Try Darkness

by James Scott Bell

  “What sort of profiles?” I asked.

  “Please don’t ask,” she said. She looked upset. Or concerned.

  “Thanks,” I said. “You’ve been a great help.”

  “And I’m going to continue to be,” she said. “When do we go?”

  “Go?”

  “To talk to them.”

  “You want to go with me?”

  “You think I’m going to let you be alone with a prostitute?”

  “I’m just going to be talking, paying for their time.”

  “Sez you.”

  “Sister Mary, you wound me.”

  “I’ll see that Sister Judith looks after Kylie.”

  “And after that you’ll look after me?”

  “Sharp, Mr. Buchanan,” she said. “Very sharp.”

  68

  PROSTITUTION.

  They call it the world’s oldest profession but I think lawyers were there first. When a caveman made a move on somebody else’s woman, there was no payment involved. But there was the law. The law of the club. And lawyers have always been about clubs. At Gunther, McDonough, I loved to swing ’em hard.

  Then the prostitutes came along and it was all a matter of exchange. Society tried to stop it, but the demand was too great.

  Lawyers and prostitutes have been running some nice scams ever since.

  Escort services is one of them. Technically, the service only rents out “companions.” A woman on the arm to take to dinner or a function or the crap tables in Vegas. That’s what is negotiated and paid for. Any sex, the services say, is purely a voluntary thing that may or may not happen. And if it does, well, that’s what adults do.

  Right.

  The salesman from Chicago, the field hockey jock from UCLA, the stockbroker from New York—these guys are not paying for a night of jocular conversation or Yahtzee.

  And everyone knows it. The cops, the politicians, the clinicians who administer the HIV tests. There’s not a lot of call to shut these things down, of course. Because the local government gets to tax the business, and it’s a business that never runs out of customers.

  69

  SISTER MARY HAD determined that three of the escorts had been working for Silk for over six years. That’s a long time in the trade. Without a retirement plan, too.

  But with seniority comes cost, and this cost wasn’t cheap. Five hundred for four hours for the first one on the list, named Lana. I called, got a voice mail, and she returned my call an hour later. I told her I’d meet her in the lobby of the Bonaventure Hotel and we’d go to dinner and see what happened after that.

  She said fine and quoted me the price. Then I gave her my credit card number. It was easier than ordering from Amazon.com.

  70

  THE BONAVENTURE HOTEL is on Figueroa in L.A.’s financial district. Seemed fitting, as I was about to make a financial transaction myself. Of sorts.

  Lana told me she would be wearing red and holding a Wall Street Journal. Honest. Just like the movies. Or maybe she was into investing. Whatever it was, I made her immediately. She was sitting in one of the big chairs by the fountain.

  She was tall and slender and packed into her red dress. Her hair was light strawberry and shoulder length. Her face, while perfectly made up, seemed to carry an added weight, as if time had attached lead pellets to her cheeks. When she smiled at me, it looked like it took effort.

  “Mr. Buchanan?” She had a gentle voice with a practiced, come-hither nuance.

  “How are you?” I said, and then felt completely flustered. What do you do when you meet your escort for the first time? Shaking hands seemed completely unacceptable, and lip lock a bit over the top.

  She answered with a kiss on the cheek and I caught a whiff of cigarette smoke and perfume in her hair.

  “I’m Lana.” She took my hand. “I’m looking forward to our evening.”

  “Me too.” And I was, if she’d talk to me.

  “Where’s our first stop?”

  “My car. Come on.”

  We went to the elevator and down to the garage. I opened the door for her and she got in. And saw Sister Mary sitting in the back.

  “What is this?” Lana snapped. “I don’t do three-way and I don’t do RP.”

  I wished Sister Mary didn’t have to hear that. “I’ll explain,” I said. “I actually want to take you out to dinner. That’s what I paid for.”

  “What’s RP?” Sister Mary said.

  “I’ll handle this,” I said.

  “Role-play,” said Lana. “I don’t do role-play.”

  “Lana,” I said, “let’s go to a nice place and eat and talk. That’s it. That’s what I want.”

  “This isn’t a role,” Sister Mary said.

  “Wait a second,” Lana said. “Are you telling me this is an actual nun here?”

  “Nice to meet you,” Sister Mary said.

  Lana shook her head. “I don’t get it.”

  “She’s going to eat with us,” I said. “She’s a real nun and she’s a friend of mine, and all I want to do is talk. Really.”

  “You want to convert me,” Lana said. “This is some kind of rescue deal going on. Well, I—”

  “Hardly,” I said. “This is the easiest money you’re ever going to make. And I’ll remind you, I’ve paid up front.”

  Lana looked at Sister Mary, then back at me. Then she started to laugh. It went on for a while. When she caught her breath, she said, “I’ve had a couple of street preachers use that same line. Never a nun. I guess variety’s the spice of gumbo, so let’s go eat.”

  71

  I HAD A place in mind. Bruno’s on Wilshire, a place I used to go all the time when I was a high-flying litigator. It wasn’t cheap—nothing about this night was cheap. But I hoped the combination would be good enough to loosen some information.

  Junius was the maitre d’ and he smiled at me. “Nice to see you again. It’s been a long time.”

  His expression changed from delight to mystification when he saw Sister Mary. “We’re together,” I said.

  He smiled again and showed us to a booth with a half-moon table covered with crisp white linen. One wall of the place was a wine rack and another wall held contemporary art, by which I mean many colors that didn’t add up to anything. There was a golden hue to the lighting, which was in keeping with the prices on the menu.

  I asked Lana if she’d like a drink and she said she didn’t drink when she was “out.” So I ordered us Pellegrino and the duck vol-au-vent appetizer, one of their specialties.

  “So, we just talk?” Lana said.

  “Yep,” I said.

  Lana nodded at Sister Mary. “And exactly what is her role?”

  “She’s my assistant,” I said.

  “Assistant? Are you a priest or something?”

  Sister Mary snorted.

  “Not a priest,” I said. “Sort of a lawyer.”

  “Sort of? What does that mean? You are or you aren’t, right? I’m not sort of an escort, if you know what I mean.”

  “I know,” I said. “I used to be with a firm and now I’m out on my own. By the way, if you ever need a lawyer . . .”

  “What would I need a lawyer for?”

  “Who doesn’t need a lawyer?”

  “Can I answer that?” Sister Mary said.

  Lana’s face turned somber. “I’m perfectly happy doing what I’m doing.”

  It would have been clear to every person in the place that she wasn’t happy at all. But what we needed was for her to relax.

  “You from L.A.?” I asked.

  “Louisiana,” Lana said. “Shreveport.”

  “Shreveport? Really?”

  “C. E. Byrd High School. Go Yellow Jackets.”

  “You don’t have an accent,” I said.

  “I can turn it on and off. If somebody wants a Southern gal, I”—Lana switched to Blanche DuBois—“am so happy to help.” She gave the last word two syllables. Hay-ulp.

  “Not bad,” I said. “What brought you
out this way?”

  “Fame, of course. I was homecoming queen and won the talent contest. Sang ‘Grand Old Flag’ and twirled batons. That gets you front page in the Shreveport Times.”

  “Came out here right after high school?”

  “Nothing to keep me there. Good reason to leave. But I don’t want to get into that. Why spoil a perfectly fine evening with sordid tales from the Deep South?”

  “So you came out for movies or modeling or something and got a little sidetracked.”

  “Who says I got sidetracked? Maybe I just decided on a career change. Maybe you’re making a whole lot of assumptions and . . . Why are we talking this way? You didn’t bring me here for a life story session, did you?”

  “I’m interested,” Sister Mary said.

  “Why?”

  “I just am. I’m always interested in life stories.”

  “Yeah? Then tell me yours. How’s that, lawyer? She tells me hers first.”

  I looked at Sister Mary. “We are on the clock here.”

  “Oh that’s a hoot,” Sister Mary said. “A guy who used to bill in seven-and-a-half-minute increments.”

  “Go ahead,” Lana said to Sister Mary. “I’d like to know.”

  72

  “I GREW UP in Oklahoma,” Sister Mary said.

  “Not just Oklahoma,” I said. “Oklahoma City itself!”

  “This is my story. Kindly put a cork in it.”

  Lana laughed.

  “Anyway, I had a good home life. Nothing to complain about. Really got into sports, especially basketball. Got to be pretty good at it.”

  “She cheats,” I said.

  “She said put a cork in it,” Lana said. “Please do, or I’ll charge you double.”

  I put a cork in it.

  Sister Mary said, “We went to church, but it was so familiar to me. I never really felt it in my bones, so to speak. Then one day we were at my grandparents’ place by a lake, and I took a little boat out by myself. The sun was starting to set and there was an orange glow in the sky and over the trees. And I just started crying. I didn’t know why. But it was because of the sky. When I came back in I asked my mom about it. Why did I cry? And she said, ‘Because you’re homesick for heaven.’”

  For a moment nobody said anything.

  “That’s when I started to see God in my life,” Sister Mary said. “Not as something I’d been brought up with, but something real—and not just real, but somebody who knew my name and wants me in heaven with him. Later, after college, I decided to become a nun.”

  Lana thought about it. “I never felt that way. Homesick for anything. I’d like to sometime.”

  73

  “LET ME TELL you why I wanted an escort tonight,” I said.

  “Finally,” Lana said.

  “Another escort from L.A. Night Silk was murdered a week ago.”

  Lana tried hard not to look stunned. She took up her water glass for a sip. I saw the water trembling.

  “Who was it?” she said.

  “I think you know,” I said.

  “So what?”

  “Ever think it might happen to you?”

  “Look—”

  “Easy,” Sister Mary said to me, then put her hand on Lana’s arm. The gesture sent a signal to Lana’s brain, softening her.

  Sister Mary said, “Don’t say anything you don’t want to. Just relax.”

  I kicked Sister Mary under the table.

  “Don’t kick me under the table,” Sister Mary said.

  Lana laughed. “I don’t believe this whole conversation.”

  Looking at Sister Mary, I said, “If I had a little cooperation here, maybe we could all believe it.”

  “I’ll cooperate you right in the chops,” Sister Mary said.

  “What kind of nun are you?” Lana asked.

  “Good question,” I said.

  “Have a bread stick,” Sister Mary said.

  “There aren’t any,” I said.

  “Have one anyway.” To Lana, Sister Mary said, “Did you know Avisha?”

  “Yes. She was someone I was close to, in fact. Good kid. Do the police know who did it?”

  “I thought you might know,” I said.

  “Why should I?”

  “You know her boyfriend? James?”

  “He didn’t do it.”

  “How do you know?”

  She shrugged. “I just don’t think he’s that kind.”

  The waiter returned with the duck. Lana said she wasn’t hungry and didn’t want anything else. Sister Mary, probably to keep Lana from feeling bad, said she wouldn’t eat, either.

  The waiter looked hacked. And I was hungry. So I ordered up a bone-in rib eye and half a dozen oysters on the halfshell. Resist that, ladies.

  “At least try to answer some questions,” I said. “Confidentially. Sister Mary will attest to my ability to keep a secret.”

  Lana looked at Sister Mary, then at me. “About what?”

  “Did you know another girl in the service, named Reatta?”

  She thought a moment, shook her head.

  I took out the picture Kylie had given me.

  “Tawni,” she said. “That’s Tawni.”

  “And she’s with your same service?”

  Lana nodded. “A few years ago.”

  “Any idea who’d want to kill her?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “She’s dead, too.”

  Putting her head in her hands, Lana let out a big sigh.

  “Somebody—cops don’t know who—got to her,” I said. “They haven’t released cause of death yet, but it was definitely a homicide.”

  “Where?”

  “Just down the street. The Lindbrook Hotel.”

  Lana shook her head. “She wanted to get out of the life. She had a kid. She thought she had something better, but it didn’t turn out that way, did it?”

  “What was the better thing?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have to go.” She slid out of the booth. “I’ll call a taxi.”

  “Wait . . .” But she was already heading for the door. I started to get up but Sister Mary pushed me back.

  “Let me,” she said.

  74

  EVENTUALLY THE WAITER came with my rib eye and the oysters. “Is everything all right?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said. “The ladies just stepped out for some air. I sucked it out of the room. They’ll be back. Bring me a glass of your best California Cab. You pick it.”

  “Of course.”

  He delivered the wine before Sister Mary got back. Alone.

  “I told her where she could get in touch with me,” she said.

  “Where is she?”

  “She wanted to go.”

  “What did you do, scare her off?”

  “No, I—”

  “Who was paying for this? Me or the archdiocese?”

  “Do you want to hear what she told me?”

  “That’d be real nice.”

  “Then cool off,” Sister Mary said. “Have another bite of cow.”

  “Just talk. What’s it about?”

  “The better thing Reatta thought she was getting.”

  “You got her to tell you?”

  Sister Mary nodded. “Never underestimate the power of an understanding ear.”

  “And maybe being a woman?”

  “That would help.”

  “Unfair advantage.”

  Sister Mary helped herself to an oyster from the plate of ice on the table. Put the shell on her own plate.

  “This is strictly confidential,” Sister Mary said.

  “Of course. Give.”

  “I don’t watch television. Much, anyway. Do you know a show called Men in Pants?”

  “I know of it. Todd McLarty is in it.” Todd McLarty, of course, being the hot “next movie star” of ten years ago, now dying on the career vine and being resurrected in a hit ABC sitcom.

  Sister Mary
dappled some cocktail sauce on her oyster and used the little fork to eat it.

  “Okay,” I said. “Enough with the marine life. Tell me what it is about the show.”

  “And Todd McLarty,” she said. “He was the one. He was the one she thought was the good thing.”

  In this day when almost anyone could be the father of any given baby, where possible fathers of numerous babies crawl out of or into the woodwork, the news didn’t seem all that earth-shattering.

  That could have been. McLarty was known in his day as a guy who liked high-priced call girls and coke. Today these things are also used to get careers going again. The standard visit to rehab, combined with a name leak from some madam’s black book, is sure to garner a lot of ink and talk. It did for McLarty, and look at him now. A hit show. A mil an episode.

  Not bad for a bad boy from Tarzana.

  “How sure is she about this?” I asked.

  “Tawni told Lana she was going to marry McLarty. That didn’t happen, of course. She lost track of Tawni after that.”

  As I tossed a little sauce on an oyster, a few thoughts jumbled around in my head and reached for each other.

  “Todd,” I said. “Rhymes with odd.”

  “You’re good,” Sister Mary said.

  “Kylie told me that Avisha said her father was odd.”

  Sister Mary raised her eyebrows. “You don’t think . . .”

  “I do too think, thank you very much.”

  “No, I mean, that he could be Kylie’s father?”

  “Maybe I’ll ask him. Right now we eat.”

  75

  LATER, BACK AT St. Monica’s, Father Bob offered me a stogie. We sat outside the trailers smelling the mix of sage and laurel and Dominican tobacco.

  “Last time I smoked one of these I’d just won a two-million-dollar verdict,” I said.

  “You miss that?” Father Bob asked. “The power lawyer business?”

  “Not at all. Kind of surprises me. I liked going to court for high stakes, yeah, but there doesn’t seem to be much point in that anymore. It’s all about shuffling around millions of dollars from here to there. The insurance companies pass it on to their customers in higher premiums. The companies pass that along to consumers in higher prices. Around and around you go.”