Guilty Minds

“Slander Sheet is insisting on it. I’m just doing my job. So tell me, what’s your usual fee?”

She shifted in her chair, clutched her Chanel bag. “Four to six thousand, depending.”

“On what?”

“On how much time, and is it travel or not, and what they expect.”

“That’s a lot of money.”

She shrugged, looked uncomfortable. Under her breath she said, “So maybe I’m worth it.”

“How much of that do you keep?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“It’s all part of the fact-checking. To make sure there’s no problems later on. You’re going to be asked questions like this. Probably a lot more intrusive ones.”

“Usually I get fifteen hundred out of every four thousand.”

“And how do you normally get paid?”

“Cash, most of the time. I give them the take, and they give me my cut. But the judge was prepaid. I got my cut later.”

“Fifteen hundred each time?”

“Right.”

“Now, I’m going to ask you some fairly explicit questions.”

She shrugged. Like, I don’t care, I’m unshockable. “Go for it.”

“Claflin a kinky guy?”

She hesitated, just a beat. Looked around again.

“Plain vanilla. Mostly mish.”

She meant the missionary position.

“Bareback?”

“Covered full service.”

Coitus with a condom. She was either a pro, or a well-trained actress. Both, I decided. She was comfortable with the language of the professional escort, but she was at the same time highly anxious. I could read it in her facial expressions, in her vocal instrument. She was being pressured into telling this story, I was increasingly certain.

“So is he cut or uncut?” It wasn’t a comfortable subject, but it had to be asked.

She shook her head, rolled her eyes, sighed exasperatedly.

“Fifty percent chance of guessing right,” I said.

She wasn’t going to answer. She didn’t know whether Claflin was circumcised or not.

Then she snapped, “Screw you, Uncle Pervy. I know I’m one to talk, but how about we leave the guy his last shred of dignity?”

I liked that. “You don’t have to do this, you know,” I told her.

She blinked a few times. “Do what?”

“You’re in trouble, aren’t you?”

She smiled uncomfortably. One of her front teeth was snaggled, cutely.

“Maybe I can help.”

Her smile faded. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” It was a halfhearted protest.

“Someone’s putting the squeeze on you, and they’ve got you scared. I want you to know that I can help.”

“Screw you.”

“You know, sometimes you’ve got to trust someone in life. You think you’re being clever by being mistrustful, but that’s not the answer. You probably think you’re alone in this. But you don’t have to be.”

For a moment she looked as if she was affected, as if maybe I’d gotten through to her.

I probed a little deeper. “Someone’s paying you to lie, that’s pretty clear. But you’re not just doing it for the money. They’ve also got you scared, right?”

Her red-rimmed eyes glistened with tears.

“Whoever they are, I can protect you,” I said. “You don’t have to be alone in this.”

A look of anxiety suddenly came over her face. Her eyes swept the room once again. “You’re not with Slander Sheet! You’re a goddamned liar!”

“Kayla, hold on, listen to me.”

She leaped up from the table. “Get the hell away from me!” She grabbed her handbag and threaded her way between the tables.

I got up and went after her. She was racing through the Starbucks. People were looking up from their conversations, craning their heads, staring back at me. It looked like a quarrel, or just a bad date.

Then I noticed someone loping out after her: a large man of about thirty, entirely bald, dressed in a navy suit and tie. I did a mental rewind, recalled him entering the Starbucks half a minute or so after Kayla. He hadn’t drawn my attention, because he looked like any other businessman, though maybe bulkier than average.

By the time I got to the door of the coffee shop, Kayla was most of the way down the block. The bulky bald man was now bounding in her direction. I considered chasing after her but decided it wasn’t worth it. I’d gotten from her what I needed. And besides, the guy was clearly her guard, a watcher, a minder. At the end of the block she scrambled into a car, a VW, and it pulled away from the curb before the bald guy could catch up with her.

She was fast.

The bald guy pulled out a phone.

I decided to introduce myself.

12

The bald man was punching digits into his phone. As I approached, I sized him up. He was a few years younger than me, and taller and bigger. He had a low, sloping forehead and deep-set eyes. As I came closer, I saw that his head was shaven to cover up the fact that he’d gone bald on top, typical male-pattern baldness. He looked like someone who worked out a lot in a gym. He also looked uncomfortable in his navy suit, like he didn’t wear suits very often.