First Class Killing (5 page)

“You didn’t get me a job.”

“I gave you the contact at GrapefruitAir, didn’t I? I hooked you up with Harvey. How’s he doing, by the way?”

“He’s okay. Physically up and down, but mostly down about the case.”

“The hooker case? Are you still on that? Jesus Christ, how long has it been? Months, right?”

“Please, don’t you start.”

“What’d I say? What’s so hard about chasing hookers around?”

I looked around to make sure no one was listening. Dan had, indeed, been our first contact on the case with OrangeAir, for which I was eternally grateful. I just wished he didn’t talk so loud. “It’s not hard to find them. It’s hard to find them doing anything actionable. Right now, all I have are a bunch of shots of women in killer evening gowns and Prada shoes coming and going from expensive hotels, climbing in and out of limos, and leaving parties and restaurants with passengers. It’s not enough.”

“What more do you need?”

“Proof that money is changing hands. I need statements from the men in the photos saying they paid for sex. But since the hookers’ customers are also the airline’s best customers—”

“Don’t tell me, the airline doesn’t want you fucking with their revenue base.”

“Exactly right. They think it would be a bad idea to accuse their full-fare first-class business travelers and heavy-duty frequent fliers of patronizing a prostitution ring. Go figure.”

He pulled the stirrer out of his coffee, stared at the ceiling as he sucked on it, and put it back. “Okay. Here’s what you do. You sit down and draft up a proposal for the airline. Call it a new business opportunity. Outline a revenue-sharing arrangement. Get the hookers to cut the airline in on their action. In return, they can continue to operate with no hassles.”

“That’s your idea?”

“Think about it. They’ve got the same target market. They can do joint marketing. ‘Use your frequent flier miles to get laid.’ It’s a win-win.”

His delivery was so perfectly deadpan it made me laugh. “I don’t believe this is the kind of advice the airline called on us to provide.”

He leaned back and shrugged. “It’s a new day, Shanahan. You have to think outside the box.”

“Well,” I said, hopping out of the box, “it is an intriguing idea. The airlines are always looking for ways to burn off that frequent flier liability. Ten thousand for a lap dance. Think of all the liability you could burn off on a single New York–LA transcon.”

He stared at the ceiling. “Seventy-five for a threesome. In Bermuda.”

“You’re such a guy, Dan.”

“Threesomes and girls doing each other. Are you kidding me? They’d put the rest of us out of business in a week. I’ll let you have that idea. You should think about it.”

“I think I’ll stick with the client’s fundamental premise that prostitution is a bad thing.”

“Suit yourself. I’m just saying, don’t fuck with market forces. These guys love to play the frequent flier game. This is just another way to do it.”

“I have a different idea. I want to get someone from the inside, a client, to give me information about what’s going on.”

“What kind of an asshole in his right mind would do that?”

I unzipped my backpack and pulled out the envelope I’d brought. I slipped out the photo I’d printed, the one that had caught my attention last night, and passed it over to Dan. “This kind. Look at the man behind the brunette. He has his hand on her butt.”

“Holy shit. Is that—”

“It is, isn’t it?” I was delighted to see the flash of recognition in his eyes. “It’s that guy from Florida who used to fly in and out of here about once a week. You used to meet and greet him.”

“Still do. He’s one of my best customers. Filthy rich. Lives down in West Palm, but his mother is still out in Weymouth. Every time he comes through here, I take care of him. Every time he goes out, he offers me a job with his company. His old company. I don’t even know what he does. He had a bunch of businesses and sold them.”

“That’s a prostitute he’s fondling, Dan, one of the ones I’m chasing.”

“Good for him.”

“So, here’s what I was thinking. I really need information on this group. Your buddy from Florida is obviously on the inside. I was wondering if you could talk to him for me.”

“Talk to him about having his hand on a hooker’s ass? I don’t think so. I just told you he’s one of our Very Important Travelers.”

“You could talk to him as someone interested in becoming one of their clients.”

“You mean a trick.”

“Well…yeah. That way, you could ask him questions about how it works, is it secure, how does he schedule dates, does he know many of the women. I can give you a list of questions if you want.”

“Shanahan…” We were perfectly isolated in the hollow center of an airport din. There was no more private place to talk, yet he still checked around and leaned closer. “The reason I had to hire Harvey in the first place was because my ex accused me of hiding assets. Can you believe that shit? That’s all I need is for her to get wind that I’m out blowing the child support on hookers.”

“I’m not asking you to take a survey. I’m asking you to talk to one guy in private, man to man, and see what he will share with you. If he tells you to mind your own business, so be it.”

He shook his head, a distant smile on his lips. This wasn’t the first favor I’d asked of him. He always bitched and moaned, and he always came through for me.

“I’m desperate here, Dan. If I can’t make this work, I don’t know what I’ll do. I might have to go back into the airline business for real and for good.”

“The way this business is going, you wouldn’t want back in, anyway. It sucks. Besides, I don’t think anyone would hire you.”

“Why do you say that?”

He handed the photo back. “I’m just saying you’ve got a lot of baggage. With what happened when you were here and the way the rumors fly about you—”

“What happened here is fully documented by the police, the airline, Massport, and everyone else who was involved for what it was—self-defense.”

“You don’t have to tell me. I was here. But lots of people don’t read the fine print. They hear that an employee died on your ramp, and they move on to the next résumé.”

I stared down at the picture in my lap and felt a wobble in my heartbeat. He wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t already thought myself, but it felt different hearing it from someone else. It was as if I’d looked down from the high wire, only to discover someone had made off with the safety net. That was all I needed. More pressure to perform.

“Will you talk to him?”

“I’ll look and see when he’s due to come through. If he’s not scheduled in, maybe I’ll give him a call.”

“Thanks.”

“Cheer up, Shanahan.” He looked over and nudged me with his elbow. “What’s the matter?”

“If this doesn’t work, I’m not sure what I’ll do. I can’t get in tight with a single one of these hookers.”

He laughed. “That’s because you don’t exactly look the part.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not for nothing, but if I was a hooker, I wouldn’t be spilling all my secrets to you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you look like…like what you are.”

“Which is?”

“A…a manager. A…” He started talking with his hands, which is what he did when he couldn’t find the words, which was almost never. “A businesswoman. Someone who wears…suits. I don’t know. What I’m saying is I don’t look at you and think blow job.”

“You think I can’t give a blow job?”

“Did I say that? What I said was that you don’t look like a hooker, and if I was a hooker, you wouldn’t be the first person I would tell all my secrets to.”

“Well, what…” I uncrossed and recrossed my legs. I clasped my hands together in my lap. “In your opinion, what would I have to change to be more like one?”

“Everything.”

“Start small.”

He scanned the terminal. The good thing about airports is you can always find a type, an example of whatever you’re looking for.

“There. See that girl? The blonde?”

“Looking at magazines?”

“Her. Yeah. What do you see when you look at her?”

“Nice figure. Spiky heels, black roots, a skirt that’s too short. Attractive face, but more makeup than an anchorwoman wears. It looks kind of pancakey.”

“Here’s what I see.” He sat up straight and trained his attention on her. “Big tits. Blond hair. Big tits. Short skirt. Big tits—”

“There is not a chance in hell I’m getting a boob job to work this case.”

“She’s dressed like she wouldn’t mind me coming up and asking her what her sign is. You know what I mean?”

He looked at me looking at myself in my smart linen pants and my silk shirt and my leather flats. “Now, you, for instance—”

“That’s enough. I get the picture.” I couldn’t help but think about what a strange twist my life had taken when I was accused of not looking like a hooker and resented it.

“Anyway,” he said, one hand smoothing his hair in back, “I don’t know if that helps you.”

“No, it helps. You know what it’s like? It’s like being back in high school. Did you like high school?”

“Nobody likes high school, Shanahan.”

“These women, these hookers, they’re like the cheerleaders. Revered or despised by all who are not they. They’re completely unapproachable…a world unto themselves. You don’t get into their little clique—their tiny, exclusive clique—without being invited. And they don’t invite anyone.”

“You didn’t hang out with cheerleaders in high school?”

“I didn’t hang out. I was either taking care of my little brother or working.”

“That’s a sad story. But we’re grown-ups now. We get over that shit, right?”

I stared across the terminal at the blonde buying the magazine. She had probably been a cheerleader in high school. Or at least one of those girls who always knew what to say to boys. Regardless of who she was then, she was now a woman at whom men like to stare, and I wondered what that felt like. I also wondered if changing my clothes would be change enough.

“Shanahan, your fifteen minutes have been up for fifteen minutes.” He stood up and stretched his back, then leaned over and used his most discreet voice. “All I’m saying, you’re working undercover, right? That means you have to be undercover. Maybe if you looked the part more, you’d feel it more. God knows you’ve got the body to pull it off.”

“Yeah?”

“The real question is, do you have the balls?”

Chapter

6

T
HE
W
OLFBOROUGH SHOOTING RANGE WASN’T
much more than an opening in the trees at the end of a long dirt road. It was easy to spot Tristan leaning against a Porsche—a
Porsche?
—in the lot down at the open field that served as the pistol range. As far as I could tell, he was the only living organism there at ten-thirty on a Friday morning. I pulled into the space next to his and climbed out.

“You’re late,” he said.

“Sorry. Since when do you drive a Carrera?”

“It’s Barry’s, and you’re changing the subject. Don’t even think about screeching up at the very last second when you go to Moon Island to take your range test. They don’t like that, and you’ll get all flustered, and you won’t shoot straight, and you won’t pass the test, and you won’t get your license, and I’ll feel like a failure. I have a personal stake in this. In fact, when are you scheduled?”

“The week after next.”

“I’m going with you. I’ll pick you up. We’ll get out there in plenty of time. That’s what we’ll do.”

Tristan had switched into his shooting instructor role, one he obviously took seriously. I had been amazed when he’d told me he could teach me to shoot. Tristan didn’t exactly exude machismo. But he had grown up in Wyoming and when he’d told his parents he was gay, his father decided he needed to know how to defend himself and taught him all about guns. It turned out he needed less protection from the rednecks than from his own mother. She disowned him and tossed him out.

When my old instructor had left town, Tristan had happily volunteered to take over my firearms instruction and help me prepare for the test. Not only was he an excellent teacher, he had lots of guns. He also had accepted without question my vague explanation that I just wanted to learn how to shoot. Most important of all, he refused to charge me for his services.

“What’s today’s lesson?”

“Large-caliber weapons.” We walked out to the shooting range and the setup area, which looked like a long, covered picnic table, on which Tristan had displayed his usual array of small arms, ammunition, targets, and headgear. He picked up a big revolver with a long barrel, something Billy the Kid might have worn strapped to his thigh. “You’ve got the twenty-two under control. Let’s see how you do with this baby.”

He offered it to me, and I wrapped my hand around it. Thanks mostly to Tristan’s impressive array of handguns, I was beginning to know the weights of the various calibers. In the month we’d been shooting together, this was the heaviest I’d held.

“It’s a Forty-four Special,” he said. “It will be even heavier with these.” He handed me a box of shells. “Load it. Get ready to fire.”

I opened the box and emptied out a few rounds. The shells were large, about as big around as my little finger, which made them much easier to work with than those slender .22-calibers. I slipped one into each of the six chambers.

“On the range!”
Tristan yelled out from behind me. We were the only ones around, but he was a stickler for safety and doing everything according to the rules, a fact that I found reassuring. He waited for me to put the gun down and step back before walking out and slapping a couple of standard paper bull’s-eye targets onto the holders.

I still had the first target I’d ever hit, the flimsy documentation of my faltering early steps to learn to shoot. I kept it in a place where no one could see it, which was the perfect metaphor for my complicated relationship with firearms. The instructor I’d been working with had told me the tight cluster of small holes I’d made on my first attempt, though not in the bull’s-eye, was evidence of a steady hand. He’d called me a natural, which meant I had an innate ability for something to which I had traditionally claimed an aversion. Not a “repeal the Second Amendment” passion. I hadn’t grown up around guns and had no use for them. But learning to shoot was part of my training, a necessary arrow in my quiver of professional skills, and I had decided if I was going to do it, I was going to do it right. I just hadn’t been prepared for how much I would like it.