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

ran a pretty classy house, and there were whispers of influential names in a certain address book found there. Also, HYENA did a lot of hollering about harassment; Jeanette and I held a press conference at which we berated the police department for wasting its time on consensual transactions between adults. I declared that my clients were the victims of a hypocritical society that kept wages for women low and yet persecuted them when they were forced into a life of prostitution, all the while winking at the part their clients played in the transaction. My pronouncements led to appearances on talk shows, but probably had nothing to do with the fact that Elena and the others got probation. It was a first offense for all of them.
    Elena and I got quite friendly, though. I liked her. She had a kind of unflappable earthiness that I suppose grew out of being one of six children in a poor family. She also had a good sense of humor, which probably had the same roots. Being the uptight, middle-class lawyer I am, I wished she’d give up her life of crime and go back to school, but you can’t run other people’s lives for them.
    When the case was over, we had lunch together a lot and I became conversant with curious and intimate details of a prostitute’s life. But nothing hard on the stomach, you understand. Being Irish, Elena is a born raconteuse, and she can make life in a bordello sound like a Restoration comedy.
    Sitting over crab salad and white wine in my gray flannel blazer and Cacharel blouse, I felt pretty naive as she spun tales about a world of crystal chandeliers and high-heeled sandals. A world where indulgence of personal vanity was not only not condemned but was actually applauded. I loved getting a peek at it. And there was a part of me that was attracted to it.
    It must have been plain to Elena that drab, workaday Rebecca had certain fantasies not altogether suitable for a Jewish feminist lawyer, because first she sent me tickets to the Strumpets’ Strut, an annual fund-raising ball HYENA holds at Halloween. Then in that atmosphere of feathers and sequins, she broke the news that she was back in business and invited me to tour her new place.
    I wasn’t her mother or her probation officer, and I didn’t figure it was my place to lecture. Clearly, the civil thing to do was accept the invitation, admire her bordello, and do everything I could for her the next time she got busted.
    We made a date for the following Saturday—in the morning, so she could open at noon as usual.

Chapter Three
     
    We got to the Hall of Justice at 12:45, and I was arrested for suspicion of driving with intoxication. It was an ignominious moment for the Schwartz family.
    The cops took me to the traffic bureau, which is a big room with a lot of desks and typewriters like a business office. I asked if I could call Elena.
    “Sure, but first let’s do your sobriety test. Blood, breath, or urine?”
    “Breath,” I said.
    Then they gave me some time to myself. I tried to muster some positive thoughts about passing the test and getting out of there, but it was no good. My mind replayed the events that led to my being there, starting that Saturday a few weeks before, the day of my first visit to a bordello.
    * * *
     
    Elena’s house was in Pacific Heights, but if you think I’m going to pin it down better than that, you’re much mistaken. Client-attorney privilege.
    It was a gracious example of the style known as Queen Anne Victorian, painted white with dark blue and gold trim. Dignified as you please.
    Elena answered the door in jeans, but stepped quickly aside so I could get the full effect. The floor of the foyer was bare, but the staircase, which was eight or ten feet away, was carpeted in red. The walls of the foyer and the one that led up the staircase were covered in honest-to-God red-flocked whorehouse wallpaper. An old-fashioned oak coatrack was the only furniture in the foyer, and there was a chandelier of ruby glass with crystal prisms suspended from it.
    “My God!” I said. “It’s the Platonic cathouse.”
    “Not exactly the word I’d choose under the circumstances,” said Elena.
    “It’s stunning.”
    She nodded. “No cliché overlooked. Except maybe a bead curtain. But the only place for it was the kitchen doorway, and I couldn’t take the chance of some john wandering into make himself a toasted cheese sandwich.”
    She led me into the living room, which had a fireplace on the far side with the