Death Turns A Trick (Rebecca Schwartz #1) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

Ziller was tall and built. He had a good jaw, a soft, drawly voice, and eyes to make a hypnotist eat his heart out. Inspector Shipe was a sweaty, pudgy cup-of-tea with hair too dark for his skin—and not much of it at that. They good-cop-bad-copped me in a room that made a boxcar look like a luxury suite. I hoped Frank’s accommodations were no better.
    “All right, Miss Schwartz, let’s have it,” said Shipe. Ziller just smiled. “How do you know Officer Jaycocks?” he said in that soft voice.
    “I met him Friday night at a bordello where he propositioned me, and I did not know his last name until now. I do not know what Officer Jaycocks was doing in such an establishment, but I can tell you that I was there to play the piano.”
    Ziller laughed outright. Shipe grumped.
    “Detailed records of my activities that evening can be found in your traffic bureau and with Inspectors Curry and Martinez of the Homicide Squad.”
    “Okay, okay, we know which Rebecca Schwartz you are,” said Shipe. “But look, Miss Schwartz, weren’t you dressed a little unconventionally Friday night?”
    “I was. I was impersonating a Marin County liberal’s idea of a prostitute.”
    Ziller smiled again, making it look as if he didn’t want to but he just couldn’t help it.
    “Impersonating?” asked Shipe. “Did I hear you say ‘impersonating’?”
    “I meant I was dressed like that.”
    “Well, maybe as long as you were dressed like that, you played a little game with yourself. Maybe with people who didn’t know you, you just didn’t say you were really a lawyer, and you let them draw their own conclusions.”
    I’d forgotten that part. I decided to come clean. “I did more than that. I told Officer Jaycocks a fictitious story about how I became a prostitute. That was no doubt why he propositioned me, but the fact is, he was the one who did the soliciting.”
    “You’re sure of that, Miss Schwartz? You’re sure you didn’t let that little game get out of hand a little?”
    “I’m sure I did let it get out of hand. But I didn’t suggest an illegal transaction, nor did I give Jaycocks the key to my apartment, as I believe he claimed. I can find twenty witnesses who will tell you that I keep an extra key on my doorsill.”
    “That’s very dangerous, Miss Schwartz,” said Ziller, ever so soothing and protective.
    “I’ll thank you not to be condescending,” I said. “Not only did Officer Jaycocks solicit me for an act of prostitution, but he also offered me a regular job with the High-Life Escort Service, which is why he tried to kill me.”
    Shipe gaped. “Do you think you could go over that again, Miss Schwartz?” said Ziller.
    I rummaged about in my purse, which I had picked up with the $25,000, and came up with the High-Life card. “I ran into him last night in the Washington Square Bar and Grill in front of roughly 125 witnesses, not all of whom I can name, but we can start with Jeannette von Phister, with whom I was having dinner.”
    “And?”
    “And he gave me this card and said to call if I needed work. What you have on your hands, boys, is a crooked cop.” I handed over the card.
    “Miss Schwartz,” said the ever-polite Ziller, “I’m gonna give it to you straight; this is kind of a lot to swallow. You, a lawyer, meet a police officer in a bordello, and he thinks you’re a prostitute. Then, less than twenty-four hours later, you run into the same police officer in a trendy restaurant, and he offers you a job with an escort service.
    “Now wouldn’t you agree that’s pretty unlikely stuff? Unlikely that a police officer would be in a bordello. Unlikely he’d just happen to be in the same restaurant where you were the next day. Unlikely he really was recruiting for prostitution. And unlikely he showed up at your house if you didn’t invite him.”
    “Yes, now that you mention it.”
    “Well, how do you explain it?”
    “I would have thought explaining it was your department, Inspector, but let me give it a try. You may not like to think so, but it doesn’t seem at all unlikely to me that he was getting paid off to see that the High-Life girls didn’t get busted, and it’s just a step from there to picking up a little extra change by recruiting more women. Besides, maybe he liked that part of it. Maybe he actually owns a chunk of the business. Once you accept that, it gives you a reason for his being at the bordello—looking over the competition, maybe, or maybe scouting out