Calendar Girl (12 page)

Thanks for another lovely evening,

hope you had a great time in New York,

all my love, John.

And it was signed with kisses.

I dropped the card and ran in to the bathroom to throw up. She’d lied to me. Lies on top of lies. I threw up until I had nothing more inside me. I lay with my head against the cool white of the toilet bowl. Lay for an hour or more, my world reeling. Then I got up, left her stuff where it was, packed a bag and walked out. I didn’t know where I was going or for how long, but I had no intention of waiting patiently for her to come home. I took all the spare money either of us had lying around, my keys and left.

It was early evening when I walked outside. I sat on a bus for about an hour, got off, got on to the tube and sat on a
train for another hour or so. Then I went to Annie’s house where Dolores took one look at me, gave me a fiercely strong gin and tonic and put me to bed.

I hoped never to wake up again. I dreamt of lilacs.

But you always do wake up into the nightmare don’t you?

Saz waited until most of the customers had left. It was 3am, she walked out on to the balcony at the back of the building and collected her thoughts. In another hour the whole place would be hers, she could get the information she needed and leave New York the next day. She breathed in a cold blast of air from the night and walked back into the lounge.

“What are you doing hiding out there, September?”

Saz was startled to find Simon James a few feet behind her. He hadn’t been in all night and it was unusual for him to turn up so late. In the five minutes she’d been out on the balcony, the room had cleared of the last clients and they were alone.

“Oh, Mr James, you startled me.”

“Why September, what have you got to hide?”

“Nothing, it’s just that I thought there wasn’t anyone here, and well … this is New York after all.”

“Yes, of course, New York, how silly of me to forget. The city of sin and muggers and a murder every three minutes – that’s what you English think isn’t it?”

“Something like that Mr James.”

James moved across to Saz and sat on the chair beside her.

“Well, perhaps we’re not quite as bad as the movies paint us. I’d like you to call me Simon, September. Would you join me for a drink?”

“Ah, well … Simon, I really should be getting back, it’s very late.”

“One little drink?”

Now that he was closer, Saz could see that James was actually very drunk, the thin lines of red veins standing out on his fine chiselled cheekbones and the tart smell of whisky on his breath. He reached out and took her hand.

“I really do like English girls, you know September.”

Saz decided to play along, reasoning that James couldn’t be any more forceful or arrogant than the men she’d been dealing with nightly for the past week.

“And I like American men, Simon. Let me fix you that drink.”

Saz crossed to the bar, where she mixed herself a gin and tonic, containing about as much gin as one ripe juniper berry and a very large whisky for James.

“Ice?”

“Yes please.”

He slurred a smile across at her and Saz added the ice to his whisky.

“Here’s hoping you crash on the rocks any minute now,” she thought.

Saz sat with Simon James for the next hour, in which time he had three more large whiskys and told her most of his life story – poor kid, violent father, loving mother, too many in the family, older sister died in a nasty car accident, brother stayed in small town, worked hard, achieved nothing, whereas he worked hard, made a few “wise investments” and was now “comfortably off”. Saz, looking at his Rolex and Cartier cufflinks couldn’t help comparing his idea of comfortably off to her dream of a new answerphone. She also knew that she believed his story about “wise investments” almost as much as she believed the one he was starting to tell her now about how his wife didn’t understand him.

Steering him away from the subject of his unsatisfactory home life, Saz went back to the question of the business.

“But tell me about how you set yourself up here. I mean, it’s a … well, it’s a great place … and if, as you said, you had such a difficult childhood, then it’s all the more impressive that you’re doing so well now.”

By this time, Saz had manoeuvred herself so that she was sitting on the floor at his feet, looking as close as she could manage like the doting acolyte and Simon James, like so many good-looking men before him, couldn’t believe that Saz wasn’t really solely interested in his glorious tales of derring-do.

Simon James smiled the expansive smile of a rich, drunk man and began.

“Well, honey – what I did was I made sure to listen.”

Saz nodded.

“Always listen and never interrupt – and I learnt things. I worked evenings and weekends while I was in high school, saved every cent and then I travelled – I went to casinos all over Europe and the States and met men – wealthy men, businessmen, and other men so rich they had no interest in business, and I’d drink with them and listen to them and they’d tell me what they wanted. It was kind of like taking a survey.”

“But how did you get the money to go to all the clubs?”

“Didn’t I just tell you not to interrupt honey?”

“Sorry, I’m just interested – interested in you, I mean.”

Saz smiled and James started again.

“I didn’t say I wasn’t working, I was doing odd jobs – delivering and stuff like that – nothing too messy though, I like to keep my hands clean. I won’t have dirty fingernails. And I listened, I heard what those men had to say. I decided to set up the sort of club they wanted – supply and demand, give the public what they want.”

“And here it is?”

“Yeah, here it is. Plenty of blondes, dark eyes, clever girls who know how to talk and when to keep their mouths shut and no whores. No sluts. I can’t tell you how important that is – these men can get any woman they want – they don’t have to pay for it and they don’t want to be mixing with the sort of women that sell.”

Saz smiled, hating him all the more and forbore to mention that in her opinion changing your hair and eye colour and flattering leery old men was just as much a form of prostitution as the traditional method, merely adding, “Yes, but we do take money off them though, don’t we?”

“Yeah, and they know that. They don’t mind paying exorbitant amounts for good champagne, that’s part of the game they’re prepared to play, but they aren’t prepared to pay for women. Any women.”

“No,” thought Saz, “And that’s what makes them the cheap bastards they are.”

“You know,” he continued, downing his whisky and holding out an unsteady glass for Saz to refill, “What they like best about this place, is that it’s safe – my God! The deals that go on here! Mostly up there in July,” he said referring to the bridge room at the top of the house, “They partner up and use the pairing for business deals, I’ve watched it happen, it’s kind of like a blind date – if they find someone they can play well with, then they can expect to do good business with them. There’s more partnerships made here than on the Love Boat, honey.”

James was starting to slow down now, and Saz still wanted more. While providing a place for business men to do deals was probably shady, depending on what they were dealing in, it was hardly illegal and Saz had a feeling that James still knew a lot more than even he, in his arrogance, was prepared to say. She put on a look of complete little girl innocence and asked, “And the English girls, Simon? What do they think of us?”

“Christ! Girls! You’re so damn self-centred!” James laughed at her, “Here I am, telling you about some of the greatest business minds in the latter part of the twentieth century, and all you want to know is ‘Am I pretty enough?’ Oh God! Women! I’ll tell you what they think about you English girls – they think you make perfect pigeon pie!”

James roared at his joke and pulled Saz up on to her knees so she was kneeling directly in front of him, he held her right arm tight while he ruffled her hair with his free hand.

“They think, September – and let me tell you, ALL English girls are called September, it’s because that was the first time I was ever there … They call themselves what they want, but I call them September. And my businessmen think that with your expertise with tea trays and plates of scones that you’re the finest carriers anywhere in the world.”

Saz, wondering just how dumb she could get away with, said “Oh?”

“Don’t play stupid with me babe, you know what I mean, you’re a smart girl, you must be, or I wouldn’t have taken you on.”

“Stupid?”

“Yeah, are you telling me you don’t know what a pigeon is honey?”

“No. OK. But I am telling you I’ve never been one.”

“Don’t worry darling, everyone has to start somewhere. Now take my jacket and we’ll see where you can start.”

Saz took James’ jacket and feeling in the pocket the unmistakable weight of a handgun she placed it as far as possible from him on a chair by the door. While she was there she dimmed the lights even lower and fixed him yet another whisky. She crossed to where he was sprawled in the big leather armchair, handed him the drink and asked if he would like a foot rub.

“Yes darling, I’d love that – you start there. Hah! At my feet – that’s a good place to start.”

James lay back, took a long draught of the whisky and closed his eyes. Saz slipped his shoes off, mentally blessed her reflexology teacher and began to send Simon James off into one of the soundest sleeps of his life.

When he’d been snoring for over fifteen minutes, Saz got up and left the room, making immediately for his office downstairs.

It was four thirty by now and the building was empty. Street lights were the only illumination, that and the dim light from the room where James slept. She left the door open slightly and hurried down the two flights of stairs to James’ office, stopping at the girls’ changing room to pick up her bag and coat. It was as she’d expected, James’ elaborate security arrangements, of which he was justifiably proud, were not yet in operation, needing his personal key to turn the system on. And his office door was still unlocked – James had an old fashioned dressing room with bed adjacent to his office and had evidently been expecting to get her down there before he fell asleep.

She walked in and turned on the desk light. A blotter with a few non-specific doodles and two silver framed photos – one that was probably his wife – brunette interestingly enough and one of an old woman, a black and white photo of a woman peering uncertainly into the camera. “So you didn’t lie about your beloved Mama then Simon! Good boy. I’m sure she’d be very proud of you now!”

She tried the drawers. The top one was unlocked and contained a few messages, nothing of much interest – except the keys to the other drawers.

“God! You’re more trusting than I would be.”

She tried the drawers, the second contained a mirror, a few blades and a small crystal box of what tasted to Saz like almost pure Colombian.

“Now we’re getting somewhere. Shame I’m a fitness freak these days!”

The next drawer down had a lot of files – mostly on tax and wages.

“Well, James, if I wanted to get you, I’m sure I could just send this on to the IRS, but unfortunately I’ve got prettier fish to fry.”

She locked both drawers, replaced the keys in the top one and turned to the filing cabinet. This was easier, for while Saz knew it would be locked, she also knew exactly how to open it with a small paper clip from the desk. She began to go systematically through the files. Nothing in the top drawer, it was all building deeds, land rates and other papers which, while bound to be suspect, were not of much relevance to the original September.

In the third drawer Saz found what she’d come for. A file which, month by month, day by day, listed all the girls.

“What Colleen of the good ship Enterprise Allowance wouldn’t give for me to keep records like this!”

Saz lifted out the “September” file and reeled when she saw that the first few pages neatly clipped together were her own. She felt a heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach as she read the comments in James’ unmistakable sprawling handwriting:

NAME : ‘Mary’ (pseudonym?)

CONTACT : Janice Green (‘June’ 1987/88). NB

– call asap.

HAIR : peroxide

EYES : natural (dark brown)

STATUS: untried (intends return UK some

weeks, suggests more visits US) – regular??

On the back of the page was Caroline’s telephone number with a note to check her address.

There were four more Septembers in the file, some with not yet peroxided hair, and Saz decided to photograph rather than steal them. She reached into her bag and pulled out the tiny camera Caroline had managed to get for her and, praying that it would work correctly, she began to photograph the other sheets of paper – the others all had extra pages which Saz didn’t bother to read, if they were to do with whatever “pigeoning” James had been talking about, she’d need to check up on flights and dates anyway and now was certainly not the time to start analyzing the data.

She was just taking the last photo when she heard James’ steps on the stairs above her. He shouted out, “September? Are you still here?”

Saz shoved the “September” file back, closed the cabinet as quietly as she could, relocked it and threw the camera in her bag. Grabbing her bag and coat she ran into the dressing-room, closing the door behind her.

Simon James crashed into his office and immediately checked the drawers of both his desk and his filing cabinet. He then kicked open the door of his dressing-room, switching on the bright overhead light and pointing the gun right at Saz’s head, he demanded:

“What the fuck are you doing in here?”

Saz looked up from where she lay naked on the bed, covered only by a sheet, smiled and said, “Waiting for you, Simon. What else?”

James laughed. After years in the business this was what he’d come to expect from a lot of the girls who worked for him. He’d had an idea that maybe this one was different though. A feeling at the back of his mind that there was something else she was after. But no, in the end this girl was like all the others – peroxide blonde or natural, they were, after all, women. He put the gun down and loosened his tie.