Hooked

himself as a pimp, so he arranges good jobs that pay well and the clients pay the ladies directly. He never handles their money, only his own.” She met his gaze. “So I’ve heard.”
    After sipping her Perrier, she said, “The problem is Benny likes to test his women on a regular basis.”
    “What do you mean test?”
    “Oh, come on. You know. A freebie. I don’t do freebies. No birthday presents, no Christmas gifts.” Walsh tried to act like her comment meant nothing, but he drew back enough to show it bothered him.
    “A real business woman, huh?”
    She chose to ignore the snide comment. She ran a business, and the business was her. She damn well wasn’t going to give it away. “You bet. Benny knows how I work…worked. He’d be suspicious if I went to him for a job.”
    “Then we’ll make him come to you.” Walsh took a big swallow of vodka. “No pun intended.”
    “You’re full of sarcasm. Is that what they teach you at the police academy?” She slapped down her fork. “Look, you approached me. You might not like what I did with my life, but it was my life, and it still is. If you can’t bring yourself to treat me with respect, then get it over with and arrest me on whatever charges you can come up with. Tax evasion? Fine. Prostitution? So be it. Then you can find someone else to do your dirty work.” She pushed her plate aside and got up. “I’m going to my room. I’d prefer you don’t handcuff me in the dining room.”
    “Sit down.”
    She turned to face him.
    “Please.”
    She sat down, forcing herself not to act like a petulant child, but it strained her.
    “You are one hard woman.”
    “What did you expect, Mary Poppins?”
    He shook his head. “Someone must have really done you over. Who was it? College boyfriend? Married professor who wouldn’t leave his wife?”
    Fire heated her cheeks. “You’re an arrogant son of a bitch.”
    “So I’ve been told. Like you, I’m just doing my job.” He waved to the waiter and pointed to his drink with two fingers―a double―then stared at her long enough to make her uncomfortable. “I apologize,” he said. “I had no right to put you down.”
    “That’s twic e you’ve said sorry, and it must have hurt both times.”
    The waiter came with a fresh drink, and Walsh drained the vodka in progress and handed him the empty glass. “After this one,” he said pointing to the replacement, “I won’t feel a thing.”
    “You’re going to find this hard to believe, Walsh, but I had an idyllic childhood with perfect, caring, middle-class parents. No one beat me or threw me out, and no one screwed me up along the way.” Walsh obviously didn’t know about the one time somebody did, and she wasn’t about to unload the story. “It’s not very complicated.”
    He put a good dent in his drink. “You seem damn complicated to me.”
    “Actually, I’m rather shallow. I liked excitement, travel, and money. And I liked sex. My college friends were giving it away. I charged and made men happy while I took their money. Most men were intelligent and interesting and knew how to treat a woman. Everything first class.”
    “And what did you have to do to make them happy?”
    She picked up her water and held his gaze over the rim of the glass. “In my world, I set what I would and wouldn’t do. They either accepted or rejected me on that basis.”
    She could tell he was salivating to know the parameters she’d set, but the vodka was getting to him. Though steady, his words slurred slightly. “You must know this stuff, Walsh. That’s what you do, isn’t it?”
    He surveyed the room. “We have all we can handle with the perverts of the world: sexual predators, child pornographers, sex traffickers. Doesn’t leave much time to go after consenting adults unless there’s a reason.”
    “And now there is.”
    This time it was Walsh who stared over his glass. “Only to get the man in charge. And yes, murder is a reason.”
    “Just because the murdered gal mentioned Benny Cooper’s name doesn’t mean he murdered her. How do you know he’s involved?”
    “We don’t. If we did, you’d still be sitting on the beach with a bunch of college boys creaming in their bathing trunks.”
    “I’m not an undercover cop. I wouldn’t know what to look for.”
    “Ask a few questions of the other girls and listen for anything that sounds suspicious. Find out if Sarah Marshall worked there. That would give us something to go on.”
    “Then