Twelve Nights

by Remy, Carole

  Jimmy muttered deep in his throat.

  “What?” Richard asked.

  “Keep going.”

  “No messages in or out,” Richard continued. “No phone calls. She’s elusive.”

  “What did he get from the chambermaids?”

  “I didn’t think of that,” Richard admitted. “I’ll send him back.”

  “What about taxi drivers?”

  “You are serious about all this, right?” the lawyer queried. “I’ll have to hire another man to check the cab companies.”

  “Do it,” Jimmy ordered. “And I want a tail on her starting right now. Put somebody in the lobby of the Vancouver Hotel. Have them wait outside while she’s here and then follow her back, see if she goes anywhere else, sees anyone.”

  “Uh, Jimmy,” the lawyer hesitated.

  “Spit it out.”

  “What if she is on the level and she finds out about all this cloak and dagger?”

  “Yeah?”

  “She could be angry,” Richard warned.

  Jimmy thought of the fire in Aggie’s eyes at lunch and the coolness last night.

  “I don’t care,” he told the lawyer with a grin. “I like her when she’s angry.”

  “We’re getting close to invasion of privacy,” Richard persisted.

  “Don’t do anything illegal,” Jimmy clarified. “Just skirt the line. If she finds out, she can pretend she was a celebrity for awhile, stalked by paparazzi.”

  “I doubt she’ll see it that way.” Richard’s tone was dryly amused.

  “Step it up,” Jimmy glared. “Trace her credit cards. Send someone to Cincinnati. Talk to acquaintances. Maybe she faked the identity and she’s afraid she can’t keep up the charade.”

  “I’ll try,” Richard finally agreed.

  “You’re not going to be able to find out much by tonight,” Jimmy mused. “I don’t want to see her again until I have more information. If she’s lying, I’ll catch the witch at it and then all bets are off. She’ll do what I want or the contract’s void.”

  Richard seemed dazed by his employer’s blazing intensity.

  “What are you looking at?” Jimmy muttered.

  “Nothing,” Richard shook his head as though trying to clear his vision. “Shall I leave a message at the hotel that tonight’s off?”

  “No,” Jimmy decided. “You see her tonight.”

  Richard held up his hands.

  “Jimmy,” he protested, “I don’t mind being your three hundred dollar an hour gopher and calling a few detectives, but I’m not screwing anybody for you.”

  Jimmy’s belly laugh erupted. The sound rolled around the office and carried with it the worst of Jimmy’s tension. He certainly didn’t want Richard to have sex with Aggie. The image was revolting. He wanted her all to himself, he realized. If she was troubled, he would fix her problems. He just had to find out what they were. He wanted the lunch-time Aggie back and in his bed.

  “I don’t want you to screw her,” he said as he wiped his eyes, his laughter an echo in the room. “Just interrogate her. Like in a courtroom. Set up a hidden camera and I’ll watch the tape later.”

  “Jimmy,” Richard sounded embarrassed. “You know I’ve never been in a courtroom.”

  “You’ve seen Perry Mason. Pace back and forth and ask a lot of questions. We’ll think up some questions before she gets here.”

  “Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

  “She sucks me in,” Jimmy admitted. Look what a sucker he’d been last night. Ten thousand dollars and all they did was sleep together, literally. “Intimidate the hell out of her, Richard, and get some straight answers.”

  “I don’t think she likes me, “ Richard admitted.

  “All the better,” Jimmy growled.

  As Richard left the office, Jimmy swiveled his chair toward the window and put his hands behind his head. He was blind for once to the panoramic view of ocean and park and distant islands. He wondered for an instant whether any woman was worth all this effort. Then he pictured the glimpse he had caught of Aggie outside the restaurant on Danny’s arm. He remembered the surge of emotion he’d felt when he learned she wasn’t attached to his brother, the pure elation of realizing she had answered his ad, could be his for twelve nights. Eleven more nights, he thought. Ten, because tonight she would be with Richard. Once he had found out why she had changed, once he had unraveled the mystery of his complicated librarian, he was going to enjoy the best ten nights of his life.

  Chapter 14

  Richard waited stoically in the lobby. He was a lawyer, he reminded himself for the tenth time. All he needed to do was ask the woman some questions, an extension of their earlier interview. The fact that Jimmy had chosen her after his rejection made the situation awkward, but he was still the lawyer and she was still the woman selling herself. The difficulties of the previous night must to some extend vindicate his objections. He could guess what had happened, or more accurately, what hadn’t happened, last night. He had rarely seen Jimmy so testy. He must have been frustrated to an extreme, the kind of frustration only a beautiful but elusive woman could induce in a strong willed man.

  Richard was determined to reveal Aggie Trout as a fraud. He had dozens of technical questions ready to trip her up. But if she wasn’t a phony, as he had half come to believe, he would try to persuade her to cooperate and treat his employer to the best nights she could give him. He wasn’t really pimping, he assured himself as he adjusted his necktie. He was protecting his client in an unusual situation.

  The cab pulled to the curb and Aggie emerged. She looked eagerly through the lobby windows. She didn’t look cool, as Jimmy had described her. She looked hot, in every sense of the word. Her outfit sizzled, Richard smiled to himself at the unfamiliar word that had popped into his head. But she did sizzle. A full patterned skirt draped her hips and legs to mid-calf and swirled with her every movement. Her coat was open in front and revealed a sheer black blouse with a richly embroidered vest for modesty. She looked like a princess in a Hungarian movie, or maybe a gypsy.

  Richard opened the door of the lobby. As he did, he saw recognition in Aggie’s eyes, and dismay.

  “Where’s Jimmy?” she asked. She held onto the open door of the cab.

  “He asked me to ask you a few questions,” Richard responded calmly. He didn’t want her to bolt back into the cab.

  “Is he upstairs?”

  “Yes.” The answer was the truth. Jimmy waited in his apartment for Richard’s report and the video. “Come inside.”

  Though it wasn’t raining, the evening was damp and cool. Richard was surprised to feel a platonic need to get Aggie out of the chill. He took a step toward her, holding out his hand. Perhaps she sensed his concern, for she shut the door of the taxi and walked toward him. She ignored his hand and walked past him into the lobby.

  Aggie’s eyebrows spoke for her when Richard pushed the button for the office floor. She remained silent as they entered the deserted lobby and walked down the hall to Jimmy’s office. Richard helped her off with her coat and placed it on a sofa. She walked to a chair in front of the desk and sat down.

  “I’m not going to see Jimmy tonight, am I?” she asked bluntly.

  She sounded disappointed, Richard noticed. He wondered if the emotion would register on film.

  “He was not happy with last night’s…” he searched for a word.

  “Non-performance?” Aggie supplied. “I told him I’d be ready tonight and I am.”

  Richard groaned internally. Though he was convinced she was lying about something, she sounded genuinely eager to see his employer. He wondered what had been Jimmy’s problem last night. She talked and looked as if she couldn’t wait to hop into bed with him. He returned to the agenda and picked up a sheaf of papers.

  “I need to ask you some questions.”

  Aggie looked at the pile of papers and sighed.

  “Go ahead.”

  “What street do you live on in Cincinnati?”


  “Beechmont.”

  “Is that ‘ee’ or ‘ea’?

  “It’s ‘ee’. What on earth is this about? I’m really Aggie Trout. I really am a librarian in Cincinnati.”

  “Please be patient, Miss Trout. Does Beechmont run north-south or east-west?

  “If you looked on a map, you won’t get this one right,” she commented. “Right where I live it runs to the northwest, but most of it is east-west. It wanders.”

  “What cross street is near your home?” Richard persisted, though he was one hundred percent certain she was telling the truth.

  “The closest major street is Hunley Road. Look, I resent this. I agreed to twelve nights of sex with a man I basically like, not twenty questions with a man who frankly…” she stopped.

  “You don’t like,” Richard completed her sentence. “Jimmy asked me to question you. This was not my idea. He helped make up the list of questions.”

  If he had hoped to mollify her, he hadn’t succeeded.

  “Look, Mr. Urbano,” Aggie flared.

  “Calm down,” Richard interrupted.

  “I’m about this close,” she continued as she stood and pinched her thumb and index finger together, “to calling off the whole contract.”

  Suddenly the path cleared in front of Richard. He played his hunch.

  “I’ll tell you what the problem is, Aggie,” he had decided to tell her the straight truth. “Jimmy said you were a different person last night. He was attracted to you at lunch. He thought you were in his words, ‘hot’. Then last night he thought you were, again in his words, ‘cool’. So what’s going on, are you two people, or did something happen between three and six o’clock last night?”

  Aggie sat back abruptly in her chair. She sagged down, deflating like a spent balloon.

  “Tell me what’s going on, Aggie.” Richard tried to make his voice as friendly and persuasive as he could.

  “I can’t,” she defied him.

  “Why not?” He stood and leaned both fist on the desk; time for the tough cop.

  “I can’t tell you,” Aggie repeated.

  “Do you want to call off the contract?” Richard asked, his voice harsh.

  “No.” Aggie’s eyes were moist though no tears escaped. “Look, Mr. Urbano. Something did happen yesterday, but I can’t tell you what. I’m ready to see Jimmy tonight. We’ll do whatever he wants.”

  “He doesn’t want to see you,” Richard began. A tear spilled out of Aggie’s eye. He remembered that this woman was Jimmy’s inexplicable choice. His voice softened. “He said you bewitched him at lunch yesterday.”

  Richard was rewarded with a small smile that tugged up the corner of Aggie’s mouth.

  “You don’t like me, do you?” Aggie asked.

  “Actually,” Richard admitted, “I do. But you’re lying about something. Jimmy wants me to ask you these questions, to be sure you really are who you say, that you’re on the level.”

  “Does he want to end the contract?” Aggie asked.

  “No,” Richard smiled. “I think he wants the lunch time Aggie back.”

  “I’m here.”

  “Then can I ask you these questions?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Women, any women, but most particularly this woman, baffled Richard. He was troubled by the diminished Aggie that sat across the desk from him. He agreed with Jimmy; he liked her better fiery and arguing. Still, Jimmy would see the transformation on the videotape. Maybe it would help him understand her. He asked the rest of his questions about Cincinnati and Aggie answered in a monotone. She didn’t know everything about the city, but that would have been suspicious too. She admitted readily to the information she didn’t know, like any honest person.

  Richard started in then on the details of running a library. Jimmy had suggested that he talk to someone at the Vancouver Public Library, and he had.

  “The primary system used in Canada isn’t the same as the main one used in the United States,” Aggie offered after the first question. “I studied the Canadian system briefly in a college course once, but I don’t remember much.”

  The fact that she had recognized his ignorance of the national differences from his first question impressed Richard. More and more, he was convinced she was telling the truth, at least about her identity. She was from Cincinnati and she was a librarian. Maybe her personal life held a clue to the mystery of her identity.

  “Where did you grow up, Aggie?”

  She seemed startled and possibly upset by the question. Could she have had a difficult childhood? Was that the source of her seeming dual personalities?

  “In Auburn, Alabama.”

  The answer came reluctantly.

  “I’ve never been to Alabama,” Richard offered, trying to warm her up. “Tell me about it.”

  “Auburn is pretty. It’s a university town.”

  “Auburn University,” Richard nodded. “A good school.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Everyone thought I was crazy to move to Cincinnati.”

  “Why did you?”

  Aggie’s hesitation was visible. Was there a rape or a teenage pregnancy in her past?

  “I wanted to get away,” she admitted.

  “From what?” Richard probed.

  “From my father.” The admission came from between tight lips. “He drinks.”

  Richard blanched. Her words bound him in instant sympathy. He carried his own alcohol-induced wounds. Still, this was information that might help Jimmy.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized inadequately. He turned to a more neutral topic. “What made you decide to become a librarian?”

  “I love books,” Aggie answered simply. Richard nodded and she continued. “I love the feel of them and the smell of them and the look of them. Most of all, I love the contents. The written word is the best guarantee of freedom, Mr. Urbano.”

  Passion shone is Aggie’s voice and the lawyer felt her bewitching spell.

  “Richard,” he reminded her absently.

  “Ever since I was a child,” she continued, “I’ve loved books more than anything. My mother used to laugh when I made my Christmas list because all that was on it were book titles.”

  “Do your parents still live in Auburn?”

  “My mother died.” Aggie’s face stilled.

  “Jimmy has a lot of books,” Richard commented, hoping to return her to her precious enthusiasm. His comment worked.

  “I know,” Aggie’s eyes lit up. “His library is wonderful. He has a great book on Modigliani.”

  “You like art?” Richard’s interest piqued. Where Jimmy was a book lover, his own taste ran to paintings.

  “Of course, who doesn’t?”

  The commonplace answer didn’t convey boundless enthusiasm. Like Jimmy, Aggie obviously preferred books.

  “I’d like to see Jimmy now,” Aggie interrupted his thoughts politely.

  “He doesn’t want to see you tonight.” Richard spread his hands apologetically. He didn’t understand what Jimmy’s problem was. Richard didn’t feel bewitched. He was sure Aggie was on the level. He would try to persuade Jimmy to proceed with the contract. Despite all the odds to the contrary, he sensed that Aggie and Jimmy were a good match. Then Aggie blew up.

  She stood up calmly enough, then she smashed her fist down on the desktop.

  “You can tell your fucking Mr. Jimmy Buko just where he can put his fucking cock!”

  Her angry voice bellowed rather than screamed and was more effective for its low timbre. Richard’s mind flashed to Jimmy. He had heard him rant similarly, though without the profanity, only that morning. He smiled. His expression must have annoyed Aggie.

  “What are you smirking at, you pimping whoreson lawyer?”

  “Whoreson?” Richard echoed, puzzled.

  “It’s Elizabethan,” Aggie stated calmly, then began to giggle. “Sorry.”

  Her giggles threatened to become hysteria.

  “The Elizabethans knew how to swear,” she gasped.
r />   Richard handed her a tissue.

  “Thanks.” She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “I’m sorry I blew up. I have a hot temper.”

  Richard puffed out a breath and shook his fingers in the familiar gesture. “Whew!”

  “Yeah,” Aggie admitted. “Don’t tell Jimmy, okay?”

  Richard considered admitting to the videotape, then decided that discretion was the better route. Let Jimmy deal with the hot temper, not him.

  “I’ll call you a cab,” Richard offered.

  “He really doesn’t want to see me tonight?” Aggie asked. “After I got all dressed up?”

  Richard shook his head. His instructions had been explicit. Ask her the questions and put her in a cab. And arrange for a tail. Minutes after he escorted Aggie down the elevator and into the waiting cab, he was upstairs at the entrance to Jimmy’s private suite. The two men watched the beginning of the videotape in silence. The camera picked up their entrance into the office and Richard helping Aggie out of her coat. When he saw her outfit, Jimmy groaned.

  “We ate Hungarian food last night,” he explained. “She must have bought the clothes today.”

  “She looked very nice,” Richard commented.

  Jimmy groaned again. He watched for several minutes in silence, though his body language spoke for him. He fidgeted in his chair, dropped his head into his hand then looked quickly up. Richard saw all the signs of a man in torment, a man bewitched. When Richard told her on the tape that Jimmy didn’t want to see her and the tear escaped from Aggie’s eye, Jimmy leapt to his feet.

  “Where is she?” he demanded.

  “I sent her back to the hotel,” Richard admitted.

  “You imbecile!” Jimmy shouted. “You fucking imbecile!”

  Though his employer was in a towering rage, Richard had to laugh. The resemblance between the two blazing tempers was too much. If these two ever got together, they would ignite an inferno.

  “What’s so funny?” Jimmy demanded.

  “She called me a whoreson,” Richard chuckled.

  “Elizabethan,” Jimmy commented his temper fading.

  “Miss Trout, Aggie, has a hot temper too, Jimmy,” Richard chuckled. “Watch the rest of the tape.”