“That’s your idea?”
“Think about it. They’ve got the same target market. They can do joint marketing. ‘Use your frequent flier miles to get laid.’ It’s a win-win.”
His delivery was so perfectly deadpan it made me laugh. “I don’t believe this is the kind of advice the airline called on us to provide.”
He leaned back and shrugged. “It’s a new day, Shanahan. You have to think outside the box.”
“Well,” I said, hopping out of the box, “it is an intriguing idea. The airlines are always looking for ways to burn off that frequent flier liability. Ten thousand for a lap dance. Think of all the liability you could burn off on a single New York–LA transcon.”
He stared at the ceiling. “Seventy-five for a threesome. In Bermuda.”
“You’re such a guy, Dan.”
“Threesomes and girls doing each other. Are you kidding me? They’d put the rest of us out of business in a week. I’ll let you have that idea. You should think about it.”
“I think I’ll stick with the client’s fundamental premise that prostitution is a bad thing.”
“Suit yourself. I’m just saying, don’t fuck with market forces. These guys love to play the frequent flier game. This is just another way to do it.”
“I have a different idea. I want to get someone from the inside, a client, to give me information about what’s going on.”
“What kind of an asshole in his right mind would do that?”
I unzipped my backpack and pulled out the envelope I’d brought. I slipped out the photo I’d printed, the one that had caught my attention last night, and passed it over to Dan. “This kind. Look at the man behind the brunette. He has his hand on her butt.”
“Holy shit. Is that—”
“It is, isn’t it?” I was delighted to see the flash of recognition in his eyes. “It’s that guy from Florida who used to fly in and out of here about once a week. You used to meet and greet him.”
“Still do. He’s one of my best customers. Filthy rich. Lives down in West Palm, but his mother is still out in Weymouth. Every time he comes through here, I take care of him. Every time he goes out, he offers me a job with his company. His old company. I don’t even know what he does. He had a bunch of businesses and sold them.”
“That’s a prostitute he’s fondling, Dan, one of the ones I’m chasing.”
“Good for him.”
“So, here’s what I was thinking. I really need information on this group. Your buddy from Florida is obviously on the inside. I was wondering if you could talk to him for me.”
“Talk to him about having his hand on a hooker’s ass? I don’t think so. I just told you he’s one of our Very Important Travelers.”
“You could talk to him as someone interested in becoming one of their clients.”
“You mean a trick.”
“Well…yeah. That way, you could ask him questions about how it works, is it secure, how does he schedule dates, does he know many of the women. I can give you a list of questions if you want.”
“Shanahan…” We were perfectly isolated in the hollow center of an airport din. There was no more private place to talk, yet he still checked around and leaned closer. “The reason I had to hire Harvey in the first place was because my ex accused me of hiding assets. Can you believe that shit? That’s all I need is for her to get wind that I’m out blowing the child support on hookers.”
“I’m not asking you to take a survey. I’m asking you to talk to one guy in private, man to man, and see what he will share with you. If he tells you to mind your own business, so be it.”
He shook his head, a distant smile on his lips. This wasn’t the first favor I’d asked of him. He always bitched and moaned, and he always came through for me.
“I’m desperate here, Dan. If I can’t make this work, I don’t know what I’ll do. I might have to go back into the airline business for real and for good.”
“The way this business is going, you wouldn’t want back in, anyway. It sucks. Besides, I don’t think anyone would hire you.”
“Why do you say that?”
He handed the photo back. “I’m just saying you’ve got a lot of baggage. With what happened when you were here and the way the rumors fly about you—”
“What happened here is fully documented by the police, the airline, Massport, and everyone else who was involved for what it was—self-defense.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I was here. But lots of people don’t read the fine print. They hear that an employee died on your ramp, and they move on to the next résumé.”
I stared down at the picture in my lap and felt a wobble in my heartbeat. He wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t already thought myself, but it felt different hearing it from someone else. It was as if I’d looked down from the high wire, only to discover someone had made off with the safety net. That was all I needed. More pressure to perform.
“Will you talk to him?”
“I’ll look and see when he’s due to come through. If he’s not scheduled in, maybe I’ll give him a call.”
“Thanks.”
“Cheer up, Shanahan.” He looked over and nudged me with his elbow. “What’s the matter?”
“If this doesn’t work, I’m not sure what I’ll do. I can’t get in tight with a single one of these hookers.”
He laughed. “That’s because you don’t exactly look the part.”
“What do you mean?”
“Not for nothing, but if I was a hooker, I wouldn’t be spilling all my secrets to you.”
“Why not?”
“Because you look like…like what you are.”
“Which is?”
“A…a manager. A…” He started talking with his hands, which is what he did when he couldn’t find the words, which was almost never. “A businesswoman. Someone who wears…suits. I don’t know. What I’m saying is I don’t look at you and think blow job.”
“You think I can’t give a blow job?”
“Did I say that? What I said was that you don’t look like a hooker, and if I was a hooker, you wouldn’t be the first person I would tell all my secrets to.”
“Well, what…” I uncrossed and recrossed my legs. I clasped my hands together in my lap. “In your opinion, what would I have to change to be more like one?”
“Everything.”
“Start small.”
He scanned the terminal. The good thing about airports is you can always find a type, an example of whatever you’re looking for.
“There. See that girl? The blonde?”
“Looking at magazines?”
“Her. Yeah. What do you see when you look at her?”
“Nice figure. Spiky heels, black roots, a skirt that’s too short. Attractive face, but more makeup than an anchorwoman wears. It looks kind of pancakey.”
“Here’s what I see.” He sat up straight and trained his attention on her. “Big tits. Blond hair. Big tits. Short skirt. Big tits—”
“There is not a chance in hell I’m getting a boob job to work this case.”
“She’s dressed like she wouldn’t mind me coming up and asking her what her sign is. You know what I mean?”
He looked at me looking at myself in my smart linen pants and my silk shirt and my leather flats. “Now, you, for instance—”
“That’s enough. I get the picture.” I couldn’t help but think about what a strange twist my life had taken when I was accused of not looking like a hooker and resented it.
“Anyway,” he said, one hand smoothing his hair in back, “I don’t know if that helps you.”
“No, it helps. You know what it’s like? It’s like being back in high school. Did you like high school?”
“Nobody likes high school, Shanahan.”
“These women, these hookers, they’re like the cheerleaders. Revered or despised by all who are not they. They’re completely unapproachable…a world unto themselves. You don’t get into their little clique—their ti
ny, exclusive clique—without being invited. And they don’t invite anyone.”
“You didn’t hang out with cheerleaders in high school?”
“I didn’t hang out. I was either taking care of my little brother or working.”
“That’s a sad story. But we’re grown-ups now. We get over that shit, right?”
I stared across the terminal at the blonde buying the magazine. She had probably been a cheerleader in high school. Or at least one of those girls who always knew what to say to boys. Regardless of who she was then, she was now a woman at whom men like to stare, and I wondered what that felt like. I also wondered if changing my clothes would be change enough.
“Shanahan, your fifteen minutes have been up for fifteen minutes.” He stood up and stretched his back, then leaned over and used his most discreet voice. “All I’m saying, you’re working undercover, right? That means you have to be undercover. Maybe if you looked the part more, you’d feel it more. God knows you’ve got the body to pull it off.”
“Yeah?”
“The real question is, do you have the balls?”
Chapter
6
THEWOLFBOROUGH SHOOTING RANGE WASN’Tmuch more than an opening in the trees at the end of a long dirt road. It was easy to spot Tristan leaning against a Porsche—aPorsche? —in the lot down at the open field that served as the pistol range. As far as I could tell, he was the only living organism there at ten-thirty on a Friday morning. I pulled into the space next to his and climbed out.
“You’re late,” he said.
“Sorry. Since when do you drive a Carrera?”
“It’s Barry’s, and you’re changing the subject. Don’t even think about screeching up at the very last second when you go to Moon Island to take your range test. They don’t like that, and you’ll get all flustered, and you won’t shoot straight, and you won’t pass the test, and you won’t get your license, and I’ll feel like a failure. I have a personal stake in this. In fact, when are you scheduled?”
“The week after next.”
“I’m going with you. I’ll pick you up. We’ll get out there in plenty of time. That’s what we’ll do.”
Tristan had switched into his shooting instructor role, one he obviously took seriously. I had been amazed when he’d told me he could teach me to shoot. Tristan didn’t exactly exude machismo. But he had grown up in Wyoming and when he’d told his parents he was gay, his father decided he needed to know how to defend himself and taught him all about guns. It turned out he needed less protection from the rednecks than from his own mother. She disowned him and tossed him out.
When my old instructor had left town, Tristan had happily volunteered to take over my firearms instruction and help me prepare for the test. Not only was he an excellent teacher, he had lots of guns. He also had accepted without question my vague explanation that I just wanted to learn how to shoot. Most important of all, he refused to charge me for his services.
“What’s today’s lesson?”
“Large-caliber weapons.” We walked out to the shooting range and the setup area, which looked like a long, covered picnic table, on which Tristan had displayed his usual array of small arms, ammunition, targets, and headgear. He picked up a big revolver with a long barrel, something Billy the Kid might have worn strapped to his thigh. “You’ve got the twenty-two under control. Let’s see how you do with this baby.”
He offered it to me, and I wrapped my hand around it. Thanks mostly to Tristan’s impressive array of handguns, I was beginning to know the weights of the various calibers. In the month we’d been shooting together, this was the heaviest I’d held.
“It’s a Forty-four Special,” he said. “It will be even heavier with these.” He handed me a box of shells. “Load it. Get ready to fire.”
I opened the box and emptied out a few rounds. The shells were large, about as big around as my little finger, which made them much easier to work with than those slender .22-calibers. I slipped one into each of the six chambers.
“On the range!”Tristan yelled out from behind me. We were the only ones around, but he was a stickler for safety and doing everything according to the rules, a fact that I found reassuring. He waited for me to put the gun down and step back before walking out and slapping a couple of standard paper bull’s-eye targets onto the holders.
I still had the first target I’d ever hit, the flimsy documentation of my faltering early steps to learn to shoot. I kept it in a place where no one could see it, which was the perfect metaphor for my complicated relationship with firearms. The instructor I’d been working with had told me the tight cluster of small holes I’d made on my first attempt, though not in the bull’s-eye, was evidence of a steady hand. He’d called me a natural, which meant I had an innate ability for something to which I had traditionally claimed an aversion. Not a “repeal the Second Amendment” passion. I hadn’t grown up around guns and had no use for them. But learning to shoot was part of my training, a necessary arrow in my quiver of professional skills, and I had decided if I was going to do it, I was going to do it right. I just hadn’t been prepared for how much I would like it.
Tristan positioned the targets where he wanted them. When he came back, I was ready. I picked up the loaded weapon and donned my headphones. I waited until he put his on, then assumed my stance—feet shoulder-width apart, both hands on the pistol, arms straight in front.
“Single action first.” Tristan’s voice was clear, held close to my ear by the headphones, which were intriguingly designed to filter in all sound except explosive gunfire.
I pulled back the hammer until it caught and placed my finger gently on the trigger.“Firing on the range!” I yelled, waited a beat or two, and then squeezed.
The sound was muffled. The kick was not. The explosion drove my shoulder back and the barrel of the gun straight up. I peered through the lingering smoke and saw that I had missed the target completely. Judging from where the gun had ended up, the round had probably gone over the stand and lodged in the dirt and grass berm that formed the back perimeter of the range.
“Wow.”
“Keep firing,” he said. “You have to compensate for the extra kick. Aim lower this time than you would normally, and remember it’s all in the way you pull the trigger. Squeeze gently. Single action again.”
I cocked the hammer, moved my feet two inches farther apart, and settled in, trying to lower my center of gravity. I used the sight to aim below the target and squeezed off a round.
“There you go, love. That’s much better.”
I lowered the gun and felt a warm satisfaction rising. A large, round hole had appeared in the outermost ring of the target. I couldn’t wait to take my range test. There was nothing subjective about it. It was finite and measurable. There was a clear demarcation between passing and failing, and if I accomplished nothing else in this, my first official case, at least I could do that.
“Fire all the rounds,” he said. “Reload, and try it double action.”
The last four shots all hit the target, one actually close to where I’d aimed. I felt more comfortable with each shot, but knew I’d have to build up more arm and chest strength ever to feel truly comfortable with a large gun like a .44. Tristan had been encouraging exactly such a workout program all along, but I barely had enough time and energy to get my running in.
When the gun was empty, I found the release, opened the cylinder, emptied the spent casings, and reloaded. As I was doing that, Tristan was firing an automatic at a target that was twice the distance of mine. When the smoke had cleared, I could see he had fired six shots straight into the heart of his target.
We worked for another twenty minutes, or until I could no longer hold up the heavy weapon. Afterward, we sat at the table, and he showed me how to clean it. The sun, higher in the sky, had baked off the moisture from the day before and warmed the air to a pleasant temperature.
I wanted more information on Angel, but I was afraid of pushing too hard with Tristan.
It was just so tempting. He was one great source of information. I decided to test the waters.
“I’m supposed to fly with Angel next week.” I used my most offhand tone.
“That’s too bad. Maybe you can swap off.” He was watching my hands as I worked with the gun. “No, here.” He took if from me and demonstrated. “It’s easier if you do it this way.”
“Do you think the management of this base is aware that there is a prostitution ring flourishing under their noses?”
“Most certainly. But our current management team is of the let-sleeping-dogs-lie tribe.”
“That seems like a dangerous position to take. What if they get caught? Management will look pretty clueless.”
“They won’t get caught.”
“Why not?”
“No one wants to catch them. Can you imagine the headline? ‘OrangeAir Shuts Down Flight Attendant Hooker Ring.’ Besides, they’re careful. It’s like I said yesterday, Miss DQ has made them much more discreet and low-key than they used to be.”
“I still don’t think that just because Angel has a condo at the Ritz, that means she’s a prostitute.”
“It’s not just her. It’s a pattern. These women all live lives they cannot possibly afford. They disappear on layovers, and they show up in the schedule where they have no business being. What else can they be doing?”
“Sightseeing?”
“In Wisconsin? Why would anyone swap onto a trip to Milwaukee three weeks running? It’s one thing to get stuck with that trip, but to go out of your way to get it when you have the seniority to avoid it? They end up in odd places at odd times. It’s because they need to be there to meet their dates. But that’s just my theory.”
“So, they must do a lot of swaps.”
“Tons, and those are all well organized, too.” He peered across the table at me. “Why are you so interested?”
“Curious. You’ve got to admit; it’s pretty fascinating. I’ve never met a hooker.”
“Are we going to have to do an intervention on you? Throw a blanket over you and whisk you off to Bermuda for deprogramming?”
First Class Killing Page 4
