Death Turns A Trick (Rebecca Schwartz #1) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)
very well, and from what I gather, that’s just as well. She was a tramp.”
I laughed. “Isn’t that horizontal hostility?”
“No.
You’re
exhibiting it. You just made it clear that you think a tramp and a prostitute are the same thing.” She patted her neat publicist’s coif, as if to emphasize her own respectability and worth. “There’s an ethical code among prostitutes, which is very strongly adhered to by HYENA members.”
“Kandi wasn’t a member?”
“No. She wasn’t a feminist. She didn’t get along with other women at all. She was a kind of hanger-on, and she came to a couple of our meetings, but she actually laughed out loud if anyone mentioned the word ‘sisterhood.’ Used to say we were fools if we believed in it. And she made fun of Elena’s co-op. I say ‘Elena’s’ because it’s easier, but I hope you understand that I don’t think of it that way—Stacy and Renée and Hilary are just as much a part of it.”
I nodded, to pacify her.
“No one liked her. But Elena kept her because she brought in a lot of business. She was very popular with the customers, although I suspect she had as much contempt for men as she did for her sisters.”
I almost said I could see how the nature of the business might easily breed that, but I thought better of it. Instead, I asked how often Kandi had worked at the co-op.
“Once or twice a week, I think. Even though she was popular, Elena was uneasy about her. After she started working there, she became the favorite of a couple of Elena’s best clients. Influential men, well known in the community, who’d been clients of Elena’s—I mean of the co-op’s—for quite a while. They started asking for Kandi specifically, and then after a while they stopped going to Elena’s.”
“Elena thought that had something to do with Kandi? That she was driving them away?”
“Either that, or seeing them somewhere else, so she wouldn’t have to split the money with Elena. That’s what I mean by ethics. An ethical prostitute wouldn’t do that.”
“But you don’t know for sure that it was that?”
“No. In fact, Elena thinks it may have been something worse. She may literally have been driving them away. By blackmailing them.”
“Oh. So why didn’t Elena get rid of her?”
Jeannette shrugged. “She didn’t have any real basis for thinking that. It was just a feeling. Remember, Elena is a very shrewd businesswoman, and Kandi did bring in business. After all, it could have been a coincidence; maybe the clients had found someone they liked better at another house. So she decided to wait and see if it happened again. The three-strikes-and-you’re-out theory.”
Coffee had come, and I helped myself to cream and sugar. “How,” I said finally, “did Kandi get the job at Elena’s?”
“That’s the ironic part. Through me, helping out a sister. Kandi came to HYENA in big trouble. Or what she thought was big trouble. She’d been working for an escort service run by somebody named George. But she started cheating him, taking his clients, the same way she may have been taking Elena’s. George found out about it, called her up, and threatened to kill her.
“She was a mess when she came to me. George is a pretty big operator in this town, and she knew it. She was new to the business, and she thought he might kill her.”
“Did you think so?”
She waved a scornful, well-manicured hand. “Of course not. He was just being macho. I told her not to worry about it and gave her a stern lecture on ethics. She said she wasn’t aware she was doing anything wrong. It was she the clients liked, and she didn’t see why she shouldn’t pocket the entire fee. I told her that wouldn’t do at all, and she seemed very contrite, very willing to learn. You know those innocent kitten eyes of her. I fell for it. I knew Elena was looking for some part-timers, so I sent her over there. I told Elena the whole story, of course, but she seemed satisfied Kandi was reformed. Until she got nervous about losing the two clients.”
“What about this George? Was he at Elena’s party?”
“I don’t know, but he could be an FDO for all I know. I’ve never seen him. Rumor has it he’s a respectable businessman who runs the escort service on the side.”
We’d dawdled over our coffee for a long time, so long that most of the restaurant’s clientele had turned over once. Jeannette excused herself for a trip to the ladies’ room.
From where we were
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