The Assignment 4 (6 page)

“And that’s why you want to talk to his daughter?”

“Exactly.”

Chloe shook her head. “I don’t know, Lacey. This is my livelihood. I can’t afford to risk it. What happens if we get caught? What happens if Lally or someone at The Club realizes we’re trying to get dirt on them. I’ll be out of a job, and a lot worse could happen too. They could come after us. They could try to kill us.”

“I know. I wouldn’t put it past Lally to try something like that. You’re right, Chloe. I should never have asked. It’s too dangerous.”

“It is,” Chloe said.

“I’m so sorry,” Lacey said. “I wasn’t thinking straight. I’ve got the protection of the magazine, but I know it’s different for you. You need this to keep going.”

“Yes, I do. And if you blow the lid on the whole thing, what will I have left? I’ll be out of a job and I’ll have some very powerful men after me.”

Lacey knew it was true. What had she been thinking? She felt like she was completely loosing her judgment. Nothing she did or said was going right and now she’d tried to drag Chloe into it. She had been so selfish. Chloe could lose everything if she got implicated in any of this.

“I can’t believe you’re not really a call girl,” Chloe said.

Lacey nodded.

“I really thought I’d found someone just like me. I thought I’d found a real friend. Someone I could relate to and share things with.” There was a sadness in Chloe’s face that matched the sadness in her words.

Lacey saw what she’d taken away from Chloe. By admitting to her that she was just pretending to be a prostitute she’d robbed Chloe of the one friend she thought she could share anything with.

“It wasn’t all fake,” Lacey said. “It was very real to me. All of it.”

“But not in the same way,” Chloe said. “I thought we were alike. I thought you were doing what I was doing, for the same reasons I was doing it. Now I see that you were doing something completely different. You were having sex with the same men as me, but all the while you were planning to take them down. You weren’t really doing what I was doing at all.”

“You’re right,” Lacey said. “I lied to you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be dishonest. It was just, that was what they wanted me to do. The magazine wanted me to maintain my cover. They wanted to make sure I didn’t compromise the article.”

“I don’t know how we’re going to be able to be friends after this,” Chloe said.

“Chloe! You don’t mean that.”

“I’m sorry, Lacey, but you know it’s the truth. Things aren’t the same. We became close friends very quickly because of what we had in common. We no longer have that in common and it will affect our feelings, it will affect the way we trust each other.”

“Are you going to tell The Club that I’m not who I say I am,” Lacey said.

“Lacey! Of course not. I’m still your friend. Jesus. I’ll never tell anyone. It’s just, I can’t be a part of what you’re doing. You’re a journalist, working for an important national news magazine, and I’m a whore.”

“You’re more than that,” Lacey said.

“I’m not more than that, Lacey. That’s literally all I am. You’re more, and now I feel left behind. I only just met you, I thought I’d met someone just like me, and now I already feel like you’re leaving me behind.”

“I’m not leaving you behind,” Lacey said. “I’m still the same person. Do you remember the conversation we had at that restaurant?”

“When we explained what it was that made us the way we were?”

“Yes. And I said my mother was a hooker.”

“I remember.”

“Well that’s still the truth, Chloe. My mother was a hooker. I grew up with a hooker. The first man to ever fuck me was her pimp, and I was a minor. After that my mother got jealous and got rid of me. From that day to this I’ve been alone in the world. You might feel like we’re different now. But I’m still that girl. And that’s the reason I could do what I did. That’s the reason I could let Lally and those other men fuck me. That’s even the reason I got a thrill out of it. That’s the reason I pictured Lally’s face when we were in the sauna.”

Chloe nodded. “I guess you’re still the messed up girl I met,” she laughed.

Lacey was glad to see her friend laugh. She felt as if she was losing Chloe, losing the closeness that had developed between them, and she desperately wanted to save it.

“You know,” Lacey said. “I’m just as much of a slut as you thought I was. I still get the same thrill out of being abused, I still feel a lust inside me at the thought of Lally and those other men humiliating me, coming on me, fucking me like an animal. I am who you thought I was. It’s just, there’s also another side to me. There’s a part of me that wants to be good, that wants to change my life and get away from the traumas and wounds of my past.”

“I understand that,” Chloe said.

“Neither of us is as simple as we thought,” Lacey said. “You thought I was a whore and I was more. But you’re more too, aren’t you? There’s more to you than what you’ve told me. There are dreams, goals, things you want to do with your life other than this.”

“Of course there are. There are a million things I’d like to do with my life.”

“Well, maybe we’re not so different. We both have secrets. We both have dreams and goals. Neither of us is limited to being the whore who shows up on the job.”

Chloe nodded. “Maybe you’re right,” she said.

“Of course I’m right,” Lacey said. “We’re still in the same boat, Chloe. You and me, we’re not that different. We both do what we have to do. And there’s more to either of us than those men at the mansion would ever guess.”

Chloe nodded. She smiled. “Okay, Lacey Gardner,” she said.

“It’s Lacey Garner,” Lacey said, “but don’t tell anyone. I have a cover to maintain.”

It felt so good to be finally letting Chloe in on the truth. She’d hated lying to her friend. Chloe really was the best friend she’d ever had and she wanted to be honest with her. She was glad that she finally could be.

She looked at Chloe. Chloe seemed lost in her own thoughts. She was staring into her coffee cup, thinking deeply. “Fuck it,” she said quietly.

“What did you say?” Lacey said.

“I said fuck it, Lacey. I’ll do it.”

“You’ll do what?”

“I’ll help you speak to Lally’s daughter.”

VIII

C
HLOE AND LACEY SAT NEXT
to each other on the back seat of the cab. They were outside a fabulous apartment building on Central Park West. There was a carpet leading from the door to the edge of the sidewalk so that you could walk from your car to the building without messing up your shoes. Two attendants stood by the door in black suits and helped people in and out of the building.

“That’s where she lives?” Chloe said.

“According to my research.”

“Which apartment?”

“I have no idea.”

They had paid the cab driver a hundred dollars to sit with them and stake out the building. It was far too cold for them to wait on the street, and they had no idea how long it would be until Claire Lally made an appearance.

“What if she’s not in there?” Chloe said.

“She’s got to come home at some time, doesn’t she?”

Chloe smiled. “I just hope she’s not in the Hamptons or something.”

Lacey exhaled. She was nervous. She had to find Claire. She leaned against the window, watching the door of the building every time someone entered or left. They’d already been sitting there for thirty minutes. She knew they couldn’t stay there too much longer. Sooner or later a traffic cop would come along force them to move.

Lacey was lost in her thoughts when Chloe put a hand on hers.

“I’m sorry,” Chloe said.

“What for?”

“For earlier. I shouldn’t have been so angry at you. I shouldn’t have said things would be different. We’re real friends and that’s stronger than the secrets we sometimes have to keep.”

“Oh, Chloe. Thank you so much for saying that. I was so worried I’d lost you. I’d die if you weren’t able to my friend any more. I’d understand, but I would be devastated.”

“You’re not going to lose me,” Chloe said, smiling kindly. “I thought I might not be able to relate to you when you said you weren’t really a call girl, but the truth is, neither of us is only a call girl. Both of us have other goals and other dreams in life. Prostitution is something we’re both doing right now, it’s something each of us needs to do for our own reasons, but our friendship is more than just being in the same place at the same time.”

“It is,” Lacey said. “It really is, Chloe. I almost feel like we could be sisters.”

“I haven’t told many people this,” Chloe said. “In fact, I haven’t told anyone, but I do have other dreams, other aspirations that I hope to achieve in my life that go farther than sucking rich old men’s cocks.”

Lacey laughed. She looked forward at the cab driver. She could tell he was listening intently to every word.

“I know you do,” Lacey said. “And some day I hope I can help you reach for those dreams.”

Chloe nodded. “But for now, this is what’s real. Mayfair, The Club, the men at the mansion, that’s what’s real.”

“For both of us,” Lacey said.

“Yes, for both of us.”

*

I
T WAS ANOTHER THIRTY MINUTES
before a tall, slim blonde came out of the apartment building dressed impeccably in a designer coat and scarf and carrying a small dog in her purse.

“That’s her,” Lacey said, shaking Chloe’s arm.

“Oh my god,” Chloe said. “She looks different from what I imagined.”

“I pictured her differently too,” Lacey said.

“I thought she’d look like her father, for some reason”

“I don’t know what I was expecting, but then I looked her up and I saw all these photos of her. She’s actually really beautiful. Not at all the kind of girl you would expect to marry an old man.”

“And she’s already rich,” Chloe said, “so she didn’t even have to marry for money.”

“I know. It doesn’t make sense.”

One of the attendants hailed Claire Lally a cab and she stepped into it, the carpet on the sidewalk protecting her expensive shoes from the dirty sidewalk.

“Follow that cab,” Lacey said to the driver. She felt like an undercover cop.

“You’re the boss, lady,” the driver said.

They followed Claire’s cab around the park to Fifth Avenue. The streets were beginning to get busy as the late afternoon traffic turned to rush hour. The cab turned right off Fifth onto Sixty-Fifth Street. A flash of recognition hit Lacey and she remembered that she knew the place.

“Oh my god,” she said, “I bet I know where she’s going.”

“Where?” Chloe said.

Claire’s cab pulled over to the curb just before Park Avenue.

“It’s a restaurant called Daniel’s.”

“Oh, Daniel’s. I know the place.”

“You’ve eaten there?” Lacey said.

“A few times, with clients. They seem to like taking me there. I have no idea why. It’s not like they need to impress me. I’m being paid!”

Lacey laughed.

“I had an awful date there recently,” Lacey said. She was amazed at how much had happened in her life since her date there with Ric Holt, barely a week ago. She felt like she’d grown so much in that time. She thought she’d handle a date like that differently now. She was a new woman, more confident, more sure of herself. She had the feeling if she saw Ric now, she’d be better able to stand up for herself.

“I hate bad dates,” Chloe said.

“Tell me about it. I left this place in tears.”

The driver stopped the car behind Claire’s cab. Claire went into the restaurant.

“I wonder who she’s meeting here,” Lacey said.

Chloe shrugged.

Lacey gave the cab driver another twenty dollars. It was nice to have so much cash all of the time. She’d received another payment from Benny for the night she’d spent with Lally and when she saw that her bank balance had jumped up another six grand she almost felt as if all the suffering and humiliation had been worth it. Then she remembered the way Lally had kicked Chloe and knew that no amount of money would ever justify that sort of treatment.

“You can leave us here,” she said to the driver.

Chloe followed her out of the cab and into the restaurant. A doorman held the door for them. “Welcome to Daniel’s,” he said.

Inside he took their coats and brought them to the maître d’. Lacey was as impressed by the décor as she had been the first time she was there. The fountains and crystal chandeliers glittered in the gentle light.

“Good evening, ladies,” the maître d’ said as they approached. “Table for two?”

Lacey looked at him and gasped in surprise. “I know you,” she said.

He smiled back at her with a mischievous grin. “You’re the girl who likes quiet tables.”

“I am.”

“And you sometimes run out on dates in tears.”

Lacey didn’t know what to say. She was embarrassed.

“You’re Alex,” she said.

“You remember my name!”

“Of course.”

Alex seemed pleased. He looked at Chloe.

Lacey said, “Alex, this is my friend, Chloe.”

Lacey looked over at Chloe and almost burst out laughing. Chloe was blushing! Lacey couldn’t believe it. After all she’d seen Chloe do, she didn’t think that it was possible for her to get embarrassed. It was so cute.

Chloe reached out and took Alex’s hand and shook it. Lacey smiled at her.

“Well, what can I do for you two lovely ladies today? A table?”

“No actually. I just wanted to speak to someone,” Lacey said.

“Who?”

Lacey looked into the dining room. It wasn’t very busy. There were diners at a few tables and across the room was Claire Lally, sitting by herself at a table for two.

“That woman over there,” Lacey said. “I need to speak to her.”

“Do you know her?”

“Not exactly. I know her father. Is it okay if I go over and talk to her?”

“Of course,” Alex said.

“You wait here,” Lacey said to Chloe. Then she stepped closer to Chloe and said quietly, “If Claire’s husband comes, you have to delay him.”

“Lacey, I don’t even know what he looks like.”

“He’s sixty-eight and he’s rich. You’ll recognize him if he comes in.”

“Okay.”