as the big bad boss in charge of the whole operation. Well, guess what, Detectives? I’ve seen every single episode of Law and Order, and I’m not falling for it. Corliss did this on her own. I’m a legitimate businessman, and if you don’t believe me, you can talk to my lawyer.”

  Rogan opened the door ajar. “Actually, Mr. Taylor, I wasn’t here to speak with you at all. You have a guest here to see you.”

  Behind Rogan stood a house of a woman, nearly six feet tall, an easy two hundred pounds, with bright orange hair and green eye-shadow that managed to clash with her multicolored floral silk shirt and thick gold cuff necklace. “God damn it, Dave. What the hell have you dragged my daughters into?”

  “This is Mr. Taylor’s sister, Karen LaMarche. She’s Corliss and Cadence’s mother. She’d like to have a word with her brother.”

  Apparently Uncle Dave was literally Uncle Dave.

  Fifteen minutes after they left Karen LaMarche alone in the interrogation room with her brother, they heard a tap against the one-way window. Taylor wasn’t lying when he said he’d watched a lot of Law and Order.

  By the time they opened the door, Taylor’s sister was already pressing her way past Ellie. “My son of a bitch brother will tell you whatever you need to hear,” she said. “But my girls, my daughters, they get a deal. They walk.”

  Ellie had already called Max as she’d eavesdropped on the conversation between Taylor and his sister. He was prepared to grant immunity to Corliss and Cadence as long as they cooperated.

  “Only if Dave here agrees,” Ellie said. “No deal for him. Just the girls. We need full access to every piece of information Prestige Parties has. All clients. All dates.”