“I like them really voluptuous,” he said, giving her the same campaign trail smile he had probably practiced in front of a mirror for months on end. “And you damn sure fill that bill.”
Clarisse could not speak without fear of the senator overhearing through the mic. But she and Angie had devised another method to communicate.
Clarisse tapped her mic twice, telling Angie to deliver the line they had practiced.
Angie said breathlessly, “I will be your best friend tonight.”
“Oh, I can see that, babe.”
One tap.
“But this will be our little secret, okay?” said Angie.
“What do you mean?”
Three taps.
“I’m married.”
He smiled. “Perfect. He’s a lucky guy.”
“And tonight, I’m a lucky girl.”
That was it for the chitchat. The rest was a mud wrestle on the bed that was energetic if not epic. Clarisse had seen better and worse.
The gasps, the moans, the squeaks of the embattled box springs. The nervous chuckle of the lone security guy outside.
You won’t be laughing tomorrow. Tomorrow you’ll be unemployed.
Clarisse now put things on autopilot. Angie knew how to string the guy along. She somehow could tell right when the cork was going to pop and she pulled it back, let the guy calm, allowing a bit more time to film, because the more footage they had, the more the men tended to pay.
Clarisse pulled another notebook out of her bag and began jotting thoughts down on another project, the sounds of sex next door becoming white noise to her.
Later, when the couple was done, the senator washed up and was gone, leaving an exhausted (he thought) and sleeping (he hoped) and absolutely sexually fulfilled (he was sure) Angie on the bed, naked, along with a stack of cash on the nightstand.
Oh, this night is going to cost you so much more than that, thought Clarisse.
Ten seconds after the door closed Clarisse checked her security peephole and tapped the all-clear signal on the mic. She watched on the screen as Angie rose, washed up, got dressed, and then methodically wiped down everything in the room she might have touched. Prints she could do something about, DNA not so much, but DNA was probably not going to come into play, particularly after the maids cleaned the room. And Angie was on no database anywhere, so DNA could go screw itself.
Clarisse had worn gloves, because her prints were on file.
Angie then knocked on the connecting door and was let in to 410.
Clarisse had already put all the equipment away, and now she took the ear mic back from Angie.
Angie worked away on some fasteners and a scalp adhesive patch, and finally pulled her long hair free, revealing a bald head. She put the fake tresses in her purse.
She said in a resigned tone, “How come the richest, cheating assholes are the shortest and the fattest with the smallest dicks?”
“Somehow, in the universe, it all makes perfect sense.”
“I’d much prefer tall, rich, handsome, with a six-pack.”
“Try the NBA, Angie. They’ve got plenty of free cash flow.”
“Oh, I’ve worked that garden, baby.”
“I thought so.”
“And you don’t have to blackmail those suckers. They just give you a Ferrari for a blowjob.”
“Right.”
Before parting Angie said, “When?”
“Very soon.”
“You know how much?”
“To start, half a mill. You managed him well. I’ve got twenty-five minutes of film. The good, the better, and the really better.”
Angie blew her a kiss. “See you next time, bay-bee.”
Her coat was reversible. She went from black to white, which looked stunning.
She left, her cavalier stride now transformed to a normal gait.
Clarisse watched the door for a moment. She had six Angies, but Angie only had one Clarisse.
She took her auburn wig off as well, and put on a short blond one she had in her bag. She teased the hair in the mirror, reapplied her makeup, and changed the colors of her eyeliner and lipstick. She slipped out a different outfit from her oversized bag and went from slinky dress to a women’s tailored suit and black, square glasses. The sky-high heels got replaced with flat and professional. With slumped, rounded shoulders she shrunk from high-priced hooker to mousy CPA. The hotel had CCTV everywhere and if the senator later had it pulled, he would be very confused as to the women coming out of this room. And tomorrow she and Angie would look nothing like either of the two women the film would reveal coming and going.
She hailed a cab outside and rode it back to within three blocks of where she was staying. You never took anyone all the way home.
Clarisse walked in, got on the phone, and confirmed her reservation on NetJets. She slept well, rose early, walked the requisite three blocks, picked up her Uber and rode it to Dulles with big sunglasses covering her face. Clarisse was wheels up to Greenville, South Carolina, at eight a.m. sharp.
Time to visit Mommy.
Chapter 12
I HEAR THE WHISPERS. THE dutiful daughter from somewhere else who comes here on private wings, because Greenville is growing but still small; and someone works at the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport who knows somebody who knows somebody. And the tattle commences like two cans on a string line.
Is Mrs. Leland’s daughter a movie star under another name? A socialite with a Wall Street husband? A TikTok influencer earning major bucks? Or maybe even a high-dollar whore?
I might be all of those things. And more.
She sat in the chair and watched the woman lying in the bed.
The assisted living facility was top-notch, or so she had been told. At six grand a month it had better be.
Indeed, she thought, for that price they better wipe the woman’s ass and give her a daily mani-pedi and feed her with a silver spoon. None of that happened, of course. She had a roof, enough food, aides to dispense her stack of pills — little pearl-like trinkets of sustained geriatric life — afternoon Scrabble, a library with actual books, an ice cream shop with an aged soda jerk, though no one here could manage to digest lactose except the staff, a four-hundred-square-foot room, and the bed. There was a memory center for when you went fully gaga. She knew this because they had given her a tour when it seemed Mommy had reached a tipping point. That was an extra two grand a month because the gagas could get unruly, and really did need to be wiped.
There was a pool table, which was hard to navigate with a walker or rollator or shaky limbs, an outdoor courtyard with picnic tables and cushioned chairs, and an outdoor fireplace where one could sit and stare off at nothing much. She knew this was true; she had done it herself when Mommy got to be a little too much.
There was a cute and cuddly therapy dog that slept all day. There were myriad clubs organized by residents, which only a handful utilized, namely the ones who organized them. Mostly people here sat and waited for visitors who never came.
But I come, once a month.
A timer on her watch went off. She reached into the half fridge and pulled out an Ensure, placed a straw into it, woke her mother, got her to sit up, and helped her drink down the liquid. Her mother was diabetic and had COPD from the cigs, and swollen feet from the same. She was also obese from a life of crappy, fat-laden food, had a tricky liver and failing kidneys, and wore a chemo wig from her last dance with the cancer in her breasts. She was seventy-one and looked a hundred and seventy-one. The tragic irony was her mother had once been a beautiful woman. Many men wanted her. Only one had gotten her. And that man had not been a good one, but so many of them weren’t.