Free Hints of Heloise by Laura Lippman Page B

flies. Especially, Heloise thinks, when the problem is not one’s own. Well, not strictly hers. In a legal sense, she is accountable. Her silence is a crime, a crime that protects her own crimes. She knows enough to realize that police might offer her immunity from prosecution if it ever came to that, but police cannot offer her immunity from the destruction of Scott’s life should the details of her business become public. Still, days go by when she doesn’t think about the compromising position in which Meghan holds her. Summer is an interesting time in Heloise’s line of work: while she loses many of her political regulars, the growing custom of summer shares, in which Daddy stays in the hot city while the family is at the Delaware shore, produces a nice, steady stream of income from nice, steady men. Oh, a few seem to think they should try to be more decadent than they really are, but they are clearly relieved to find out that not that much imagination is required. She puts the girls on a Monday-through-Thursday schedule, which everyone likes, and handles the few weekend kinkmeisters, as she thinks of them, longtime customers with specialized needs.
    On this particular Saturday night, for example, she’s meeting a seventy-five-year-old man who really could be happy with the services of a good reflexologist, assuming he could find one who agreed to work naked. All he wants is for someone to squeeze his toes in a very particular pattern, almost as if they were bagpipes or a cow’s teats. Easy money, and his feet are beautifully kept, especially for a man his age—the toenails freshly cut and only faintly yellow—but tonight he takes longer than usual to complete, and when he pays Heloise, he shakes his head sadly.
    â€œWhat happened to Veronica?” he asks. “The dark-haired one?” (And, yes, Heloise has a blond named Betty in her employ as well, and they often tag-team a man who insists on being called Archie. Unless he’s calling himself Gilligan, and then they’re Ginger and Mary Ann.)
    â€œI try to give the girls weekends off in the summer.”
    â€œThe thing is—you look great, Heloise. Truly. For your age. But for me, it takes a younger girl…”
    â€œI understand,” she says, patting his hand. He’s not the first one to say this to Heloise in the past two years or so. The fact is, another cliché applies: this hurts him more than it hurts her. He only thinks it’s youth he wants. It’s novelty he craves, and she’s been taking care of him for more than five years. Some men like that, actually, love the groove, the pattern, discover a way to be monogamous twice over, with their spouses and their whores. But, obviously, some are going to get bored, even a man such as Leo, who doesn’t even open his eyes while he’s being serviced and does most of the heavy lifting himself. At forty, Heloise plans to continue taking calls for at least five more years, tops, and she doesn’t think she’ll lose that many customers along the way. But when she stops, she will have to hire two girls to take her place, and the way she sees it, every employee elevates her exposure to risk. Plus, it’s a bitch, managing other people.
    Still, she feels a little pang, leaving Leo that evening. For whatever reason, age or novelty, Heloise has been rejected, and she is unused to rejection, given that she eschews recreational sex, with all its irrationality and head games and confusion.
    Her cell phone throbs in its dashboard-mounted holster. “Meghan.” Speaking of people who are a bitch to manage.
    â€œYou’re on Bluetooth,” she warns.
    â€œIs there someone else in the car?”
    â€œNo, but—”
    Meghan’s voice rushes ahead, heedless. “He’s been in touch.”
    â€œWho?” Heloise is confused, and her mind rolls to Brian. Is Meghan having some sort of paranormal episode?
    â€œPillow