Fletch Won (15 page)

“You’re right about Sunday,” Marta said. “You want something. And I think I know what.”

“You’d be right.” Leaning forward, elbows on knees, Fletch put his face in his hands. “Nothing so wicked has happened to me since Sue Ann Murchison’s parents came home early from the first
Star Trek
movie and caught us on the couch.”

“I saw you on Sunday. You ran in the Sardinal Race.”

“I didn’t get any understanding then, either. They threw me out. It was a real cold night. There’s a danger in brittleness, you know. If I hadn’t kept my hips absolutely straight as I went down their front walk…”

“You hound-dogged the girls all through the race.”

“… why, I wouldn’t be here today.”

“Why?”

“If you excuse me, I think I’ll go for a run now.”

“Sit down.”

“I’ve got to do something!”

“You’ve got to answer me, is what you’ve got to do. I asked you: Why did you follow us all through the Sardinal Race Sunday?”

Fletch sat back down in his hard chair. “Because I’m a dirty old man.”

“I asked you: Why?”

“Because I used to be a dirty young man.”

“You are a young man,” Marta insisted. “A transparently healthy young man.”

“Bursting.”

“You are good-looking. In fact, I expect some women would consider you exciting to look at.”

“Some women consider cabbage exciting to look at.”

“A hundred and fifty dollars.” Marta riffled the stack of bills on her desk with her fingers. “You can get anything you want, probably more than you want, without walking a full city block.”

“Mind if I go try it right now?”

“Sit down, please. I was suspicious the minute I saw you. A hundred and fifty dollars is a lot of money. And that’s just for starters.”

“You know how to cool the client, huh?”

“The minute you walked in here, I knew no one like you was laying down two hundred dollars or more just to get a sexual thrill.”

“I was enjoying it. I was headin’ for ecstasy, when you opened that door.”

“Then I remembered where I saw you before. I’ll ask you one more time: Why did you stay right behind us through the entire Sardinal Race Sunday?”

“All right,” Fletch said. “I confess. I’m a student of advertising. Publicity, actually. I was studying your technique.” He held his hands out to indicate wriggling
hips. “Your technique really worked. I mean, you really got mileage out of your publicity.”

Marta’s smile was droll. “Really…”

“Didn’t I see a big spread on the Ben Franklyn Friend Service on the sports pages of one of the newspapers, yesterday? Two pictures, at least. Was it the
Chronicle-Gazette?”

The woman’s smile became more genuine. “The
News-Tribune”

“Yeah. That’s right. All for the price of a dozen T-shirts. That’s real mileage.”

Marta said, “You’re a spy.”

Fletch widened his eyes at her. “I’m a spy?” He dropped his voice to a near whisper. “You mean, from Red China?”

“You’re studying us all right.” Marta nodded. “Is that it? That’s why you followed us Sunday. That’s why you came here this morning. You’re studying our operation.”

“Oh, you mean an industrial spy,” Fletch said more loudly. “From Japan.”

“After you learn what we do here, you intend to open one of your own exercise-to-sexual-ecstasy pavilions.”

“You phrase things so well,” Fletch said. “Truly, you have a natural talent for advertising and publicity.”

“Isn’t that true?”
“Moi?”
Fletch asked. “Look at me. At my age, where could I get the money to open one of these gymnasiums-of-delight?”

“I don’t know, but you’re here.”

“I don’t even know how much one of these exercise machines costs, but, I’m sure, plenty. All these mirrors. Lights. Bathrooms. Ground elk’s horn.”

“Someone could be backing you.”

“Heck, lady, at my age I couldn’t get financial backing from a milkman.”

Marta shuddered. “Don’t call me lady.’ ”

“Right. Sorry.”

“So, then: Why are you here, Fletcher Jaffe?”

Fletch looked at his toes. “I thought by now you would have figured that out,” he said, not knowing what his next line of defense was, but hoping for one.

“You want a job.” Marta looked pleased with herself.

“You got it,” Fletch said quickly.

“I had to be circumspect.” Marta straightened her back.

“I understand.”

“In this business,” Marta said, “one has to be careful.”

“Of course.” Fletch gulped. “Naturally. Me, too.”

“Talking around, testing each other out, before we lay our cards on the table.”

“You’re good at it,” Fletch said.

“That’s why you’ve been making this strange approach to us.
Solicitation
is such a dirty word. You wanted to see if we’d make the offer to you.”

“Right,” Fletch said through his Adam’s apple.

“You thoroughly expected your one hundred and fifty dollars back this morning.” She picked it off the desk and handed it to him. “Here it is.”

He took it.

She sat back in her swivel chair, and turned sideways to the desk. “At the moment we only have two suites operating for women, three days a week, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, when our male traffic is apt to be down. Don’t worry. You’ll make more money those three days than you could at any other profession, except maybe neurosurgery. The women have a separate entrance, of course, but we’re talking the same thing. The principle here is that sex is far more ecstatic after hard exercise. You know, exercise as foreplay.” Listening to her, trying to swallow his Adam’s apple, staring at her, Fletch thought Marta remarkably like Frank Jaffe sitting in his swivel chair behind his desk, trying to get across a
few principles of journalism. “When it comes right down to it, of course you know, we don’t expect you to use your own personal, shall I say, intimate equipment.” She chuckled. “Except your fingers, of course. Unlike women, men can’t bear that much traffic. Men can’t phony it. Our clients understand that. We have machines, vibrators, mechanical dildos which I find quite satisfactory. We even have a vibrating dildo machine on a wide, leather belt you can strap on yourself, if you’re not absolutely repulsed by the woman. Of course, we expect you to solicit an extra charge, for that service.” There was a rap on the door. Marta called, “Come in, darling!”

Cindy opened the door and stood just inside it. She was dressed in loafers, white knee socks, a short kilt, and a light blue, buttoned down, preppy dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Without expression, she watched Marta’s face.

“Say hello, again, to your new colleague, darling.” Marta stood up. “Fletcher Jaffe will be joining the staff of the Ben Franklyn Friend Service. I want you to take him to lunch, Cindy, and give him the benefits of your wisdom and experience.”

Now Cindy was watching Fletch without expression.

Fletch’s throat was dry.

“He made a real smart approach to us,” Marta said. “He knew he couldn’t come here and just ask for a job, without making himself awfully vulnerable. He gave me a hard time,” she chuckled. “Is he a cop? I asked myself. A spy? The cops wouldn’t send anyone that young. And no one his age could run a place like this. Sexual dysfunction? Not from what I saw watching you two through the mirror.”

“You’re some detective,” Fletch croaked.

He stood on wobbling knees.

Marta came around the desk and put her hand on the
back of his neck. “He’s exactly what we need, to build up the female side of this business. Isn’t he, Cindy?”

“Sure.” Cindy was still watching him. “I guess.”

“He’s just perfect. I’ve been looking for you, boy.” She squeezed the back of his neck. “Exactly what we need. Welcome aboard. You can start work anytime.”

“Thanks.”

“Tell him everything, Cindy. Show him the ropes.”

Fletch said to Cindy, “Mind if I take a shower before I get dressed?”

“I’d
appreciate it.”

“Have a nice lunch, kids. Today you’re lunching on the Ben Franklyn Friend Service. But, remember, high protein, both of you, and watch the starch and fats.” Back behind her desk, Marta beamed at Fletch. “And, remember, Fletch. My door is always open.”

“That never happened before,” Cindy said. “Marta just opening the door and bursting in that way. I couldn’t imagine what was happening.” They were walking from her car to Manolo’s sidewalk café. “Of course, I knew there was something weird about you. Something different. Remember my asking you if you were a cop?”

“You asked me to bust the Friend Service, but not you personally.”

“Just in case you were a cop. You need the sense of privacy that that closed door gives you, you know? Set the right mood, control the client.”

“Satisfy him, too.”

Fletch carried his jeans and his T-shirt rolled up in his hand.

When he was about to get dressed, Cindy had walked
into the bathroom and tossed him a T-shirt and a pair of light shorts. “Marta said you were to wear these. She said you understand about public relations.” Across the front of the T-shirt and across the front waist of the shorts was written, in small letters, Y
OU WANT A FRIEND
? and across the back of the T-shirt and the back of the shorts, B
EN
F
RANKLYN
.

Cindy had suggested lunching at Manolo’s Café. Fletch suggested someplace else, but Cindy said Manolo’s was the in place at the moment.

So they went along the sidewalk, Fletch a walking billboard, hoping no one knew precisely what the commercial message he was flashing meant.

Marta had been pleased to see him wearing the shorts and shirt. His job was secure.

“Of course, Marta can watch us through the mirrors anytime she wants.”

“The mirrors are windows from their reverse side?”

“Not all of them. Just some.”

“What does that do to your sense of privacy?”

“It’s good. Makes you feel safe, you know, in case something goes wrong. In case you get some kook in there, who turns violent or something.”

“You get kooks often?”

“No. But when you sense something might be wrong, there’s a little button you can push in the bar that signals someone to come watch through the mirror.”

“I see.”

“And, of course, Marta sells the seats, and there are the cameras.”

“What?”

“Behind the big wall mirrors, there are seats, in one or two of the gyms, you know, for voyeurs. Old, fat, repulsive, I don’t know what they are. People who would rather watch it than do it.”

“Men and women?”

“Sure. Marta nicks them one hundred bucks a seat.”

“You perform for them?”

“We like to. I mean, supposing we get a reasonably young, healthy guy in there. Like yourself. Marta would have invited you back for a freebie, say, Friday night. You would have come back, and I would have put you through the routine, the only difference being that people would have been watching.”

“And I wouldn’t have known it.”

“All you would have known was that you were getting the routine free.”

“And what would it have meant to you?”

“More money. Also, having people watching somehow enhances the experience, you know? Especially when you’re doing it all the time.”

“Beats the sense of privacy?”

“Sure it does. Haven’t you ever done it in public?”

“Not intentionally.”

“Sometimes Marta rents us out for parties. We do it on the floor, after dinner. A guy and a gal, two gals, two guys. Really turns the old dears on. It’s fun. You’ll see. And the tips are marvelous.”

“You said something about cameras.”

“Yeah, that’s necessary. To avoid difficulties. They’re behind one of the smaller mirrors, in every gym. A videotape camera and a still camera. We get shots of every client.”

“Why?”

“Well, sometimes they’re drunk, or angry, or get frustrated. You know, clients are the same in any business, I suppose. They complain, threaten. If they seem truly dangerous to us, Marta shows them the pictures. That quiets them, you bet. It’s not just that they’re doing this, you know, it’s that the pictures make them look so ugly and clumsy, big, gray guts hanging out, hairy asses sticking up, being beaten by the exercise machines.”

“And the pictures are used for blackmail sometimes, right?”

“Sure. Especially if the client stops being a client, and we know who he really is. Once you walk in the door of the Ben Franklyn Friend Service, a piece of you stays there forever.”

“You’ve made a friend for life.”

“It’s a good business.”

“Yeah,” said Fletch. “It’s up there with a solid law practice.”

“Oh, look. There’s a free table.”

“So,” said Fletch, stretching his legs under the shade of the café table. “Are you the prostitute with the heart of gold?”

With his arms folded across his chest, all his commercial messages were out of view.

“I don’t think a heart of gold would pump very well,” Cindy answered. “I have a better place to put my gold.”

“Have you made much gold at Ben Franklyn?”

“Enough to leave the stupid place. Marta doesn’t know yet. Please don’t tell her. We want it to be a surprise, end of the week. Friday’s my last workday. Got something else to do Saturday. Sunday, we’re off to Colorado. For good.”