starting tonight?”
“No need. She is a free agent. But you won’t get to her. She wants no part of her aunt and she’ll smell you coming a mile away. I could talk to her for you…”
“No, thanks. I’ll go down in flames by myself.” Sam let himself out.
He parted with another twenty-five dollars to find his way to a semiprivate room with the help of a floor manager. Then he parted with the three-hundred-dollar room cost. At least the couch was comfortable. For some reason Guy wanted Sam to believe that he was a straight-up in-love guy. That was interesting. He read a magazine to pass the time.
Grady was standing over him before he realized it. “Expensive place to read a magazine, under that pathetic little light.”
The way she said it, she sounded as if she were talking about his genitals.
“You haven’t met me and already you don’t like me.”
“I don’t like people throwing their money around asking about me. Especially ones sent by my aunt.”
“One hour of your time-a thousand dollars.”
“That’s a lot of lap dances.”
“No dances, just talk. You have to talk for the money.”
“What do I have to talk about?”
“Your life.”
“Oh, I get it. You’re here to save me. That’s why Anna sent you.”
“That’s right. And something tells me you want to be saved.” Sam stood and looked into her eyes. “Now do I stay or leave?”
She hesitated. “What’s your name?”
“Sam. Make up your mind. I haven’t got all evening.”
“All right.”
“For another thousand you come with me.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. I talked with Guy. He’s got no objections.”
“Is he part of this?” She looked surprised.
“No. But he seems like maybe he wants you out of here almost as much as you want out. I know you’re in this for the money. There’s two grand for you to come talk to me. Way more than you typically net in an evening.”
“It’s just business? Just talk? Nothing more?”
“Just business; go get dressed.”
“I’d like to talk to Guy first.”
“What’s he going to tell you?”
“I don’t know. What do you know?”
“I know a lot. Enough to care. Now go get dressed.”
While Grady changed her clothes she dialed Guy’s office on her cell phone.
Guy’s first reaction mirrored her own: This Sam was just another droid sent by her aunt. When Guy couldn’t dissuade her from going with Sam he encouraged her, and she thought that a bit odd.
“You promise to stay in touch?” Guy asked.
“What do you mean? I’m just going for the evening.”
“Don’t count on it. They are going to try to talk you into staying someplace, doing a head-trip on you. You promise to call me?”
“I promise. The minute they stick me with some shrink I’m out of there.”
Grady hung up, knowing he would be climbing the walls not knowing where she’d be. When she found out she might just tell him.
Fifteen
Sam waited for Grady outside. When she came out, her jeans and T-shirt made her look like any other young woman on the more beautiful end of the gene pool, perhaps a little harder in her expression and features. They got into Sam’s metallic-blue sports car.
“Nice car. Sixty-seven Corvette? Am I right?”
“That’s what it is.”
“This car has hot shit under the hood?”
“Yup.”
“It doesn’t look or feel normal. What did you do with it?”
“It’s got a bored-out 427 adjustable boost twin turbo L 88 engine with a supercharger that brings it up to 750 to-the-wheel horsepower. We put in a six-speed transmission and re-worked the suspension with hardened axels, Eibach springs, and Bilstein adjustable shocks. We added the roll bar and put in the Brembo brakes. There were other goodies. The air conditioner didn’t work after all that. I think that’s why my friends call it the Blue Hades.”
What he didn’t tell her was that the windows were polycarbonate and would stop most bullets and the doors lined with steel and Kevlar.
“Do you really like the feel of the power or is it that you piss a lot of people off?”
“Probably both.”
“So, tell me, what do you have against stripping? I saw you looking.”
“This isn’t about me or what I like or don’t like or whether I look or don’t look. But you can start earning your pay by telling me exactly what you think I think about stripping for money.”
“You think it’s a worthless degraded profession. That we don’t respect ourselves. That we’re druggies and junkies or women who for some reason or other hate men and don’t mind taking advantage of a bunch of dumb lonely pricks who spend their money on an eyeful and a pat on the head. Oh, and you probably think it screws us up for future relationships.”
“What about the harmless entertainment angle?”
“You think a stripper has to act like a whore. Pretend sex with her body and her eyes. And that when she does that she cheapens sex and cheapens herself. And you’re wrong. Sex is good; there’s no reason but ignorance to be uptight about it.”
“So do you believe any of what you think I think or none of it?”
“You didn’t tell me what you thought.”
“That’s because I’m the paying customer here.”
That comment bought him Grady’s silence until they reached the airport, where he put the car in a hangar and boarded the Hawker 700 with her for the short flight up the coast.
The beach house was a tasteful place, slightly modern with a high side of the structure that faced the water and a roof that sloped back inland, not luxurious but stylish rustic. There was a lot of leather in the interior design. Sam had owned it for ten years.
“This is Jill, Spring’s assistant for our class,” Sam said as they walked through the door and encountered a healthy-looking brunette with curls.
Jill shook Grady’s hand and said hello.
“What’s she do? Menage a trois? And who’s Spring?”
“The teacher.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m your worst nightmare if you get out of line. You now have a chance to make ten grand for the next ten days.”
“I’m not staying anywhere for ten days with a shrink.”
“Ten grand. You can leave any time you want but you forfeit the ten grand. Yes or no? You have thirty
