Femme Fatale and other stories

while smiling to his face, had worked beautifully. That had been her first double life—Val’s smiling consort, Brad’s confidential informant. What she was doing now was kid stuff, compared to all that.
    “Chai latte,” she told the counterwoman at the Starbucks in Dupont Circle. The girl was beautiful, with tawny skin and green eyes. She could do much better for herself than a job at a coffee shop, even one that paid health insurance. Heloise offered health insurance to the girls who were willing to be on the books of the Women’s Full Employment Network. She paid toward their health plans and Social Security benefits, everything she was required to do by law.
    “Would you like a muffin with that?” Suggestive selling, a good technique. Heloise used it in her business.
    “No thanks. Just the chai, tall.”
    “Heloise! Heloise Lewis! Fancy seeing you here.”
    His acting had not improved in the seventy-two hours since they had first met. He inspected her with a smirk, much too proud of himself, his expression all but announcing: I know what you look like naked.
    She knew the same about him, of course, but it wasn’t an image on which she wanted to dwell.
    Heloise hadn’t changed her clothes for this meeting. Nor had she put on makeup, or taken her hair out of its daytime ponytail. She was hoping that her Heloise garb might remind Bill Carroll that she was a mother, another parent, someone like him. She did not know him well, outside the list of preferences she had cataloged on a carefully coded index card. Despite his tough talk on the phone, he might be nicer than he seemed.
    “The way I see it,” he said, settling in an overstuffed chair and leaving her a plain wooden one, “you have more to lose than I do.”
    “Neither one of us has to lose anything. I’ve never exposed a client and I never will. It makes no sense as a business practice.”
    He looked around, but the Starbucks was relatively empty, and in any event, he didn’t seem the type capable of pitching his voice low.
    “You’re a whore,” he announced.
    “I’m aware of how I make my living.”
    “It’s illegal.”
    “Yes—for both of us. Whether you pay or are paid, you’ve broken the law.”
    “Well, you’ve just lost one paying customer.”
    Was that all he wanted to establish? Maybe he wasn’t as big a dick as he seemed. “I understand. If you’d like to work with one of my associates—”
    “You don’t get it. I’m not paying anymore. Now that I know who you are and where you live, I think you ought to take care of me for free.”
    “Why would I do that?”
    “Because if you don’t, I’m going to tell everyone you’re a whore.”
    “Which would expose you as my client.”
    “Who cares? I’m divorced. Besides, how are you going to prove I was a customer? I can out you without exposing myself.”
    “There are your credit card charges.” American Express Business Platinum, the kind that accrued airline miles. She was better at remembering the cards than the men themselves. The cards were tangible, concrete. The cards were individual in a way the men were not.
    “Business expenses. Consulting fees, right? That’s what it says on the bill.”
    “Why would a personal injury lawyer need to consult with the Women’s Full Employment Network?”
    “To figure out how to value the lifelong earning power of women injured in traditional pink-collar jobs.” His smile was triumphant, ugly and triumphant. He had clearly put a lot of thought into his answer and was thrilled at the chance to deliver it so readily. But then he frowned, which made his small eyes even smaller. It would be fair to describe his face as piggish, with those eyes and the pinkish nose, which was very broad at the base and more than a little upturned. “How did you know I was a personal injury lawyer?”
    “I research my clients pretty carefully.”
    “Well, maybe it’s time that someone researched
you
pretty carefully. Cops. A prosecutor hungry for a high-profile case. The call girl on the cul-de-sac. It would make a juicy headline.”
    “Bill, I assure you I have no intention of telling anyone about our business relationship if that’s what you’re worried about.”
    “What I’m worried about is that you’re expensive and I wouldn’t mind culling you from my overhead. You bill more per hour than I do. Where do you get off, charging that much?”
    “I get off,” she said, “where you get off. You know, right at that moment I