by Thomas Perry
“It’s a very nice arrangement, from my point of view,” said Till. “Why is it worth it to you?”
She smiled. It was an imitation of a sly, flirtatious smile, or maybe an echo of an expression that was once real, but it was too expert now. “The business reason is that you’ll want to come back to me more and more often, and give me tips and presents. I can tell you can afford it. The other reason is that I’m still an actual woman. Having a tall, handsome older man who has a little crush on me take charge and have his way with me is something I’d probably pay for if I had to. When I know I’m going to have a good time later I start to get kind of excited thinking about it. Like tonight.”
“Do you have two kinds of dates—the kind that pay the bills and the ones that are for fun?”
“Things are—everything is—much more complicated than that. I can like a person and still try to get him to pay me more. And I can sometimes tell that a person who turns me on is going to be a mistake—maybe be too rough with me, or not pay me enough.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Uh, I told you I don’t answer things that are personal.”
“I’ll tell you what I was asking, and maybe you’ll feel more like answering. You were talking about difficult clients. I wondered if there was somebody who would help you if that happened. I should have said a girl roommate, and maybe it would have seemed less personal—just somebody so you’re not alone with a psycho.”
“You mean a pimp,” she said.
“I don’t even like the word,” he said.
“Neither do I. I have friends. Some are girls who do the sort of work I do. They understand the issues and the problems.”
He nodded and kept his eyes on hers. She was holding back.
“And yes,” she conceded. “I have some men friends too. One of them stays over sometimes because he travels.”
Till had found him. The man sometimes stayed with her. He had to be the one. “Is he there when you’re gone, taking messages?”
“No. I don’t have a landline. I only use a cell phone, and when I’m busy I turn off the ring and it goes to voice mail.”
“Who is he?”
“Just a friend. Friends are good.”
“Yes, they are.”
“You’re jealous, aren’t you?”
“That would be pretty stupid of me, wouldn’t it?”
She leaned closer and touched his cheek with a hand that felt like silk. “You poor baby. You think your mind does what you tell it to, don’t you?”
“Most of the time.”
“Good for you,” she said, as though she didn’t believe him, but liked him for his faith in himself. “Oh, here’s our dinner.”
He looked and saw the two waiters arrive and set plates down with considerable ceremonial grace and quiet warnings about hot plates. Then the waiters dissolved into the spaces behind them. The food was perfectly cooked and elegantly presented and served.
They ate happily and exchanged samples of food, then said how much they liked it. If Till had not had the sort of mind she didn’t seem to think existed, he would have thought he was on an exceptionally pleasant date with a beautiful woman who genuinely liked his company. He let himself feel that way for a while, as he thought about the male friend who sometimes stayed over. She had denied he was at her apartment answering her phone, but she hadn’t said he was not there.
He was surprised to see that she ate much of her food and about half the dessert, but he could tell from her arms and legs that she trained regularly at a gym somewhere, so maybe that was enough to burn off the calories. She put down her fork and looked up at him. “I’d like to go to your room now.”
“Really?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “You got me talking about everything—which I almost never do—right after we met, and so I’ve been thinking about you for about an hour and a half, and staring at you to watch your reactions. And as I was talking about us, I was thinking, ‘Do I really want to tell this man that he can do anything he wants to me? That all he has to do is put something into words and I’ll do it?’ And ever since the answer came up yes, I’ve been marking time, waiting. And that’s like, right out of the secret book of women—get us thinking about it and then wait us out, be patient. Of course, for me, it’s even worse. I didn’t get into this business because I wasn’t interested.”
Till caught the waiter’s eye and made a writing motion, and the waiter nodded. In a moment he came across the room with the leather folder with the check in it. Till added the tip and signed it.
Till stood and stepped around the table to pull out her chair, then followed her toward the exit from the dining room. He took her moment of looking ahead to glance at his watch. It was only nine-fifteen. The paging he’d arranged was scheduled for ten-twenty.
She walked across the lobby to the elevator. When he joined her she whispered, “Please don’t do anything until we’re in the room. If I don’t act like a lady they’ll figure me out and I won’t be welcome here anymore.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m kind of a hypocrite, so I’m pretty good in public.”
She said, “It’s just that some men think an elevator is more private than it is.” The elevator door closed them in. “What floor?”
“Third.”
She pushed the button and the elevator began to rise. “Thanks. I’ll make up for anything you missed.”
Till had been sure he knew how to get out of this part of the evening, but as the elevator rose he sensed his options slipping away. The page from the front desk was still an hour and five minutes away. He could try to play sick so she would leave, but now that he knew her better, she didn’t seem likely to believe it. She didn’t seem likely to believe an urgent business call, either. He needed to have her trust him after tonight, or he’d never get near her male friend. He thought frantically, and then realized he wasn’t thinking of anything new. He considered pulling a fire alarm so the hotel would be evacuated, but the risk would be too great, and he would have to be far from her when he did it. Then he realized that he wasn’t thinking of anything because he no longer really wanted to.
They left the elevator and walked the twenty-five feet to his door. He took the key card out of his wallet and slid it into the slot on the lock, and the click told him the door was unlocked. He opened it only a couple of inches before she slipped in ahead of him, then pivoted and pulled him in by the arm. She turned the rheostat on the fixture beside the door to dim the lights. She led him to the bed and made him sit down, then smiled and slowly, tantalizingly disrobed. Under the dress she was wearing a black bra, a pair of thigh-high stockings, a garter belt, and a thong.
Till’s mind was racing. She’s half my age. Exploiting and using her isn’t something I want to live with. I just need information. I can try to stall for more time. He could wait for the call from the girl at the front desk. I can tell her my wife just died a year ago and I’m not ready for this after all.
She came toward him, and the last of his ideas disappeared with the last of her clothing. She stood in front of him and unbuttoned his shirt, then knelt to unbuckle his belt, and he stopped pretending that he wasn’t going to go through with it. When he was naked too, she suddenly said, “Just a second.”
She stepped to the desk, picked up the hotel telephone, pressed a button, and waited. “Hi, Beverly.” She listened for a few seconds, then said, “Thanks. Cancel Mr. Till’s call.” She put the phone in its cradle and returned to him.
She began to kiss his neck, his cheeks, his throat, his chest. “You paid the same person I do,” she said. “If you want to call this off, we can.”
“I changed my mind after I met you,” he said.
“I’m so glad you’re not a cop. They’re the ones who back out. It looks better in court.”
After
that the time was no longer real. He had some idea that it must still be early, and then he caught a glimpse of the clock on the nightstand and it said nearly twelve. Briefly he wondered when his evening would be over, his time up, and hoped it would last until morning. The thought that kept returning was what would induce a girl like this to become a prostitute? But some self-protective part of his mind told him the answer could only be unhappy or tragically stupid, and should be avoided for now.
Then he saw the clock had moved to three, and sometime after that he fell asleep. He woke to some kind of disturbance among the birds outside and saw Kyra sleeping too, the fiery hair like an aura around her head on the white pillow. He pretended to be asleep as he watched her wake up. He saw her get up, gather her clothes, and make her way to the bathroom. In a few minutes she came out fully dressed.
He saw her notice his pants with his wallet in the pocket hanging on the straight chair by the desk, and he waited for her to reach in and take it out. She didn’t. He closed his eyes again.
A few seconds later he felt her hand, the same silky hand, make a swirl in the hair on his chest.
He opened his eyes.
“Hey, cowboy.”
He smiled. “Is that a good thing?”
“Yes. I’m too sweet to speak more plainly than that.”
Till could see that while his eyes had been closed she had opened the curtain a little bit, and now the sunlight poured in, making the room seem beautiful. Her white skin was luminous. He said, “The evening seems to be over.”
“I’m afraid that happened a while ago, lover,” she said. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to go brush my teeth and my hair. You can get my money ready while I’m in there.”
“Okay.” He watched with regret as she scooped her purse off the desk and went into the bathroom.
Till got up, went to the safe in the closet, pressed the four digits, opened it, and took out twelve hundred dollars. Then he put the rest into his suitcase. He picked out the clothes he would wear, moved them to the right side of the closet, and shut the closet door. He collected the two Glock pistols and the rest of his belongings and put them in his suitcase.
In a few minutes, she emerged with light daytime makeup on and hair brushed straight. “Too chicken to run off without paying, huh?”
“That too. And partly the fact that I’ll sincerely remember this as one of the most amazing nights of my life.”
She patted him on the cheek. “I like you too, Jack. But now it’s day, and I’ve got to go.”
He handed her the little stack of hundred-dollar bills, and she shuffled through them like a bank teller. “A fifty percent tip. A night for the record books.” She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. Then she reached into her purse and produced a plain white business card that said “Kyra” and a telephone number. “Don’t lose my number.”
“I won’t,” he said.
She opened the door, blew him a kiss, slipped out, and let the door swing shut.
Till was already at the closet. As he threw on his clothes, he mentally gauged where she would be—walking down the hall toward the elevator, stepping in, descending. He grabbed the phone and dialed the garage. “This is Mr. Till in suite 311. Can you please get my car out right away?”
“Certainly, sir.”
Till ran to the bathroom, snatched up his toiletry kit, put it into his suitcase, latched it, and took with him the instant checkout folder and a pen. In the elevator he filled out the folder and put his key card into it. When the elevator door opened he put the folder in the little brass box beside it and went directly to the valet station beside the covered entrance to the building. He looked outside warily to be sure Kyra was still there.
When Kyra’s car arrived, it was a silver Jaguar. She handed the parking attendant a tip, got into the car, adjusted her sunglasses in the mirror, and then drove off.
As soon as Kyra was past the driveway, Till stepped out, saw his car already waiting on the circle, hurried to it, tipped the parking attendant, tossed his suitcase onto the backseat, and went after her.
8
Till pulled out onto Missouri Avenue just as Kyra turned south on 24th Street. In a moment she turned right on Camelback Road to go east. As a young man he had been trained at the academy to follow cars, and over the years he had gotten better at it. He kept two or three vehicles between his car and Kyra’s Jaguar. When he could find a truck or an SUV he stayed behind it for a time. He wasn’t looking at the Jaguar. As long as she kept going straight, he didn’t care how far ahead she was. He was watching the lanes on both sides of her, waiting for her to make a turn.
At last she turned right on Scottsdale Road, driving past a six-foot stucco wall and then into a quiet housing development full of twisting roads and abrupt curves. The houses were all recently built one-story homes without much room in front for lawns that would have been burned up by the sunshine. He gave her a little more space, watching the direction she took, and followed cautiously, avoiding the chance of being caught face-to-face on a cul-de-sac. When she turned into one and pulled into a driveway he went past. He turned around in the next one and drove out of sight, waited for a few minutes, then drove out onto the larger street and coasted slowly past the cul-de-sac where she had gone. The door of a two-car garage was open at the house where she had pulled in, and he could see the silver Jaguar.
As he drove on he considered how to watch her without being seen and how to pick out the man who had given her Catherine Hamilton’s necklace and bracelet. Kyra was clearly a girl who would have no trouble attracting customers. For all he knew, she might have ten a day.
From the way she had spoken, he was almost certain that the male friend had stayed in her house last night. She’d been up most of the night with Till. The friend, presumably, had gone to sleep. Till was tired, but he didn’t want to miss a chance of seeing the man. A day from now, he might have no way of distinguishing the boyfriend from one of Kyra’s customers. This morning, the only man who would be coming out of the house would be the boyfriend.
Till parked his car two blocks from Kyra’s cul-de-sac, and began to walk. When he’d hastily dressed in his hotel room he had thrown on a polo shirt, khaki pants, and rubber-soled loafers. Now he had added a baseball cap and sunglasses. As he walked toward Kyra’s street, he kept his mind unfocused and his eyes moving, scanning the area while he listened to the sounds. The birds here had different calls from the ones in Los Angeles, and they seemed to be much more active in the morning before it got hot. From here he could hear no sounds from the major road outside the gate, and inside the gate there seemed to be nobody driving yet.
Kyra’s house had surprised him. He had pictured her living in an anonymous apartment in a large complex, not a freestanding house in a middle-class neighborhood. It indicated to him that she was probably making lots of money, and that she had wanted an investment. Secondary thoughts floated in. She must have a good cover story. Banks didn’t like to approve mortgages for young women who didn’t have jobs and were vague about where the money for the down payment had come from. It occurred to him that she might not have applied for a mortgage. She might have paid in cash.
He finally came to the conclusion that he had misinterpreted the place. She didn’t do business here. The neighbors in this little village of quiet tangled streets would never put up with male visitors arriving at all hours, slamming car doors and rapping on Kyra’s front door. He had made a mistake. He turned and walked briskly back toward his car. He managed to get inside behind the tinted glass and put his key in the ignition before he saw the silver Jaguar again. He kept his head low and caught a glimpse of the driver in profile as the car slid past his. It wasn’t Kyra. It was a man.
Till couldn’t tell much about him. He appeared to be in his early twenties, with dark hair that was wavy rather than straight or curly. He wore the sort of wraparound sun
glasses that major-league baseball players wore. It was frustrating to Till that he couldn’t tell whether the man was tall or short, thin or fat. And he hadn’t really seen the shape of the face from that flash of a side-view glance.
In his rearview mirror he watched the Jaguar glide a couple of blocks into the distance, then swing toward the gate. The car reached the gate at Scottsdale Road and turned left before Till pulled away from the curb, made a U-turn, and followed.
Till was even more wary as he followed the Jaguar a second time. Kyra had been exhausted and lulled into a calm, end-of-the-shift mood. This man had probably been awakened when Kyra came in. She would probably be going to sleep now in her house. He was up and alert and out in her car.
Till’s mind was generating theories, but he was not able to eliminate anything he thought of. He knew only that he must learn the man’s identity. Till had spent quite a few hours with Kyra, and she had made a great deal of progress in getting to know and trust him. But he had not yet dared to ask who had given her the necklace and ankle bracelet that had belonged to Catherine Hamilton. He had nearly blown all the progress by asking personal questions, so he had held off on a couple of the crucial ones. He was betting on the hypothesis that the man was living with her, and the fact that she let him drive her car made this theory more likely.
No, he thought. Even that was a guess. The Jaguar wasn’t necessarily hers. It was a fairly expensive car. Maybe it was his, and she had driven it to the Biltmore to help ensure that she wouldn’t be suspected of being an escort and asked to leave. He was tempted to go back to her house, look at the second car in the garage, and have both plates traced.
At last the Jaguar pulled over. When he caught up, he saw that he was at a large plaza. There was a supermarket, a big garden store. Till passed behind the car, took a phone-camera shot of the plate number without coming to a stop, drove to the side of the lot near the stores, parked, and saw the man get out. He was young. He wore a gray T-shirt that revealed well-developed arms and shoulders and a thin waist. He was perhaps six feet even. Till got out of his car too and began to follow the man.