She became wholly professional about it. For her it wasn’t hard, she didn’t have to learn that most toads were not Prince Charmings in camouflage, they were just toads. She studied Villiers and by emulating him taught herself to close her mind to all feelings when she went through the ritual stag body grinds, pulling her dress slowly over her head until her breasts popped out, servicing panting drunks with no more feelings about it than she would have devoted to the act of feeding pigs at a trough. She invented an elaborate litany of self-justification (It pays well; everybody sells himself for something; what harm in taking a sucker if that’s what he wants? Might as well get paid for what you’d give away anyway.) but she soon discovered that all these rationalizations were part of the standard lexicon of every prostitute. Every whore had an excuse. After she learned that, she stopped trying to defend herself. No apologies necessary, thank you very much. Perhaps there was something wrong with her. Her conscience didn’t trouble her; she wanted only to be safe-she just didn’t want to be caught and sent back to Albuquerque. Whatever it took to ensure that, she would do. She became neat, calm, careful. She prepared for the worst; it was possible some freak accident could happen someday, someone would find her out, New Mexico would extradite her. Not likely, perhaps, but possible. With that in mind, she had made plans accordingly. Over the years she had set aside a growing emergency hoard, though it hadn’t been easy. Her high prices had to include the expenses of a considerable overhead-the grease sheet: bell captain, house dick, elevator boys, the cop on the beat, the precinct captain, two assistant district attorneys; and the weekly medical checkup, clothes, high rent. But she had saved enough to pay the highest fee of the country’s best trial lawyer. Before a jury, a good lawyer, together with her own good looks and acting ability, would be more than a match for any hick district attorney who might try to put her away. And so, slowly and deliberately, she was paving a path out of Mason Villiers’ trap.
He arrived promptly at seven; he said very little; he only watched her unbind her breasts and mounted her with unusual frenzy, spending himself in a harsh impersonality of pounding lust, sinking back afterward to lie in hard-breathing satiety.
She said, “Either you haven’t had a woman all week or it’s a very big business deal.”
“You know me too well,” he growled, and rolled off the bed to get dressed.
It was strange, she thought; he still had the capacity to terrify her, and yet in some utterly unlikely way she had become fond of him. She lay watching the light change on the hard planes of his face as he moved around the room; unaccountably she said, “Have you ever had anything close to you but your shirt, Mason?”
For a brief moment his hands became still. He did not glance at her, but she saw that she had scored a point and she took momentary satisfaction from it. Then he brought himself around, under rigid control, to look at her; he said, “Your concern is most touching.”
“Have you ever loved anybody?” she said, and was alarmed by her boldness.
It made him laugh. “After all the things that have happened to you, you can still ask a question like that.” He shook his head. “You’ll never grow up as long as you believe in love, Carol.”
“Oh, I believe in it. I believe in money, too. Some people have it, some people don’t.”
“Keep talking like that, and you’ll end up looking like a fool,” he told her.
She laughed, suddenly and with wild abandon; she could see it disturbed him, and that was what she wanted. He almost allowed his anger to show. She said demurely, “Yassuh, boss.”
He rammed his shirttail into his trousers and planted his feet and gave her his undivided attention. “You’re uncommonly impertinent and independent tonight.”
“Am I? Never mind. Tell me something-with all the respectable women you can get for a snap of your fingers, why keep coming back to me?”
“Because I taught you to be the best.”
“That’s not quite what I was fishing for-I was hoping you might admit it was because you like me.”
His head lifted slightly; lamplight reflected from his eyes. “I don’t dislike you,” he said. “I don’t dislike anybody, as long as they don’t get in my way.”
“At least I’m not in your way.”
“You make me wonder about that.”
“Do I? It’s probably good for you.”
“Have you been smoking pot?”
“No. Only thinking.”
“Don’t think, Carol. It’s not your strong point.”
“What would you say if I told you I was thinking of retiring?”
“You?” He became amused. “You, Carol? A few more years of ringside tables and sable coats and you’ll be too whipped and worn-out to make expenses at a plumbing-supply convention in Rapid City. You’ll get passed down the line from hand to hand until some smart guy comes along and takes you on a little vacation to Hong Kong, and then they’ll cop your passport and unload you into a crib, where you’ll get slapped down so far you won’t even want to come home.”
She stood up, full of languid grace, her hair fanning down her well-shaped back; she smiled frostily. “What a pig you can be.” She went into the bathroom, showered, and put on beige lace undies and a careful dose of scent, and emerged to find him smoking a cigarette, going through her closet with one hand. He was holding out the sleeve of a full-length Schulman Emba mink coat. “This is new,” he observed.
“A great many things are.”
He turned to face her. “What’s all this about, Carol?”
“I want off the hook, Mason. I want to pick and choose among the dirty jobs to suit myself.”
“Are you going to force me to remind you of the same tired old things we’ve been over before?”
“I’m not afraid of Albuquerque anymore. With a good lawyer I think I can beat the rap.”
“Possibly. And if you did, what do you suppose Rocco would be inclined to do?”
“You could use your influence. Persuade him I have no intention of making trouble for him.”
“Why should I do that?”
“Out of friendship, Mason. It’s the kind of thing a friend does for a friend.”
When he made no answer, she added mildly, “All you have to do is point out to him that even if I did accuse him of anything, it would only be my word against his.”
He began to smile; he said nothing, and Carol said, “That’s right, isn’t it? Rocco’s known that all along-that’s why he never made trouble for me. It never had anything to do with you, did it? You just used it as something to hold over my head. It only worked as long as I didn’t think it through.”
“You’ve learned to use your head, haven’t you?”
“I just don’t see how it could possibly be worth your while to go to the trouble of turning me over to the New Mexico cops, not when I’d probably be acquitted anyway. Look, why not drop it right here and go on like equals?”
He shook his head gently, watching her. She said in a rougher voice, “You just can’t do it, can you? You just can’t have any kind of relationship with anybody where your money or your blackmail doesn’t give you an edge.”