All the Old Bargains Read online

  Samantha smiled at me and her eyes crinkled. “I’m glad you did.” I felt like I’d been bathed in warm butterscotch. God bless wise eyes and a warm smile. I thought that maybe I’d stop looking for long legs and big breasts. Maybe I was growing up.

  Samantha looked down at the floor for a second and did fingernail laps around her glass. She looked up. “Oh, by the way, I have something for you.” She reached into her purse and pulled out three books. I leaned forward and took them from her.

  “Thank you.” I looked at them: Machine Dreams by Jayne Anne Phillips; Bodily Harm by Margaret Atwood and Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler.

  I stared out into space for a while. Samantha sipped her wine and watched me. Rain began to tap on the roof. I went over to the curtains, drew them back and opened the sliding glass patio doors.

  “I love the sound of rain late at night. I find it incredibly soothing.”

  “I know what you mean; it affects me the same way.”

  We sat and listened to the rain beat on the roof and against the glass doors.

  “What are you going to do next?” she asked.

  “Oh, I’ll try to arrange a date with this girl through one of the outcall services. If that doesn’t get me anywhere I’ll keep looking for the guy who recruited her, maybe bait him with another girl that looks like the one I’m looking for. Just keep turning over rocks and see what crawls out. This job is mostly persistence and patience.

  “Why don’t you scoot your chair up here, Sam. You’ll hear the rain better.”

  She pursed her lips and then slid her chair alongside mine.

  “Leo.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Please don’t call me Sam again.” Her tone indicated that I’d tripped over an emotional land mine.

  “Okay. Sure. I’ll just call you Samantha, no problem.”

  “Thanks. Maybe I’ll feel different about this later, but for now I’d rather you called me Samantha.”

  “Do you mind telling me why?”

  “No. I don’t mind telling you. Sam was what my father always called me. Until my brother Joey was born. After that he didn’t call me much of anything anymore.”

  “You were second fiddle then, huh?”

  “Yeah, second fiddle in an orchestra of one. Until my mother died. I was real useful to him then.”

  I reached across to take her hand. She let me. Then she squeezed mine briefly and slipped hers free. “It’s okay, honest.”

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s just sit and listen to the rain awhile, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  So I sat there, sipping whiskey and listening to the rhythmic pattern of the rain. The woman I most wanted to be with sat close enough to touch if she would but let me. All I’d ever wanted was in that room but it was a long way from being mine.

  Chapter 14

  I awoke in the same chair. It was early afternoon and my head still throbbed if I moved too quickly. Samantha had covered me with a blanket. She was gone. A note on the kitchen table said the coffee was ready to be plugged in, wished me good luck and admonished me to be careful with my head.

  I dragged in the newspaper and plugged in the coffee. While it was brewing I cleaned myself up and got dressed. I took two aspirin, rolled up a half-dozen more in a Kleenex and dropped them in my jacket pocket. My headache was retreating but not yet gone.

  I went into the kitchen and pulled out the folded list Jackie had given me. I hauled down my yellow pages and looked up motels. I called one and reserved a room. It would be available at three o’clock. Then I dialed the outcall number.

  The phone rang twice and was picked up by a lilting southern drawl. “Garden of Eden Health Salon. May I help you?”

  “I hope so, honey. I hear you got an outcall service, girl come out and massage my poor aching body out at my place, that right?”

  “That’s right, sir. Now if you’d just give us your name and address, we’ll dispatch one of our masseuses directly to you.” I gave her the address of the motel, my room number and told her my name was Smith, Bob Smith. I shifted into my conspiratorial voice full of halts and stutters with a dash of self-effacement. “Uh, well, you know, I kind of like them—I mean I enjoy it especially if they’re, uh, young, you know, real young, uh, you understand …?”

  “Yes, sir. All of our masseuses are young and attractive women. We’ll see if we can locate one with a particularly pixieish appearance. Our services begin at 120 dollars an hour and escalate depending on your interests. The masseuse has a rate card she can show you.”

  “And,” I continued in a strangled caw, “I like ’em blonde.”

  “Of course, sir. I’ll see what we can do.” Ever helpful. I’m sure if I called for an animal act she’d have asked: Guernsey or Holstein, Clydesdale or Morgan, Shepherd or Great Dane.

  “Our masseuse should be there in about forty-five minutes. One last thing, sir.”

  “Yes.”

  “Will that be cash or charge? We honor VISA, Mastercard, Diners Club, Carte Blanche and American Express.”

  “Charge.”

  I called Arnie. While the phone was ringing I looked up Tony Julian. No listing. When Arnie answered I told him I’d made contact. “I made my pitch. Let’s see what Uncle Monte comes up with.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  I gave him the motel address and my room number. “Sit outside in the parking lot and watch the car that drops her off. With a new client the driver will wait for a sign that everything is cool before he leaves. See if you can get a tag number and if it ain’t a cab follow the person who drops her off. Especially if it’s a guy driving a jacked-up car with a Dixie’s Pride sticker, okay?”

  “It’s done,” Arnie said. “Oh, by the way, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  I locked up the house and drove down to the motel. I picked up my key and memorized the layout as I walked back to door number twelve.

  Inside, I looked around at the room: two double beds, phone, Bible, color TV, desk, dressers, easy chair, open closet, bathroom with wrapped plastic cups and that absurd wrapper on the toilet seat, signifying god knows what. The ubiquitous standard twentieth-century motel room. In the bathroom I poured myself a glass of water and downed two aspirins. I pulled off my holster and put the .45 under the mattress of the bed on the left. I took out my wallet and removed all the ID and slid that under the same mattress. I sat down in the dark on the easy chair and awaited the girl of my dreams.

  In about twenty minutes there was a knock at the door. I got up and crossed the room. I opened the door to an arresting sight. She was petite. Her blonde hair was tied in pony tails with white ribbons, in fact her whole outfit was white. The innocent to be defiled, I was sure. She had on white knee socks and sandals and if it’s the shortness of shorts that makes them hot pants these were absolutely incendiary. She was sugar and spice and everything nice, but she was not thirteen. Twenty-three maybe.

  “Mr. Smith?” she asked, her hands entwined in front of her as if she were asking for a favor.

  “Yeah, I’m Mr. Smith. Come on in.” I let her slide past me into the room. She put her purse down on the dresser and turned to look at me, her hands on her hips, her head cocked as she looked me up and down. Boy, I hoped I’d grade out at prime or choice, maybe fetch two bucks a pound. I wondered if she’d kick my tires. She made sure the closet and bathroom were empty.

  “Are you a cop or in the employ of any law enforcement agency?”

  “No. Hey, what is this? I just want a massage. I mean, that’s legal in this state?” I whined.

  “Of course, Mr. Smith. I’m just looking out to protect myself. You meet all kinds of unscrupulous people in this line of work.” She looked to see if I was satisfied with that and then went on. “Now, our fees are by the service provided. State laws require that the genital areas of both the masseuse and the client be covered at all times, is that understood?” I nodded. “Okay. For the straight body massage using the her
bal oils that’s 120 bucks an hour. Payable in full in advance. We honor cash, VISA, Mastercard, Diners Club, Carte Blanche, and American Express.”

  “Uh, I’ll pay using VISA.” I fished into my wallet for the credit card I have in the name of a dummy corporation. I couldn’t believe anyone could recover from this bizarre descendant of the Miranda ruling to muster a decent hard on.

  She opened her purse, took out an imprinter, looked at the card, then at me to see if I was a diversified consultant and went to the phone on the desk. She sat and crossed her legs and dialed out. “This is number thirty-seven. Time 3:30 P.M., return call in one hour.” She read the card number and the amount. She hung on and flashed a weak smile, but the current was leaking out of it. She patted the bed and motioned me to sit across from her. “Okay, thanks.” She ran the card through the imprinter and gave it to me to sign. When I did, she ripped off my copy and returned it to me with my card. She went to her purse and replaced her equipment. Oh, for the good old days of spiked heels and mesh stockings. In the world of commercial sex the emphasis was clearly on commercial. If this got any less erotic I’d pass out. I mean, hookers with WATS line privileges, credit card imprinters and Miranda cards. The road to the perfumed garden was going to be a long one at this rate.

  She leaned back against the dresser, flexing her legs and arching her back, “Now, Mr. Smith, of course if you and I succumb to some personal magic and because of that we engage in sexual activities, that is merely a side effect of this encounter between two consenting adults and not the intention of our meeting here.”

  “Of course.” That must have been article two, paragraph B.

  “And the fee that I have received for services is in no way connected with any sexual transaction between us. Correct?”

  “Right, absolutely.” Now I lay me down to sleep.

  “Okay.” She turned back to her purse and fumbled with something. She went to the window and adjusted the blinds up and down. “The light’s pretty bright here,” she said. That was her signal to her partner. Then she locked and chained the door. She came over next to me and ran her palms over my chest. She undid the top two buttons and kissed my chest. “Umn, you’re a big one.” She looked up at me with love or its synthetic substitute in her eyes. “Now, what would you like Mr. Smith? Tell me all about it.” Her transmission was clearly in order. We’d just gone from the State Inspection Station to flat out on the highway in one smooth motion.

  I looked down at her. She was a good choice, natural blonde, good complexion, faint band of freckles, little pug nose, tiny cleft in the chin, pouty underlip. It was the eyes that were wrong. Not the flat buttons you’d expect of a woman doing her ten thousandth trick. It wasn’t the impersonation of desire that a good pro can turn on in the wink of an eye. No, it was something else. The vigilance of a juggler in a crosswind, trying to keep all the balls in the air and find the way out of the wind.

  I wondered if I was a ball or the wind?

  She picked up on my distraction. “What’s the matter, Mr. Smith, cat got your tongue? Here, let me find it for you.” She took my face in her hands and kissed me deeply. She pressed her body against mine and as I bent over to be kissed I found myself pulling her against me with my arms tight around her. Our tongues played hide-and-go-seek for a couple of minutes. She won, but then so did I.

  She stepped back and said, “I hear you like ’em young and blonde, right, Mr. Smith? Well, am I what the doctor ordered?” She took a deep breath and jutted her breasts out toward me. I found myself in the vertiginous grip of lust and contemplating a very long fall onto her very soft chest. “Yes,” I croaked and reached out gently for her breast as if touching a newly hatched chick. I tried to remember that I’d just sworn off falling for long legs and big breasts. I was going under when I threw out a lifeline of words. “What’s your name, little girl?”

  She looked up at me. “Anything you want to call me, Daddy?” She hadn’t moved toward me or away and I looked at my hand on her breast like a toad on a meringue.

  “How about Randi?” I searched her eyes. Nothing.

  “What do you want your little Randi to do, Daddy?”

  I wanted little Randi to go home.

  “Uh, take your clothes off real slow, baby, and show me your stuff.” Give me a minute to breathe.

  She said, “Sure Daddy.” and slowly undid the zipper on her shorts and slid them down her pale legs. She slowly turned, then flexed her legs and buttocks and slowly bent over. The Jordache girl run amok. She hooked her fingers in her underpants and slowly peeled them down over her magnificent ass and there it was. Sticking out of her like the fuse to a bomb was the string to a tampon.

  “Nice work, sweetheart. I wanted someone young, sweet, virginal and here you are on the rag. That’s disgusting!” I shrieked.

  She jumped across the room pulling on her pants as if I’d put a branding iron to her. “Jesus man, I’m sorry. If you’re so turned off I’ll leave.” She was pulling her shorts on and backing away from me.

  “No way, baby,” I said and sprang at her. “Not with my money, you cunt.” I grabbed her purse off the dresser. She tried to grab my arm and pull the purse free. I got an arm under her neck and across her chest and with a backhand swipe threw her across the room. She skidded into the closet.

  “All right, dammit, that’s it. I’m outta here. Give me my purse,” she snarled out of the corner.

  She started to get up off the floor. I pulled the .45 out from under the mattress. “Just relax and sit back down on the floor, ankles together, your hands around your knees. Pay attention to what I say.

  “My name is Leo Haggerty. I’m a private detective, working on a case. I’m looking for a missing juvenile. I think Monte Panczak is running some kiddie action, so I set up this appointment to see if I could get a hook into it by asking for a young girl. You showed up. We do-si-doed for a while, now it’s time to talk.”

  “That’s a nice story. Let me see your license if you are who you claim to be.”

  I flipped the mattress over and found my license and scaled it to her.

  She matched pictures and face and said, “So what do you want with me?”

  I leaned forward and dropped the gun barrel as a sign of good intentions.

  “What I want with you, sugar britches, is everything you know about Monte Panczak’s operation and especially Tony Julian. I just bought one hour of your complete and rapt attention, so let’s get with it. For starters, have you ever seen this girl or heard her name mentioned. It’s Miranda Benson.” I took the picture out of my coat pocket and held it out to her.

  “No, I’ve never seen or heard of her.”

  I stared at her, waiting for her to go on.

  “What’s to tell? I got hustled by this guy Tony Julian to work in the massage parlor. I figured why not, I needed the bread. He said I had great fingers. What a jerk! Anyway, I told him I wasn’t going to do anything but straight massages. Christ, I make thirty bucks for half an hour kneading some drooly doughball. Who needs the sex end to get rich? So I’ve been there a few weeks now and we got this call for a real young chick and a blonde. I was the only one even remotely like that so Tony came over to me and asked if I wanted it. He said it was a straight request. I could make of it what I wanted.”

  “If you don’t trick what was all the hot and heavy with me, then?”

  “I didn’t want you to get really pissed off and call the service. One of the girls said to wear the tampon because it usually turns off the guys who want the ‘little girl’ scene.”

  “How long have you been there, to the day?”

  “Three weeks and two days.”

  “And you haven’t tricked once?”

  “No.”

  “What are you up to?”

  “What do you mean, what am I up to?”

  “Just what I said. Nobody works massage and outcall for three plus weeks without turning a trick. The pressure to produce is too great. You’re up to something. Let me tell you tha
t if I’m wondering about it, you can bet that Monte’s thinking about it, and when he decides he knows what you’re up to he’s going to put you in the foundation of his new tennis court.”

  She said nothing.

  “Good, you sit there and think about it. I don’t know who you think you’re playing with but you are in over your head.”

  We sat and stared at each other for a while.

  “Okay. I’m a reporter.”

  “A what?” I’d have been less surprised if she’d said she was a Martian.

  “A reporter. I’m doing a story on the outcall massage business and thought that a new angle would be to tell the story from the inside. The stories of the girls who work in these places.”

  “You are major fucking nuts, lady. Do you know that?”

  “Why?” she said indignantly.

  “Why? I’ll tell you why. You’re doing a story? What’s this great story going to do? Stop prostitution? Not bloody likely. Get Panczak busted? No. I can see it now. I have to protect my sources, your honor. If the story ever sees the light of day it might get you an award. Whoopee! If Panczak finds out what you’re up to, you are fucking history. Who knows what you’re doing? Anyone?”

  “My editor.”

  “Wonderful. Wonder-fucking-ful. If I was you I’d make plans to wrap this story up real soon. You aren’t in deep cover, you’re in deep shit.”

  “Thanks for the concern,” she said sarcastically.

  “Think nothing of it.” I’m sure she didn’t. “What can you tell me about Monte’s setup?”

  “He runs it like a business. When they hire you, you sign a contract saying you will not use the organization to further your own prurient interests or engage in illegal sexual behavior and that you indemnify them against liability for your actions. Then they tell you what gynecologist to go to if you suffer an occupational injury. Can you imagine a workman’s comp claim for pregnancy or the clap?”