touching her life. I want this over, Zack, and I’m going to do what I have to do to make it stop.”
CHAPTER 9
Zack met the seven dwarves at his office on Saturday morning. As he’d predicted, they had all received envelopes in their mailbox the day before, and they were all eager to talk. Four of the wives had opened the cards, but the men were all trial lawyers, skilled at turning the cube of reality, and they had convinced the women in their lives that the cards were some kind of sick joke. When Zack told them what I’d learned at Nighthawks, they agreed to a man that a meeting was in order.
I had my own meeting. As soon as Zack left, I called Vera Wang. Our conversation got off to a rocky start when I announced myself as Joanne Shreve.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“We met at Ed Mariani’s last week,” I said. “Ed introduced you as Joanne Kilbourn.”
“Kilbourn was my name before I remarried. I still use it professionally.”
“Is your husband Zachary Shreve?”
“Yes.”
There was a pause. “That must be interesting,” she said finally.
“It is,” I said. “Do you have a few minutes to talk?”
“I was just going off in search of black pansies,” she said. “But that can wait.”
“Dutch Growers has some,” I said. “I was planning to go out there after I talked to you. I’d be happy to pick up a flat of pansies and drop them by your house.”
“Good. I can answer your questions then,” she said.
“I’ll be there within an hour,” I said. “As you pointed out in our previous meeting, time is money.”
Vera met me out front and led me through a side gate into her backyard. It took my breath away. Her street was resolutely suburban – with well-kept split-level homes and landscaping that was mature, pleasing, and unexceptionable – but her yard was a work of art. The elements of rock, water, trees, and flowers had been arranged with an eye to proportion and variety, and the result was an intimate space that conveyed a sense of balance and harmony. We walked slowly around the garden, with Vera pointing out the shape of a particular tree, the way in which the reflecting pool had been positioned to catch the sunrise, and the pattern of the stones on the footpath. As she had been at Ed’s, she was dressed in the softest of greys, and again she was wearing gloves. She never removed them. We had tea by the koi pond, and as soon as she’d poured, Vera got down to business.
“How can I help you?” she asked.
I gazed at her garden. “This is a place of such beauty,” I said. “It feels wrong to bring ugliness here.”
Vera bent to watch her koi. “Ugliness paid for this beauty, Joanne. What’s your question?”
“What do you know about Jason Brodnitz?”
“Two things,” she said. “He was into rough sex, and after his career dealing with legitimate clients failed, he approached a number of high-end call girls about acting as their investment counsellor.”
“What kind of man is he?” I asked.
“He’s weak,” Vera said. “Apparently, the need for rough sex didn’t come from his childhood the way most of these behaviours do. It came to him late.”
“After his marriage failed.”
Vera smiled. “You are a romantic. Actually, it was after his business failed. I’d retired by then, but, of course, one stays in touch.”
“Was he a client of Cristal’s?”
“He couldn’t have afforded her. At least not at the beginning. Cristal’s rates were high and she insisted on a minimum two-hour booking. She wasn’t a girl who gave blow jobs in an alley.”
“Would Jason Brodnitz have used women who were -”
“Affordable? Of course. When the need is great, any whore will do.” Vera shifted her chair so she could watch the progress of her koi. “Joanne, unless a girl gets off on entrapment and panic, she doesn’t do S &M. If a man needs it, he has to go cheap or go young.”
My stomach lurched. “How young?”
“As young as he has to.”
“And Jason…?”
“From what I hear, he went young.”
I thought I was going to vomit, but I hung on. “So Jason got these young sex workers to invest through him.”
“Joanne, workers that young don’t have anything to invest. Their money goes for drugs, and if there’s any left over it goes to support the habits of those nearest and dearest to them. They live day to day.” Vera’s tone was faintly condescending. I was proving to be a dull pupil.
“So who did Jason invest for?”
“People like Cristal. I said he couldn’t afford her. I didn’t say he didn’t know her. From what I heard, he was a frequent visitor and she recommended him to other women. Development in the warehouse district was still in its early stages. Jason was encouraging sex workers to buy into the neighbourhood. And from what I hear, they’re doing well.”
“Is it possible he became more than just an investment adviser to Cristal?”
“You mean her boyfriend? I suppose anything’s possible.”
“I have another question,” I said. “Do you know a girl named Bree? She has a website where she lists herself as a person who does ‘odd jobs.’ ”
“The name’s no help. Those girls change their names frequently. Most often, they name themselves after their favourite soap opera characters. So what kind of odd jobs does Bree perform?”
“Sexual,” I said. “Fetishes. She told me she has a client who brings a hard-boiled egg to her room every Sunday and has her peel the egg and inject it with an old-fashioned fountain pen while he masturbates.”
Vera’s face was impassive. “If Bree has those kind of dates, she’s at the bottom of the tank. It’s strange, but the girls who worked for me didn’t like fetishes. Fucking in all its permutations and combinations didn’t trouble them, but satisfying those odd little quirks made them uneasy. Of course, I never forced any of my girls to do anything they found repugnant.”
“I don’t think Bree has anyone to protect her from those kinds of clients.”
“She works alone? That can be a mistake, but if she’s into drugs, the dangers won’t matter to her. If you want to know about Bree’s world, check out some of the cruder porn sites. Look at the eyes of the girls performing. They don’t even know where they are.”
I stood. “You’ve been very helpful,” I said.
“Yet, you’re clearly unsettled.”
“Sometimes I think I’m a very naive fifty-six-year-old.”
Vera laughed softly. “There’s something to be said for holding on to one’s illusions. Thank you for the black pansies, Joanne. I hope we’ll meet again.”
When I got home, I took my own bedding plants outside. It wasn’t long before Zack wheeled onto the deck to watch as I arranged the little pots of sweet potato vines and purple and blue pansies in a planter.
“That’s going to be pretty,” he said.
“Not as pretty as Vera Wang’s garden.”
“When were you at Vera’s house?”
“This morning. I called her after you left, and she invited me over.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You’ll notice I’m not saying anything.”
“I’ve noticed.” I took out the pots and started digging. “Is Vera a reliable source?”
“Very.”
I began planting the pansies in clusters of purple and blue. As I worked, Zack knocked the individual plants loose from their pots with his palm and handed them to me. When I’d finished with the pansies, I sat back on my heels and checked the effect. “What do you think?”
