Panty Raid

by Diane Vallere

  I was bored. I went to my room and sorted the panty samples into piles: Yes, and Heck No. About twenty minutes later, (time killed trying to understand a black lace pair that turned out to be crotchless), there was a knock on the door. Expecting room service, I peeked through the peephole and saw two buxom women in low-cut evening dresses.

  I opened the door. “Can I help you?”

  “Hi,” said the woman on the left. She wore a purple jersey dress that clung to everything she had. The hotel hadn’t seemed particularly cold, but she was perky. “I’m Kristin. This is Sue Ellen. We heard you were asking around about some company tonight?”

  “No, I’m just waiting for room service.”

  Sue Ellen, a chocolate brunette in emerald green, laughed. “Sure, you can call us room service.”

  “No, I mean room service-room service. Food. I think maybe you have the wrong room.”

  The women looked at each other. “Can you believe this?” Kristin asked Sue Ellen. “He said it’s a no-brainer. He said it would be worth our while. I turned down two other dates for this gig.”

  I blame the distraction of homesickness and a bounty of panties for being obtuse. Because the conclusion that would have seemed obvious to almost anybody else paying attention took embarrassingly long for me to reach.

  The women in front of me were “escorts.”

  27

  “Ladies,” I said politely, “I think I know how this happened. Come on in.” They looked at each other, shrugged, and entered. I eased the door shut behind them. “My fiancé was asking around about escort services—”

  Sue Ellen looked at Kristin. “Oooh, this might be fun after all.”

  “No,” I said. “He wasn’t calling for himself. He was calling for me.”

  Kristin smiled. “Honey, there’s no shame in that. We’re professionals.”

  “No!” I said again, this time taking a step backward. “Look, it was a misunderstanding. Nick and I get the job done with just the two of us. Neither one of us wanted to hire company. I mean no disrespect because I’m sure you’re both very good at what you do.”

  Sue Ellen looked confused. “Who’s Nick?”

  “My fiancé. The one who was asking around about your services.”

  “Honey, if you know he was asking about us, then what’s the problem?” She looked past me into the suite. “Where is this Nick?”

  There was a knock on the door. “Room service,” said a male voice.

  Kristin fluffed her already bouncy blond hair. “Role playing! How fun!”

  I pulled the door open and greeted Fred. “No mac and cheese tonight?” he asked. “You still haven’t tried number thirteen and number twenty.”

  I took the black folio, filled out the tip, and signed the bill to the room. “I was in the mood for something different.”

  Fred looked at Kristin and Sue Ellen. “I can see that.”

  I handed the folio back to Fred and grabbed the cart. “I’ll take it from here.” I shut the door as quickly as I could. If only I’d called hotel services to wash my clothes, this would have gone completely differently. Hotel services didn’t know me. Seeing two seductively-attired women in my room after eight on a Tuesday might not have appeared all that suspicious to them.

  Who was I kidding?

  I turned back to the ladies. “Kristin, Sue Ellen, I am sorry. Like I said, my fiancé was asking around about your services for a friend. I’m not making that up. One of his friends met his wife through a company like yours, and Nick was acting on his friend’s behalf. There’s no job here, not that there’s anything wrong with your work, just that I don’t need your services.”

  “Well, that’s just great,” Sue Ellen said. She tossed her gold handbag on the love seat and dropped down next to it. “I wasted two hours getting ready for this.”

  Kristin sat down next to her. “We could call the office and see if the boss man has any last-minute gigs? Or we could cruise the casino.”

  “What do you think we’re going to shake loose on a Tuesday?” Sue Ellen asked.

  “Fine, I’ll call the office.” Kristin opened her silver handbag (the ladies had paid attention to their styles while preparing for the evening, I had to give them that) and pulled out her phone. She stood up and walked to the window, revealing the open back to her purple gown and the lack of bra strap. Now I understood where the perkiness came from: surgery.

  “It’s Kristin,” she said. “You messed up big time, jack. Sue Ellen and I did what you said but there isn’t any job here.” She waited a couple of seconds, glanced at Sue Ellen, who crossed her arms over her generous chest. “I’m telling you, you’re wrong. Drop the phony accent and give me another address. It’s early enough that the night doesn’t have to be a total bust.” She snapped her fingers at me, pointed to the notepad on the table, and pantomimed writing something down. I handed her the tablet and the pen, and she scribbled on the paper. When she hung up, she gave the notepad to Sue Ellen.

  Sue Ellen glanced at the tablet and looked up. “He wants us to go to the other end of the strip? I’m sorry. I’m not in the mood to mingle with tourists on the Deuce.”

  Kristin turned back to me. “Are you sure you don’t want company?”

  I wanted company, just not that kind of company. “I’m sorry. I’m pretty traditional.”

  Kristin slid her index finger under the elastic waistband on the crotchless panties on the bedspread and dangled them in front of me. “You sure about that?”

  I felt my face flush. “Those are samples from the lingerie show. Designers give buyers presents and this was today’s haul.”

  I’d said the magic words. Both women dropped the seductress act.

  “You’re a lingerie buyer?”

  “Can you get us samples?”

  “Forget samples. Can you get us a job?”

  “That would be so much better than working for Pepe Le Pew.”

  “Hallelujah, sister.” They high fived. “I would love some regular hours.”

  I looked at the two of them: two women who had shown up expecting something very different from the night they’d had. They didn’t seem all that disappointed. I had no idea what life decisions had led them to their current line of work. They were the same decisions that had led Chryssinda to work as an escort, and Chryssinda had met Marc, the love of her life. In a twisted way, Chryssinda had happened upon a fairy tale ending—at the expense of her friend Lydia’s life. I guess even fairy tale endings are bittersweet.

  It struck me that Kristin and Sue Ellen were here because Nick had been asking about high-priced escort services, and he’d done that because he wanted to find out more about Lydia. We now knew the escort business was a dead end because Lydia had never worked for the escort service, Chryssinda had.

  Except now, I didn’t know if it was a dead end. “Did either of you know Chryssinda Sykes?”

  “Chryssie?” Kristin said. “I heard about her, but I don’t know her. She left before I started.” She turned to Sue Ellen. “You know who she means, right? ‘Big Shoes.’ That’s what the boss man calls her.”

  “Oh, sure,” Sue Ellen said. “Whatever happened to her?”

  They looked at me. “She’s out of the business,” I said tactfully. “She had an accident earlier today and is in the hospital. Nick took his friend to see her. Marc was pretty upset when he found out.”

  At the mention of Marc’s name, Sue Ellen’s head snapped to attention. “Marc? You don’t mean Marc Rico, do you?”

  “Yes. How’d you know that?”

  The two women looked at each other again. “That’s who we were hired to entertain.”

  The room was in Marc’s name. And Marc had told the front desk to direct his calls to my room. Whoever had sent the ladies to the hotel had gotten our identities confused. And then a couple of little details clicked into place, and I surprised myself with an unexpected conclusion.

  “When you called your office
, you referred to somebody as jack. Was that a throwaway like ‘honey’ or ‘babe’?”

  The ladies looked at each other and shrugged. “No, that’s the boss man’s name,” Kristin said. And when Sue Ellen jumped in, she confirmed my suspicions.

  “He pretends to be French because he thinks the hotel guests like it. Honestly, the only thing French about Pepe Le Pew is that he stinks.”

  “Jacques, the hotel concierge, is Jack, your boss?” I said.

  “Yeah, that’s him,” Kristin said.

  “Ladies, I changed my mind about wanting some company tonight. How about we order some room service—on me—and have a nice, long chat?”

  28

  I flushed the now-melted ice cream down the toilet and placed a new room service order. In addition to three orders of lobster mac and cheese, I ordered Samantha-food from the children’s menu: chicken fingers, French fries, and pizza. I added three bottles of champagne. I couldn’t afford to pay the ladies their regular rate, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t treat them in the style they’d become accustomed. (The chicken fingers were for me.)

  I graciously told them to take whichever panties they wanted from the assortment on the bed and provided empty goodie bags for them to carry their swag. While they sorted through the swag, I called the one person I never, ever, ever thought I’d invite to hang out with me.

  “Hi Amanda, it’s Samantha,” I said. “Nick and Marc are at the hospital with Chryssinda. I made some new friends and I thought maybe, if you weren’t busy tonight, you might want to join us?”

  The phone was silent for so long I thought the call had dropped. “Hello? Amanda? Are you there?”

  “I’m here.” She cleared her throat. “Sure. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Hey,” I said, catching her before she hung up. “Bring the suit I spilled soda on today. I’ll call Hotel Services and have it laundered.”

  I hung up, feeling all kinds of mature. In one night I’d uncovered a solid lead in Jacques, made friends with two call girls, and invited Amanda to hang out. By the time I got back home to Ribbon, Eddie wasn’t even going to recognize me.

  ***

  Amanda arrived about the same time as the room service cart. Fred popped the champagne while I signed the bill. I made brief introductions (“This is Amanda. She’s a lingerie designer. Amanda, this is Kristin and Sue Ellen. They also work in lingerie.”) After a lightning round of handshakes and hugs, we settled in for some good, old-fashioned girl talk.

  “Tell me what you know about Jacques,” I said. “Jack. Pepe le Pew. I don’t care what you call him, I want to know whatever you can tell me.”

  “Sure,” Kristin said. Both women had kicked off their heels and now padded around in bare feet. I’d politely offered sweatshirts and had been surprised when both accepted. Kristin wore my I got tied up in Ribbon! one and Sue Ellen wore Nick’s I-FAD hoodie. Amanda wore a long-sleeved black T-shirt, skinny jeans, and pale pink loafers. Aside from an ill-advised foray into space-age designs for a recent runway show, her personal style had always trended toward classic.

  “Jack manages a stable of ten ladies,” Kristin said.

  “Like models?” Amanda asked innocently. “I need to hire a couple of models for the show tomorrow.”

  Kristin, Sue Ellen, and I exchanged glances. “Sue Ellen, why don’t you and Amanda go—” I glanced around “—over there and talk about that? You can probably work something out, right?”

  “Sure,” Sue Ellen said. She grabbed a plate of fries and a bottle of champagne. Amanda followed her.

  “Back to Jacques,” I said to Kristin. “He’s your ‘manager,’ right?”

  “Yeah. There’s no actual office, but his job here lets him know when there’s a guest who fits a certain profile. Some of the men ask him to arrange dates. That’s what it is, you know. We get paid for our time. Anything other than time is extra. Like ordering side dishes a la carte.”

  “Of course,” I said immediately. “I was just wondering about how Jacques connects you with clients. Like tonight. You said you heard I was asking around about your services, and it’s true, my fiancé was asking some questions, but he got picked up for suspicion of solicitation—”

  “He what? Oh, honey, if he got picked up, then he wasn’t asking the right questions!” She doubled over in laughter and took another swig from her champagne flute.

  I bit into the last chicken finger. While I chewed, I considered that. “Nick probably had no idea Jacques was your pim—manager.” I quickly corrected. “I bet he asked Jacques, who is the hotel concierge, a couple of discreet questions, and Jacques set him up.”

  I couldn’t believe I’d never asked Nick who he’d talked to about escort services, but this made sense. It also made me even more suspicious about the man who knew our whereabouts the entire time we’d been at the hotel. Jacques could easily queue up the room tab and see what I ate, when I left, and where I was.

  Except, now that we were on Marc’s tab, was it all the same? I didn’t know.

  “Kristin, you said Jacques sent you up here to entertain Marc Rico. What did Jacques say when you called him tonight? Was he surprised Marc wasn’t here?”

  “He was pretty insistent that I was wrong. He said he knew Marc was in here because there’d been activity on his bill.”

  “That was me. My room is under Marc’s name. Jacques probably doesn’t know which charges are mine and which charges are Marc’s.”

  Which meant all this time, Jacques had been watching Marc’s hotel room bill. He probably did the same thing for other big spenders and made arrangements on the side. Kristin and Sue Ellen hadn’t been hired. They’d been sent here.

  “How were you going to get paid tonight?” I asked. “If Marc didn’t know you were coming, did you expect him to have money? Or to know why you were here? How does it work?”

  “We get paid on the back end,” Kristin said. “Jacques charges our companionship to the room.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Jacques was running an under-the-table “escort” ring using the hotel’s books to make it all appear legitimate! If a guest questioned his bill, Jacques would have blackmail material to keep things quiet. And while I knew he knew Chryssinda and would have likely known about her relationship with Marc, if he’d been getting paid for her time with Marc in the dating days, he would have been looking at a significant loss of income after the two of them married.

  He’d also have a whole lot to lose if Lydia Moss—merely posing as one of his stable—had anything to say to the press, or if one of Marc’s media companies exposed Jacques’ operation.

  But Lydia was becoming more known in the modeling industry every day. Her make-believe background story would easily be exposed as gossip, but would she risk her career by exposing Jacques’ operation to the press? Or had Chryssinda promised to handle that angle? Did Lydia have it in her to blackmail any of the parties involved?

  Jacques would lose more than his job if anyone found out what business he’d been conducting under the guise of “concierge,” and right now, Chryssinda was a loose end.

  I didn’t yet understand how he could have gotten to her at the lingerie fair, but I could think of one very good reason Jacques had arranged for Kristin and Sue Ellen to entertain Marc Rico tonight—to keep Marc away from Chryssinda so Jacques could finish what he’d started.

  29

  “When you called Jacques, was he working the front desk?” I asked Kristin.

  “No, Tuesdays are his night off.”

  “Do you know where he’s at?”

  “He said he had some unexpected business leads to follow up on.”

  A rush of adrenaline surged through me. I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and called Nick. The call rang several times and then went to voicemail. I hung up and tried again. This time I left a message. “Nick, it’s Samantha. I just found out Jacques, the concierge, is the one running the escort service where Chryssinda w
orked. I think he might be on his way to the hospital to hurt her. If you see him, alert security.”

  I hung up and set my phone on the nightstand. When I turned around, Kristin stood in front of me. She’d taken off my sweatshirt and set it on the bed. “Who did you just call?”

  “Nick. He’s with Marc. They’re with Chryssinda.”

  “Why do you think Jacques is going to hurt Chryssinda? She doesn’t work for him anymore. She quit a couple of months ago.”

  “He’s probably mad at her. He lost a lot of money when she quit, right? You said he calls her ‘big shoes.’ That’s because she brought in big clients, right? I mean, Marc’s a whale. Isn’t that the lingo?”

  “Jacques calls Chryssinda ‘big shoes’ because she wears a size eleven. She bought her own clothes, and he didn’t like that because he couldn’t hold it over her head that he invested in her. He was happy when she quit because she always told us to stand up to him and call our own shots. All he did for us was coordinate meetings. She worked when she wanted to, and he saw her modeling career as a conflict of interest. This was a side gig for her.”

  “But Jacques wanted her out of the picture. He had to have. And when he found out her friend was pretending to work for him to throw the media scent off Chryssinda and Marc, he killed her friend.”

  Even as I said it, I felt the air fizzle out of my suspicions. Kristin stepped away from me. “Jacques isn’t a killer,” she said. “He’s an opportunist, sure, but you better watch what you say about him. He might be a putz with a fake accent, but a lot of people in this hotel rely on him for special requests, and he delivers. My kids have healthcare because of the work he does. If he heard what you’re saying, you’d be out on the street.”