Face Value

by Lia Matera

  She sat straighter. I wondered how many times she’d made this argument; and yet, her passion seemed new. “They’ve figured out the world is full of victims and oppressors, and they’ve decided it’s about sex. Like sex causes violence. They don’t like clubs, they don’t like porn films, they hassle the S-and-M people. Anybody who’s into sex in a different way or a commercial way gets blamed for rape. It doesn’t even make sense. They confront us at work maybe two, three times a year.”

  “Have they thrown blood?”

  “Not on us, but they’ve thrown it in front of the theater.”

  “I heard they disrupted the anti-censorship rally.”

  “I know. And it’s not fair. The couple that owns the club is very active in free speech things. They’ve donated a lot of money to good causes—not necessarily related to sex. And one of the reasons they can afford to pay us more lately is they’re not spending half their income on lawyers to keep the theater open. They’re good employers. I mean, what the anti-sex women don’t get is that we sell our time, just like anybody else. Yes, we fuck our work buddies, and we do it in public. We like that; we wouldn’t be in the industry if we didn’t like to fuck in public. There’s nothing wrong with that. No one’s coercing us. And the men who come to our shows really appreciate what we do. They’re grateful. They need to see women who love sex—you know, maybe the women in their lives don’t. They need to see women who aren’t hung up, who like to show themselves off and touch themselves and be touched. There’s nothing bad about that. We like it. They like it. Isn’t that what work’s supposed to be?”

  For a little more inspiration, I’ll put it in deeper. “You must have nights when you’re not in the mood.”

  “Any job’s a job sometimes.”

  “When I was there, I noticed one of the dancers had bruises all over her thighs.”

  “Yeah, well. And boyfriends are boyfriends. What can I tell you? Some of my coworkers are smart, and some aren’t. Some are bitches.” Her face clouded. “Were.”

  “Why were you going to sue Brother Mike?” It was an unprofessional question. If she ever resurrected her claim, I’d have to answer to the court for it. It surprised me that I needed a response more than I needed to hedge my bets.

  “He was using me.” Her throaty voice dropped in pitch. “Son of a bitch.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He wanted me in the videos because my body’s good and I know a lot of tricks. And I got the groups charged up. Sometimes I’d do my act before the sessions to get people going. I’d do some sucking to get them jacked. That was okay because that’s what I do, and I like it, and we agreed on it. But that wasn’t enough for him. He crossed my line. He pimped me out.”

  I was out of my depth. If the things she’d described were fine, what wasn’t?

  “It turned out all he wanted was frames—frames of video to play with. I could have been anyone. I gave him my love, and I gave him my body to kind of spread around. And that didn’t mean a thing to him. He just wanted some celluloid. To mess with. And I was in love with him. I admired his brains and his soul and all that. I’d have done anything for him.” Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes. “I did a lot of things for him that were really special, that he couldn’t have gotten from anyone else in his group. And when it came right down to it, he didn’t care. I could have been anybody.”

  “But the things you did, they weren’t any different from what you do at The Back Door.” Not a question.

  “But that’s my career. No one’s using me.”

  “What made you go see a lawyer?”

  “He’d been making all these tapes of me. He’d set the camera up and paint dots on me and have me do things. His computer would connect the dots so he’d have this like wire puppet on the screen. He’d wrap textures over it and move it around. Or he’d do stuff with lasers—set up mirrors and steel boxes, he said for making holograms. Or he’d put on the video of a session and tape me imitating one of the women. Sometimes he’d film us fucking. He’d fuck me awhile, then get up and fiddle with the machines and then come back and fuck me some more. He could keep a hard-on all day, it seemed like. I used to kid him it was the computers that turned him on, not me.”

  “What was he trying to do?” .

  “I’m not totally sure. He was into morphing. You know what that is? He’d take some dumpy devotee’s body and make it like sixty percent my body—better than airbrushing, I’ll tell ya. He used my friends’ … some other people’s bodies, too, getting the videos ready for rental stores. What he did with the other stuff, the holograms and line puppets and all that, I don’t know.”

  “So why did you leave the group?”

  She looked at her hands, resting on the sheet over her belly. “I may not be the swiftest, but I finally got it that it wasn’t a joke. His hard-on really was for the computers and the video gadgets. I finally got it he was just using me to improve the movies. He morphed me with Rhonda—that fat cow.” Again, tears spilled from her eyes. “And I’m not just anybody. I’m not just a body. I’m the one who got everyone excited. I’m the one who taught him standard setups and camera angles and all that. Ironic, huh? Because that’s all he cared about, not me, not any human. Just the machines, just the equipment. The future, as he calls it.”

  I thought back on my day with him. He’d seemed willing to address his devotees’ concerns and needs, perhaps, but I’d seen no sign that he cared for them.

  “I mean, I still think he’s a great man.” Her voice was smaller now. “He can look right into people and see what’s in there. But he doesn’t really give a shit.” She sat up slightly. “He’s like the kind of friend who can always figure out what’s wrong with your TV or your dishwasher, and so every time he goes anywhere he ends up fixing all the broken appliances for everyone. But that’s just because he can. And there’s no reason not to do what you can, especially if it makes people happy and makes them love you and give you money. Like that rich guy who gave him the island—he ended up going bankrupt after that. I mean, if you can tune into people on a deep level, you can end up with a group that’ll do what you want. You can just play with them. Use them to work on your projects, you know?”

  “You think—”

  “And I won’t be used! I won’t. Not by anyone. That’s why I’m a dancer. It gives me the control. Me.”

  There was a load of personal history in that “me.” Clearly someone had controlled her to an intolerable level at some point in her life.

  “So you were going to allege that Brother Mike tricked you into thinking he was helping you when all he was doing was using you.”

  “Vitiating my consent. That’s what my lawyer said.”

  It pained me. The lawsuit would have been bigger and more complicated than anything Judy Wallach had hinted at. (Smart of her to pull her punches.) It would have been fascinating.

  “Why did you change your mind about the suit?”

  She pointed to her face.

  I waited. “You’re saying the beating happened because you went to a lawyer?” Roy and Rhonda had visited Judy Wallach that day. When I spoke to Hover the next afternoon, he told me they’d just returned with a letter from her. That meant they’d spent the night. They’d had the time—and motive—to arrange de Janeiro’s beating.

  “You tell me what else I’ve done lately that I haven’t been doing for a long time.” Her voice quavered. “The lawyer’s the only thing, right?”

  Roy and Rhonda were back on the mainland. Where was Margaret? Was she safe from them?

  “Have you heard from Margaret Lenin? Have you seen her? She sounded … very upset last time I spoke to her. The night you were attacked.”

  De Janeiro didn’t look surprised. “Margaret gets like that sometimes when she drinks. She told me she called someone—you, I guess. She rambles about her mother. She gets over it. She sneaked in here
later and spent the night on a chair. She’s okay.”

  “So she came back here that night?”

  “Yeah. For a scene I didn’t need. I can’t fucking win with Margaret. I mean, if I don’t call her, she gets huffed out. If I do call her, it’s recriminations up the wazoo.”

  “But she’s all right.”

  “More than all right.” Bitterness energized her voice. “She likes me in one place, she likes me staying put. She sneaked in again yesterday and spent the night. They were going to let me go home, but my doc didn’t come sign the papers like he was supposed to, so I had to stay. I’m still waiting for him. But at least they aren’t dicking with me every hour like they were.”

  I had to ask again. “Margaret came here after she phoned me? She’s really okay?”

  This time Arabella sounded angry. “Why wouldn’t she be? Those women were my friends, my buddies. She didn’t much like them. Or you could say, the idea of them.”

  She waved me away, rolling onto her side. “They were nice kids, most of them. At heart, you know?”

  I stared at her back, shaking with sobs. I stared at the smooth skin where the hospital gown gapped.

  I didn’t know what to make of her.

  26

  I hadn’t been to Sandy’s office in over a year. His secretary didn’t seem to recognize me. She flashed me an unfriendly look and told me he was with a client.

  I said I’d wait, and I sat on a vinyl banquette that might have come from a dentist’s office. The secretary (Jean? Janet?) occasionally cast me a hostile glance. I had a sudden intuition that she did remember me, that her hostility was unrelated to my having no appointment. I regarded her with more interest: mid-twenties, fluffy hair, too much makeup, too-tight clothes on a good, if hippy figure. She and Sandy were romantic, or at least sexual; I could feel it in her angry appraisal of me. I wanted to reassure her that if things went well, if I could pull the chestnuts out of the fire, Sandy and I would get back to being friends. Good friends, old friends. I’d missed him.

  It was funny, though—after the shit Sandy’d given me for tumbling into McGuin’s arms; calling him a “goddamn kid,” if I remembered correctly. This woman couldn’t be much more than half Sandy’s age.

  His office door opened, and I rose, expecting him to emerge. But it wasn’t Sandy who came bolting out. It was Steve Sayres.

  Sayres nearly plowed into me. When he saw me, he stopped as abruptly as if he’d hit a wall.

  He waved an exasperated arm, as if my presence proved his angriest contention.

  I was startled. Steve took his employer status seriously; he took everything about himself seriously. Sandy was a mere hireling. Why had Steve come here rather than summon Sandy?

  Steve looked elegantly casual in a lightweight blue blazer and gray slacks, no tie at the neck of his white shirt. I noticed a United Airlines ticket folder in his breast pocket. Instead of a briefcase, he carried a black leather overnight bag.

  His just-right tan suffused with color, making him look a little drunk. “I might have known,” he said through tight lips. “They have a word for this.”

  Before he could tell me what the word was, Sandy stood behind him. “You’re wrong, Steve. And if you don’t hurry, you’re going to miss your plane.” His voice had a cop’s authority.

  Steve pivoted so we’d both be in his field of vision. “This is outrageous.” Then, as if it were much worse: “This is unprofessional.”

  “Now hold on.” Sandy stood a little too still. “You know I’ve got other clients.”

  “That’s different than working both sides of the fence.”

  “What fence?” I’d been wondering how to make sense of Steve’s presence. I could only assume Sandy had refused, perhaps repeatedly refused, a summons. Why would he do that? Why would he make Steve come here? Unless Steve was right. Unless Sandy had a conflict.

  Could it be Michael Hover? Sandy had mentioned investigating Brother Mike as part of another case. Perhaps the case was Steve’s. Most of Sandy’s work came from White, Sayres.

  I turned to Sandy, broadcasting a nonverbal demand: Explain Steve’s anger.

  Instead Sandy said, “Two separate matters for two separate clients. I already told you I can’t say more than that. But you’ve got no cause for concern, Sayres.”

  “Then why the cat-and-mouse bullshit? Why didn’t you return my calls?” Sayres face was pinched.

  “We just got through discussing that.” Sandy’s eyelids drooped. He leaned against the secretary’s desk. She gazed up at him as if at Michelangelo’s David.

  “No, we bloody didn’t,” Steve disagreed. “You told me to lump it.”

  “You know I didn’t say that.” A smile twitched across Sandy’s lips. “You got your report. You’ve got no call—”

  “Spare me.” Steve faced me. “How long have you represented Michael Hover?”

  How had he learned that? Not from Sandy, I was sure.

  I reviewed my transactions on Hover’s behalf: I’d flown to his island, but how would Sayres know that? I’d spoken to Arabella de Janeiro’s lawyer, but why would she pass the information on? And I’d deposited his retainer check in a trust account.

  At Graystone Federal. Sayres’s client.

  “I do represent him. Obviously not long, since I’ve only been in business five days.” One of Graystone’s VPs must have phoned Sayres with the news. “Why did Graystone call you?”

  He frowned, taking a small backward step. Client-account information was supposed to be confidential. The VP should have kept his mouth shut.

  “They’re not usually so loose-lipped,” I observed.

  “I didn’t say anything about Graystone.” But Steve’s accusatory glance at Sandy made it clear he thought Sandy had.

  “You don’t know why Michael Hover asked me to represent him. You don’t know that it has anything to do with Graystone. So I suggest you accept Sandy’s assurance there’s no conflict of interest on his part.”

  In fact, Sandy wouldn’t be working with me if there were. That meant Graystone’s problem with Brother Mike was unrelated to the sex videos. It must have something to do with a bank account or a loan.

  I felt an ironic sympathy for Steve. He’d assumed I was out of his face as well as out of his office. And all of a sudden, here I was. Apparently with the collusion of “his” detective.

  “You’re going to miss that plane,” Sandy repeated.

  Steve did something I’d only seen him do a few times. He exploded. “Fuck you, Arkelett! You’re off this case. And if I can pull you off the rest of our cases without damage to the clients, I’ll do that, too.”

  “Don’t be hasty, Steve. This lady”—Sandy nodded toward me—“punches your buttons, that’s all. I’ve been doing right by you and right by your clients for what, seven years? Eight years?”

  I looked at Sandy, tall against the backdrop of his admiring secretary. Sayres wouldn’t stop being an asshole just because he’d been called on it. Sandy must know that.

  Sayres pushed past, shoving me with unthinking anger. I slapped his arm away. He wasn’t going to bulldoze me without consequences. Not again.

  “You’re off this case,” he repeated.

  “Far as I’m concerned,” Sandy told his rushing back, “this tantrum didn’t happen, Steve; remember that. I’m off this one anyway—I already turned in my report. But just for the record, I didn’t hear the other stuff you said. You chill out and think better of it, don’t even give it a thought. It didn’t happen.”

  Sayres paused at the door, shoulders hunched. If his impulse was to wheel around and tell Sandy off, sever the professional relationship, he mastered it.

  He walked out the door. I guess he knew Sandy was right. There was no reason to upset a long, mutually profitable association. Sayres was just being cranky. He’d get over it.

 
I tapped Sandy’s arm. “I’d have told the obnoxious ass to go screw himself.”

  Sandy grinned. “He’s not so bad.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “The man gives me inspiration.”

  The secretary looked bewildered when I burst out laughing. She looked irritated when Sandy joined me. A private joke: she’d have a hard time if she couldn’t accept the fact that we shared a lot of them, Sandy and I.

  I turned to her. “I think we met before I left town last year. I’m Laura Di Palma.” It would be easier being friends with Sandy if his girlfriend didn’t hate the idea. “Your name’s Jan, if I remember right.”

  “Janette.” Her makeup looked almost neon around the eyes and at the lips, but she was pretty. She was feminine-looking; that would suit a traditional ex-cop like Sandy.

  “Another time when I don’t have to talk business with Sandy, I hope you’ll let me buy you both a drink.”

  “Sure.” She looked less than thrilled with the idea. She cast a “What gives?” glance at Sandy.

  “You offering to buy me a drink right now?” he asked.

  “Yes. I just came from the hospital.”

  He raised his brows. “Let’s go.”

  He walked me to the door, then turned back and muttered a few words to Janette.

  As we stood waiting for the elevator, he was grinning.

  Finally I asked, “What’s so funny?”

  He held the elevator door open while I preceded him in. “You offering to buy me and Janette a drink.”

  “So?”

  “Darn nice of you.” The door closed and he hit the lobby button. “But she’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Oh.”