“I hear this new guy, Vogler, is pretty good-I’ll give him a call this afternoon.”
“And you understand this is the last chance?”
“If I blow it, which as God is my witness I won’t, I’ll give you that divorce, uncontested.”
“If you blow it this time, me son,” said Hokey, “it won’t matter whether you contest it or not.”
5
Extras were the bane of the masseuse’s profession. They’d never been an issue before for Holly-certainly nobody ever asked her for a happy ending at Esalen-but within three months of moving down to St. Luke to care for her dying sister, with both their meager savings depleted, the only masseuse job Holly had been able to find on the island was at Busy Hands. It was a legitimate enough operation for a massage parlor-not a whorehouse by any means-but extras, Holly soon learned, were the difference between big tips and no tips, repeat clients and no clients: in short, between earning a living and not earning a living.
Oddly enough, however, after a few weeks Holly (though she’d have been happy to put the Busy Hands and the world of extras behind her, and had already begun networking her tail off to build a legitimate client base), found she didn’t really mind providing happy endings for her clients, despite her sexual orientation, which did not run to that half of the population possessing dicks.
For one thing, she was in charge-if the men didn’t keep their hands to themselves, they were out on their behinds. For another, Holly had always thought it was a little strange to spend hours in intimate contact with a human body, oiling, rubbing, kneading, stretching, and pounding every part of it-every part, save one. When you make something taboo, it seemed to her, you only invested it with more power-as if most men didn’t already think the world revolved around their dicks.
And lastly, Holly thought secretly that penises, in the proper context, were kind of appealing. Hard, they were like cute little bald orphans; soft, they were baby birds in the nest, it seemed to Holly, hungry for attention and ever so grateful.
Still, Holly had her limits, which were breached that afternoon, in the massage room at Blue Valley Country Club, where she worked three afternoons a week massaging the sore muscles of rich white golfers exhausted from climbing in and out of their carts for two and a half hours. And while extras weren’t in quite as much demand at Blue Valley as at the Busy Hands, occasionally one of her clients would ask her for a happy ending-generally it didn’t take very long.
This afternoon’s second and final client was the guest of a member, younger than most of her Blue Valley clientele, but in lamentable physical condition. His muscles were poorly toned, and sheathed in fat-if ever a body needed a good therapeutic massage, this one did. But Holly had scarcely started working on his shoulders when he rolled over and pointed to his crotch, where his arousal had made a pup tent of the white terry-cloth towel with the blue stripe and BV logo.
“Honey, could you take care of that first? I’m down here on business, I haven’t gotten laid in a week.”
Well, thought Holly. Well, well, well, well, well. Then she thought about the rent, due tomorrow, and the new clutch the bus was going to need any day now, and the money she’d just blown on rain forest chronic, and she reached under the towel and went to work.
After a few minutes of stroking, though, he interrupted her again. “Hey, honey, this ain’t getting it. I’ll give you an extra Jackson if you put that pretty mouth to work.”
Holly wasn’t a large woman-five-four, 122 pounds, BMI (body mass index) of 21, smack in the middle of the healthy range. But having been a massage therapist for fifteen years, her arms and hands, especially her hands, were disproportionately strong. She thought seriously about cupping the little bald orphan’s two little round friends in her palm and squeezing. Instead, she walked out on her fee as well as her tip.
No big deal, she told herself, it’s no big deal. But at the end of the long double row of stately royal palms that lined the driveway between the Blue Valley gate and the Blue Valley clubhouse, she had to pull the minibus over because her vision was blurred with angry tears.
Nobody had ever treated her like a whore at Esalen, she told herself. But maybe that was because she’d never acted like one. She remembered how they’d laughed back in California at Bill Clinton’s contention that a blow job didn’t count as sexual relations. Yet here she was staking her self-respect on the proposition that a hand job was morally superior to a hummer.
California. Esalen-what she wouldn’t give to have her old job and her old clientele back. And the bitch of the thing was, they’d have welcomed her back anytime she wanted. But that would mean either leaving the kids behind-unthinkable-or bringing them along with her. Dawn would be fine-with her intelligence and her exotic beauty, she’d thrive anywhere. But to uproot Marley-that would be cruel. Selfish and cruel.
Besides, there was a difference between her and Bill, her and Monica, Holly reminded herself, wiping her eyes and wrestling Daisy into gear again. She traded happy endings for her children’s survival, not for thrills or power.
And furthermore (Holly was still working up a head of steam as she rolled past the gatehouse; getting her Jewish up, her friend Dawson called it), anybody who didn’t think there was a difference between a hand job and a blow job ought to try cleaning their toilet with their tongue.
6
Pender stuffed his notes into his old briefcase as the room cleared, then turned his back on the auditorium to wipe off the white board beside the lectern, scrubbing away diligently at phrases like filter factor and floating-point strategies as if they were top secret code. Every year he returned to Quantico to give his lecture, and every year the class seemed to get younger, until by now even the experienced National Academy students looked like kids to him, while the kids, the blue-shirted FBI trainees, looked as if they should have been attending summer camp in the Catskills.
Pender turned. The auditorium was empty save for a silver-haired black man standing in the back row, applauding slowly and deliberately. Pender stepped to the edge of the platform and shaded his eyes from the recessed lights overhead, his half glasses dangling from a ribbon around his neck. “Julian?”
“Good afternoon, Edgar! Mahvelous lecture. Just caught the last few minutes.” Fastidious as ever in a shimmering, meticulously tailored two-piece gray suit, white shirt, red silk tie knotted in an impeccable Windsor, and black wing tips shined to a fare-thee-well, Julian Coffee strode down the aisle with his laminated photo-ID visitor’s pass dangling from a cord around his neck. Coffee was the only man in the last thirty years who’d been permitted to call Pender by his given name, and then only because his lilting West Indian accent made it sound almost musical: Ed-Gah, both syllables equally stressed.
“Thanks.” Pender started to hop down from the platform, then thought better of it and took the steps. At six- four, 279, with a BMI of 34, nine points past healthy, four points past dangerously obese, Pender was well beyond hopping weight.
The men shook hands, embraced, and clapped each other’s shoulders.
“Did you get it?” asked Pender. He’d last seen Coffee two months earlier-as the chief of police on the island of St. Luke, a U.S. territory in the eastern Caribbean, Pender’s old friend had come to Washington seeking a federal law enforcement grant for his department.
By way of answer, Coffee stepped back and assumed the classic staged handshake pose, right arm stretched across his body, left arm thrown around an imaginary shoulder, teeth bared in a frozen grin.
“They made you come all this way for a photo op?”
“I’m afraid the attorney general insisted.”
“How long are you in town for?”
“Flying back in a few hours. I’m glad I was able to catch you-are you free for a drink?”
“A drink? I’m free for the rest of my life-I’m retired.”
