Taming a Sea Horse (12 page)

"Classic," I said.

"We're not, as you put it, peddling smut. We're selling self-image. We're selling realized fantasy. We are marketing fully realized lifestyle-masculine, sexually fulfilled, powerful, solid, complete, energized by a sense of the permanent in clothing and wines, in dining and entertainment. We're saying simply every man is a crown prince."

"And you're making eight thousand a year more than your male classmates."

"And implementing the whole concept," she said. "It's not just the money, Spenser." She dropped her hands onto the desk and leaned forward. "I'm in charge."

"Until Perry tells you to get undressed and you say no."

She shook her head. "He talks a little rough, but there's nothing like that." She shook her head again. "Nothing. I find it offensive that you'd suggest it."

"At least I assumed you'd say no," I said.

"And if I said yes?"

"I'd figure you had a cast-iron stomach," I said.

"I have no relationship with Mr. Lehman beyond a business relationship." She opened the file folder and studied it. She frowned slightly.

"Ginger Buckey came to us in August last year. She remained here as a hostess until this May, when she resigned."

"To do what?" I said.

Gretchen shook her head. "I don't know. The girls come and go. There was nothing outstanding about Ginger. There's no reason we should remember her, and quite frankly I don't."

"Lehman did," I said.

"Mr. Lehman has a remarkable memory."

"May I see the file?"

"No, I'm sorry, but it is confidential. All our files are." I thought about taking it. She must have sensed, that because she got up briskly and put it back in the file and locked it. "Perhaps you'd like to see some of the facilities here?" she said, and opened her office door. Another of the King's African Rifles was standing at parade rest.

"Place looks like the Grambling locker room," I said.

Gretchen smiled and we went along the corridor past the sentry and into the elevator. "First floor is health club and screening," she said.

"Nicely done," I said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You were afraid I might snatch the file on you so you locked it up and walked me out into the corridor past the footman without even hinting at distress. Very smooth."

"I had no such fear," Gretchen said.

"You should have," I said. "The minute you said it was confidential I wanted to see it"

"There's nothing in that file, Mr. Spenser. Confidentiality is simply our policy."

"Sure," I said.

We got off the elevator and walked a short paneled corridor and into the health club. It was carpeted and mirrored and staffed with female training assistants in white short shorts and yellow halter tops. To the left a waterfall cascaded down a marble wall into a full-size Olympic pool. There were two men in Speedo racing suits swimming laps. To the right was a bar that sold beer, wine coolers, Perrier, yogurt shakes, and fruit juice. There were also health sandwiches listed on a blackboard. Today's special was jack cheese, avocado slices, sunflower seeds, and alfalfa sprouts on seven-grain bread. The rest of the room was devoted to Nautilus equipment, a profusion of it in chrome and colors. Several men in state-of-the-art sweats were working out, while a training assistant stood by with their chart, offering water after each exercise and cheering them on.

"We have the most complete Nautilus setup in Massachusetts," Gretchen said. "We also have massage rooms, whirlpool, steam, sauna, inhalant and tanning rooms, each staffed by a highly trained professional."

I opened a door marked MASSAGE. There was a plump guy getting a massage, a towel draped across his butt. The masseuse was dressed like the training assistant except that she had on yellow high-heeled backless shoes.

We moved on and looked at the racquetball courts. We went into the screening room, a small movie theater, attended by a young woman dressed like an old-time movie usher. "We run a continuous program of adult entertainment," Gretchen said, "rather like the old newsreel theaters in train stations."

The current feature showed a woman wearing horn-rimmed glasses and white stockings having intercourse with a skinny black-haired guy on the banister of a flight of stairs.

"Precarious," I said.

"We have a library of several thousand adult film classics," Gretchen said.

The woman on the screen told her lover in an excited way that she wanted "more, more, more."

"Classics,"' I said.

We went back in the elevator and went up a flight.

"This is the lounge and library," Gretchen said.

It was a big room lined on three walls with books. Along the fourth wall was a bar. There were leather chairs and reading lamps and a cocktail waitress dressed like Hollywood's idea of a prim librarian stood near the bar with her round tray. No one else was there. The titles were mostly simple pornography with a scattering of works like The Decameron, to make the readers feel less like perverts. We moved on.

There was a restaurant staffed with waitresses dressed like French maids, a nightclub that opened after nine. I didn't ask what the waitresses wore.

"What's on the fourth floor?" I said.

"Guest rooms for the members."

"Complete with hostesses?" I said.

Gretchen smiled. "All of our girls are hostesses," she said.

"Which kind of hostess was Ginger Buckey?" I said.

"I'm not sure, I think she was assigned to the guest floor."

"What are the duties of a guest floor hostess?" I said.

"Maid service, butlery. There's a pantry there, they are a bit like a concierge, and there are enough so that the members get immediate personal attention at any hour."

"Turn-down service, two chocolate mints on the pillow, that sort of thing," I said.

"Among many others," Gretchen said. "The girls are there to serve the needs of the members."

"Including sexual service," I said.

"We are not a house of prostitution, Mr. Spenser. Nor are we a college dormitory. The girls are free to form relationships with the guests, should they choose to."

"And if they don't choose to?"

"Our policy is very simple and it's part of our success. The member is always right. If there's a complaint about a girl, she is disciplined."

"What kind of discipline?"

"It depends on the complaint, fines, dismissal, other things."

"What other things?"

"I'm sorry again, Mr. Spenser. Specific company policy is confidential. I'm sure you understand."

"Any complaints about Ginger Buckey?"

"None," Gretchen said.

"How nice," I said. She seemed to remember Ginger after all.

We were back on the first floor, in the Edwardian foyer.

"So what do you think of our operation," Gretchen said.

"I think that if Walt Disney had been obsessed with sex and dominance, and was uncertain of his manhood and had grown up reading the novels of H. Rider Haggard and had the sensibility of a dung beetle he'd have founded a chain of clubs just tike this."

The bones in Gretchen's face seemed more prominent. "I see," she said. "Have you any further questions?"

"No," I said. "I'm going home and take a shower."

It was Tuesday and an unassertive spring rain was coming straight down. I had picked up two corn muffins and an extra large coffee, black, no sugar, at the Dunkin' Donuts shop near the corner of Exeter Street and walked down Boylston to my office on the corner of Berkeley. I had eaten the muffins at my desk and I was standing at my office window looking down at the street and drinking the rest of the coffee when the door opened. I turned. In came Brutus.

He was out of uniform. His massive upper body straining inside a silver Porsche racing jacket. He had on designer jeans and Reebok track shoes.

I said, "Tell me your name isn't really Brutus."

"Jackson," he said, "Charles Jackson."

"Where'd you play ball?" I said.

"Morgan State."

"Step slow for the pros?" I said.

Jackson grinned. "Step and a half," he said.

"You enjoy being called Brutus by a twerp like Perry Lehman?"

Jackson grinned more. "Shit," he said, "don't make no difference to me. Kind of money he pays me he can call me motherfucker, he wants."

He took my card from the side pocket of his silver jacket. The jacket was half unzipped and I could see that he was shirtless. I didn't see any sign of a gun though he could have had an ankle holster.

"Picked this up off Perry's desk when he went for his nap," Jackson said. "He usually take one, 'bout two bottles a champagne."

I nodded toward a chair. Jackson looked at it carefully, decided he'd fit, and sat gently. He stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed his ankles.

"Tell me 'bout Ginger," he said.

"She was hooking in New York. Not very good. Street hooking around Times Square. I met her and talked with her. Couple days later she got shot to death. Nobody knows who shot her."

Jackson nodded.

"She had a pimp named Robert Rambeaux, I talked with him. Couple of days later he got beat up and is now scared to death."

"So if she's dead, how come you're looking for her?"

"I'm looking for a kid named April Kyle," I said. "She disappeared the same time Ginger got killed and Rambeaux got beat up. I haven't got a lead on her. I had a lead on Ginger. So I'm following Ginger, see if April turns up along the way. There's a connection, and eventually I'll find it."

"She was from Maine," Jackson said.

"Yeah, I know, I went up there, talked with her father."

Jackson nodded. "She was a good kid," he said. "Not smart as hell, but a lot of us ain't. Had a hard life. Artie Floyd brought her in couple of years ago, bought her from a place in Maine."

"I know," I said. "Finder's fee, he called it. Father sold her to the Maine place in the first place."

"Like I say, had a hard life. Broke her down pretty much, didn't have too much sass left by the time she come to the club. But they clean her up and dress her nice and she makes good money and nice tips fucking the members up on the fourth floor."

"That's how it's done?" I said. "Tips?"

"Pretty much. Broads get minimum wage for being hostesses, members tip them for fucking."

"The club get a cut?"

Jackson shook his head. "Don't need it. Make the dough on memberships and booze, and the magazine and the resorts and shit. The poontang just a fringe benefit, make the asshole members feel good."

"So where'd Ginger go?"

"She went to the islands with a member, never came back."

"Which islands?"

"St. Thomas, got a club resort there."

"What's the member's name?" I said.

Jackson shook his head. "Don't know. Never know. Just noticed one day she gone and later got a card from St. Thomas. Guess she didn't stay with him."

"Guess not," I said. "When she go?"

"'Bout Christmas."

"You got the card?" I said.

"Shit, man, you think I keep postcards? I read it and threw it away. How 'bout Miss Coolidge, she tell you anything?"

"Just that Ginger worked there and then left. Dates are right."

"They ain't going to tell you shit," he said. "Something funny 'bout it all."

"What?" I said.

Jackson shrugged, "Don't know. Just, everybody don't talk about Ginger, or where she gone."

"You ever ask?"

"Naw, I just go 'bout my business there, do my Brutus act, make sure the members don't get out of hand, make sure the girls behave, make sure old Marse Lehman got champagne. I start asking questions and they fire my ass and I have to go to work. I hate work."

"Never much liked it myself," I said. "Wouldn't they fire your ass for talking to me?"

"Sure, I just figure you won't tell them."

"Do other girls go off with members?" Jackson put one of his big Reeboks on the edge of my desk.

"Some," he said. "Not too often."

"How does it come about?" I said.

"Come about," Jackson said, "shit. You talk pretty fancy for a guy with a neck like mine."

"Sound mind in a healthy body," I said. "How does the going off with a member work?"

"Got me," Jackson said. "You understand I'm mostly window dressing. Big black dude stand around and look bad. Part of the look, you know? They actually go round to black schools and recruit ballplayers. Make old Perry feel bold have a few black studs standing by."

"Yowzah," I said.

Jackson shrugged. "You think you gonna play ball all your life, then you twenty-four and you finished and ain't no real market for running over offensive tackles. Better than stealing."

"And Perry's fun to be around."

Jackson shook his head. "Man's a douche bag," he said, "but he got a touch for money."

"When things are going bad," I said, "you can feel good about not being Perry Lehman."

"Cheer you right up, man," Jackson said.

"You know anything about how heavily he's connected?"

Jackson shook his head. "Nope. He talk like he got the heaviest connections you can get. But the man's a blowhard. He talk like that anyway, whether he got connections or no."

I nodded. "True," I said. "Anything else I should know?"

"A lot you should know, man, but that's all I got to tell you."

I stood up. "Thank you," I said. "If there's something I can do for you sometime, I will."

Jackson stood up. We shook hands. "Going down to the islands?" he said.

"Probably," I said.

"Enjoy," he said, and turned and left the room.

I called Patricia Utley and made a proposal. "I'm looking for April again," I said. "And I need a client."

"Running short of funds?" she said.

"Very," I said.

"I'm not in a charitable business," she said.

"I'm trying not to be either," I said. "We both have some interest in this kid."

"She's missing?"

"Un huh. And the kid I talked to, Ginger Buckey, is dead and Robert Rambeaux, the pimp, is bruised and scared, and something's going on, and nobody is telling me what."

"Did you go up to Maine?"