Schoolgirl Act

by Albert Tucher

Maybe there is a God, she thought. And on the eighth day He created the pancake house.

After her most difficult clients, Diana went to the IHOP for corned beef hash and eggs. With pancakes. Toast would reduce the therapeutic effect.

She saved pancake expeditions for emergencies, because she couldn't always afford the calories or the time. She had to drive to North Plainfield to be sure of avoiding clients. Now she sat alone in a small booth and wondered what to do about a man who threatened to make her Our Fat Lady of Route 22.

“I'm Dougie Rafelson,” he had said at their first meeting.

“Nice to meet you, Doug.”

“Dougie.”

She should have known right there.

Dougie wasn't repulsive or scary. He didn't want anything painful or dangerous. He just exhausted her.

She had seen it happen before. A man married in his early twenties and divorced in his forties, and he wondered what he had missed. Often she was his first new partner in a decade or two, and suddenly he was seventeen again. Usually the second adolescence didn't last, but Dougie was setting records.

It would have been impressive if it hadn't been so aggravating. Dougie could perform two or even three times in an hour. If he saw something in a porn film, he had to try it. Some of what he wanted was possible, and he never complained about what she charged him, but often she had to tell him, “It's the camera angles, Dougie. Jenna Jameson doesn't really do that, either.”

Lately Dougie wanted a threesome. He assumed that she had a friend who would be ready and willing. That Diana would be agreeable went without saying.

“I'm sorry, Dougie, but I don't do women.”

“You mean you've never tried it? This'll be something new for you?”

“It would, but it's not going to happen.”

She could see that she hadn't deterred him. If she couldn't finesse the situation, he would move on to someone else. She would miss his paydays.

She had just been up all night with Dougie. It was early on a Saturday morning, but the restaurant was crowded. For the eighth or tenth time Diana looked up at the waiting couples who could be using the table that she occupied by herself. This time another lone woman had joined the couples. She was ten or twelve years older than Diana's twenty-seven. She already looked tired.

Diana tried to attract the woman‘s attention, first with a nod, then with a wave that almost tipped her out of her booth. She gave up and made her way to the padded bench where the woman sat. On the way, Diana told a harried waitress that she wasn't finished with her table.

“Would you like to help me out here?” said Diana.

The woman jumped and focused on Diana with something like panic.

“Um, what?”

“Would you like to share my table? I'll be able to relax if the other seat isn't going to waste.”

The woman seemed to look for an escape route. It wouldn't be easy to get away. More customers kept crowding into the restaurant.

“Come on,” said Diana. She reached down for the other woman's elbow. “I'm Diana.”

“Ruth,” said the woman. She seemed to regret it immediately.

“That's my grandmother's name,” said Diana. “I think this was meant to be.”

She returned to her table towing Ruth behind her. The waitress came quickly with another place setting. She seemed grateful that Diana had solved a small part of the crowding problem.

“Thanks,” said Diana to Ruth. “You know, I think there's something wrong with me. I can't relax and enjoy my breakfast when there are a bunch of people waiting and I'm not even using the whole table.”

She paused to let Ruth respond. Nothing came.

“I've never noticed anyone else getting embarrassed about something like that, but I can't help it. My grandmother taught me too well.”

Ruth said nothing.

Diana's breakfast came. The waitress filled both coffee cups and asked Ruth what she would like.

“Um, this is fine,” said Ruth.

Um, Diana thought, can you say anything that doesn't start with um?

Ruth didn't want to eat. She had coffee, but she didn't want to drink it. Close up, she still looked tired, but also stubborn and disapproving.

Diana bought some time by lifting her top pancake and dotting the second one with small pats of butter. They would soften, and soon she would be able to spread the butter. That was important. In the meantime she took the right amount of hash on her fork and ate it. She followed up quickly with a bite of egg over medium.

But now she felt worse instead of better. She seemed to have done something terrible to Ruth. Could the other woman be one of those people who despised courtesy?

Ruth continued to stare at her coffee. The silence built and became unbearable. Finally, she sat up straight, as if she had come to a costly decision. She lifted her cup and drank her coffee in two large swallows. Her expression said that the coffee was still too hot, but she couldn't wait. She stood up and opened her bag to find money.

“My treat,” said Diana.

The words came out with more bite than she had intended. Ruth glared. Diana warned her away with the same look that told clients to behave. It worked. Ruth turned and walked toward the exit. Diana bit back the urge to say, “You're welcome.”

She replayed the encounter in her mind. For something that didn't involve clients and their needs, it was fairly weird.

She drove home to Driscoll. On the way she felt her shoulders start to lose the tension that Dougie had put in them. He was far from the most difficult client of her career, but she felt a crisis approaching.

She turned the television on and caught up with the Olympic news from Atlanta. Every four years she watched the swimming and wondered what she could have accomplished with real coaching. Finally, she felt ready to sleep the afternoon away.

Saturday nights were usually Diana's private time. Married clients had their families. Divorced men had dates, or their children for the weekend.

Dougie had Diana. He paged her in the middle of her dinner. She considered not calling back, but she knew that ignoring him was no way to make a decision.

She would finish eating, though.

After dinner she left her rented house and walked four blocks to the laundromat, which had a pay phone. She dialed Dougie's number.

“You free?” he yelled into the phone. “Hell, no, you're expensive!”

It was the funniest thing he had ever heard.

“Whatever it is, Dougie, it's not going to happen if you're drunk. You‘ll be asleep when I get there.”

“I've had a few, but I'll stop right now. Promise. Just come over, okay?”

“Dougie, I'm tired.”

She was very tired, which was why the words had come out before she could stop them. She should never have said them to a client, not even Dougie.

“Tired, huh.” He sounded sober. “Makes me wonder what I pay you for. I could get 'tired' from my wife any time I wanted it. Didn't cost me a thing.”

She wasn't about to make things worse by apologizing.

“It's true, Dougie.”

“Just one hour,“ he said. “And I'll double it. Five hundred.”

She heard the unspoken half of his proposal--double or nothing, ever again.

“It'll take me about an hour,” she said. She decided not to tell him to have some coffee. It would be another wifely thing to say.

Back home she dressed in a conservative blouse, trim skirt, and pumps with three inches of heel. Dougie liked the look, and it also helped her come and go unnoticed.

But then she saw her aging Taurus. She had parked it three blocks past her house in the other direction from the laundromat. She never parked near the house, in case a client recognized the car as hers. The car listed slightly, and she knew she had a flat tire. That meant going back home, changing into grubby clothes, returning to the car, swapping the spare for the flat, going home again to clean up, and changing into her work clothes for the second time. It all took forty-five minutes, not counting cursing time

That wasn't the end of it. She needed gas. She almost never forgot to check the gauge, but this time she had. The station at the ramp onto I-80 charged extra for its convenient location, but she didn't have time to go elsewhere. The young man who filled her tank insisted on cleaning her windshield so he could look down her neckline. She gave him her best flat-eyed glare until he finished and took her ten-dollar bill.

She had told Dougie an hour, but almost two had elapsed. He had an apartment in a beautifully kept older building in Summit. Diana envied him, even as she realized that he paid more rent than she did for her small house in Driscoll.

In the vestibule she pressed Dougie's doorbell. She waited, and waited some more. Nothing happened, until she began to wonder whether Dougie had decided to punish her a little before letting her in. Just as she was deciding to forget this date and Dougie, the door buzzed. She pulled the handle just as the abrasive noise stopped. The elevators were straight ahead, across the large lobby. One of the sliding doors opened as she approached. She stepped inside and pressed the button for the third floor.

She thought her luck might finally be improving, but she was wrong. The man in the hall in front of Dougie's apartment was the last thing Diana wanted to see, and she was no more popular with him. They had never met, but they recognized each other.

“Yes, Officer.”

“Detective.”

“Sorry.”

“Where were you about an hour ago?”

“Just getting onto I-80.”

“Can you prove it?”

“I bought gas in Jefferson.”

“Credit card?”

“Cash. But the pump jockey should remember. I still have his drool on me.”

“Stick around. But do it downstairs.”

Here was one of the problems of hooking. She hadn't committed a crime in this cop's jurisdiction--not that he could prove, anyway. She hadn't witnessed anything. An average citizen could have established her irrelevance in a minute and been on her way. But Diana had learned not to make issues with cops. She took the elevator back to the lobby. A uniformed officer stood by the front door. He must have received a call from the detective, because he glanced at Diana and pointed to a ladder-back chair in the lobby. She sat. The chair looked uninviting and felt worse, but she refused to let the cop see her discomfort.

Or her boredom. She soon ran out of tile-counting games. Every twenty or thirty minutes a resident entered the building and stopped to be verified by the uniformed officer. Diana tried to make up stories about the people she saw, but they didn't come often enough to keep her entertained.

No one left the building. The cops must have been questioning everybody they could find at home. Something serious had brought them here.

The elevator opened, and Detective Somebody came out into the lobby. Diana hid her relief at his appearance. He crossed the floor and stood looking down at her. He opened his mouth to speak, but at that moment the front door opened. Diana couldn't make out the words of the uniformed cop, but the woman who answered him came through clearly.

“I'm here to see my husband.”

“Do you live here, Ma'am?”

“No, my husband does.”

The voice was familiar.

“That's her,” said the voice. “She's the one.”

The uniformed cop entered the lobby from the vestibule. Behind him came Ruth, Diana's breakfast partner from earlier in the day.

“She's the one who took my husband,” said Ruth.

“Who's your husband?” said the detective.

“I'm Mrs. Douglas Rafelson,” said Ruth.

“Do you live here, Mrs. Rafelson?”

Ruth tried to look dignified.

“No, I don't. You might as well know that the State of New Jersey says we're divorced. But the Church doesn't believe in divorce, and that means he's my husband. You can tell Jezebel that.”

Ruth glared at Diana.

Diana's first feeling was relief. Now she knew the source of Ruth's hostility that morning. Next came gratitude. Ruth had just destroyed any credibility she might have had with the police. The detective knew that Diana borrowed husbands, but she always gave them back.

Ruth had also provided herself with a motive for killing Dougie.

Another uniformed officer entered the lobby from an internal door that Diana had barely noticed. With the cop was a bleary-eyed man who looked too young to have lost so much hair.

“You can use my office,” said the bald man. “Can I go back to bed now?”

“We'd just have to wake you up again,” said the detective.

The resident manager blinked twice, slowly. Diana agreed with his opinion. He turned and disappeared through the doorway.

“Mrs. … Rafelson?” said the detective.

“Didn't I just explain that?” said Ruth. “Yes, I'm Mrs. Rafelson.”

“Would you come this way, please? We have some questions.”

Diana waited. A few more residents came home and talked with the uniformed officers. It was after midnight when Ruth came out into the lobby looking grimly satisfied. She crossed the lobby, ignoring Diana as she went, and left the building by the front door.

The detective came out and motioned to Diana. He held the door for her. At the end of a short hallway was another door that probably led to the manager's apartment. On the left was an office that had started out as a janitor's closet. Diana waited for the detective to get behind the desk and sit. The cramped space wouldn't let two people maneuver at once.

He asked her name.

“Diana Andrews. And you are?”

“Waverly. How many arrests?”

“None.”

“We'll check.”

“Go ahead. I don't embarrass my local police. That's good enough for them.”

“We'll check anyway. We're also looking for your pump jockey boyfriend.”

“I didn't make him up.”

Waverly stared at her for several moments. She was supposed to feel intimidated.

“You know what happened here?” he said.

“I assume Dougie Rafelson is dead. And I assume somebody killed him.”

“But you didn't ask.”

“You're right, I should have. Cops tell hookers everything.”

He smiled, so briefly that she almost failed to catch him.

“You've been here before?”

“Eight or ten times in the past couple of months.”

“Are you the only one he calls?”

“How would I know that?” she said.

“Take a guess.”

“I'd say no. In fact, that might be where you want to look.”

He gave her a tired look. A hooker trying to blame another hooker wasn't news.

“The reason I say that,” she said, “he was going to pay me double tonight.”

She recounted Dougie's phone call.

“I thought he was just trying to make some kind of point, but maybe he had something planned that he knew I wouldn't like. I've told him and told him, I don't do threesomes.”

Waverly looked interested but skeptical.

“Might be another working girl, might be a girlfriend,” said Diana. “In fact, the girlfriend idea sounds better. I mean, I wouldn't kill him over a threesome. None of us would. We'd either do it or leave.”

“People get killed over business all the time.”

“Not my kind of business. I've never heard of it, unless it was the hooker who got killed.”

“Has he ever mentioned a girlfriend?”

“Not to me. I met his wife earlier today.”

He raised his eyebrows. She told him the story of her tense breakfast with Ruth.

“I guess she followed me there. She must be good at it. I keep my eyes open.”

She paused.

“You let her go just now.”

Damn it, she thought.

She had stepped over the line with him. He hadn't asked for an amateur sidekick. He gave her a cop look to make that point, but then he surprised her.

“We're looking at her, but she has one hell of an alibi.”

She waited. If she looked too eager, he might decide not to tell her.

“She was at confession,” he said. “The priest is retired now, but she still goes to him. She's known him since she was a schoolgirl, so I figure he'll at least verify that she was with him. We don't have to care what she said. So, it would be really good for you if this girlfriend thing pans out.”

“Get real. If I killed him, why would I come back?

“To look innocent. To see what we've got. To gloat. It happens.”

She said nothing.

“You can go,” he said.

She went.

In her car she leaned back against the headrest. That was all she knew, until dawn came through the windshield. The car's interior looked unfamiliar, but it was just the angle. She had tipped over until she lay on her side. She checked her watch and saw that she had slept for more than two hours. Fortunately, it was Sunday morning. None of Dougie's neighbors had seen her and complained about someone camping in the parking lot.

Diana had what she needed to freshen herself after an unplanned night out. Her head rested on her hooker bag, which held skin cleanser, makeup, deodorant, the most commonly requested professional lingerie, and a change of her real underwear, which would have to wait. She didn't plan to wiggle around in the car. What she needed most was her breath spray, which somehow always ended up at the bottom of the bag.

She adjusted her rearview mirror to check her face. She saw the usual dark blond hair, strong cheekbones and even stronger nose. Nothing looked bad enough to be worth fixing in the car.

She needed to think. What had just happened? At twenty-seven was she too old for this business? She had never had problems staying up as long as the client wanted to keep paying her. Dougie had given her two long nights in a row, but that was nothing new.

It must have been sparring with the cops that had exhausted her. That was different from getting paid.

She hoped that Waverly didn't really suspect her. He seemed too smart for that. He must have meant his threats as an incentive to come up with something good for him. She would try, if only to keep Summit off the list of places where she couldn‘t work.

The question was what to do next. The answer made her laugh. She couldn't think any more without breakfast, and she was already more than halfway to the IHOP. She started the car and set off.

At seven o'clock on a Sunday morning the pancake house was an interesting place. Some of the customers had obviously been up all night. Others were the misfits and malcontents who go to bed early on Saturday night. There weren't many of either category. Diana had her choice of booths, and her grandmother's voice kept silent.

So who was joining her uninvited? Diana looked up at the woman who had just slid into the seat across from her.

“You can buy me breakfast,” said Heather.

“And why would I want to do that?”

Diana smiled. She enjoyed effrontery within reason, but she also wanted an answer.

“Buy me breakfast, and I‘ll tell you a story.”

“It would have to be pretty good.”

“How about what you missed last night? Sound good enough?”

Heather looked exhausted. Like Diana, she knew how to party all night with clients. So she hadn't just been working.

“You were with Dougie Rafelson last night,” said Diana.

“You could say that,” said Heather. “But if you say it to the cops, I'll deny it.

“I'll have what she's having,” she said to the waitress, who had appeared. “On her.”

Diana nodded.

“It was supposed to be a scene with me and his girlfriend.”

“Dougie with a girlfriend,” said Diana. “That's a thought. What was she like?”

“I never found out. She didn't show. I told Dougie, ‘Well, I'm here and you're here,' but he wasn't having any of it. So I called Mary Alice.”

Diana and Mary Alice, AKA Crystal, lived in Driscoll. They sometimes referred clients to each other--men they didn't want, or who didn't want them. It was news that Mary Alice did the same thing with Heather.

“She wasn't home,” said Heather. “So Dougie suggested you. I told him you don't do threesomes.”

She sat back and looked at Diana.

“Why not? I've never heard you say.”

“I don't know exactly. I've never done women, and I'm not curious enough to try. It always struck me as a lot more work. I'll bet women are harder to please.”

Heather shrugged. “I don't know about that. But I do know it's worth it. Let me know if you ever change your mind. Anyway, Dougie wouldn't take no. That's when he called. What kept you?”

“Flat tire, buying gas.”

“Lucky you.”

Heather's tone was different.

“She must have let herself in. With a key, I mean.”

“Who?” said Diana.

“The woman who shot him.”

“Oh.”

Try to keep up, Diana told herself.

“Was he the one she wanted to shoot? Or was she just shooting up the room? Could you tell?”

“Oh, she wanted him. She was really together about it.”

“I guess she didn't want you.”

“She tried. I rolled onto the floor, and she shot the bed right where I was.”

“Talk about cool under fire,” said Diana. “I'm impressed. She didn't stay around to see if she had hit you?”

“No,” said Heather. “Don't ask me why. I'm not complaining, though.”

“You didn't stay, either. Maybe he wasn't dead.”

“There was nothing I could do for him. I looked. Then I got out of there. This is one whore they're not going to catch with a dead client.”

“Did she take the gun?”

“She must have.”

“There you go. You're there, the gun isn't. The cops will see that.”

“Like I couldn't have thrown it in the lake. Then I come back and play innocent.”

It was a good point, but it put Diana in a difficult position. She now knew who had been with Dougie. Waverly would get back to her. Diana would have to lie to him or give Heather up. Either choice would come back to complicate her life.

“So you must have seen her.”

“Hell, I can still see her.”

“What did she look like?”

Heather described Ruth, down to her chronic fatigue.

“That sounds like the ex-wife,” she told Heather, “but she's supposed to have an alibi.”

They thought in silence.

“Wait a minute,” said Diana. “How did you know I'd be here?”

“I know what you do after a long night,” said Heather. “And I know where you do it. Remember?”

Diana did remember, now that Heather mentioned it. They had once worked together at a large birthday party. Mary Alice had also been there. The role of mistress of ceremonies had fallen to Diana, and she had been the one to decree breakfast at the pancake house afterwards.

“I guess I'm getting too predictable,” said Diana.

The words gave her a bad feeling.

Diana heard Waverly's voice in her mind. “She's known him since she was a schoolgirl.”

Why was the bad feeling getting worse?

“Come on,” she told Heather. “We have to go.”

“I'm hungry,” said Heather.

“That's the last thing you need to worry about. We've got to get out of here.”

Diana threw a twenty down on the table and levered herself out of the booth. She dragged Heather out of her seat and started for the exit.

“Where's your car?”

“Near yours.”

“I'll talk to Waverly,” said Diana. “You just stay away from Summit until I call you.”

Heather's Camry came first, then the dumpster, then Diana's Taurus. Diana left Heather behind and made for her car. She heard the ripe thud of something hard hitting something not quite as hard. She stopped and turned. Ruth stood holding a large revolver. It looked too heavy for her, but she had managed to hit Heather with it. Heather sprawled on the pavement at Ruth's feet.

I was right, Diana thought. I'm getting too predictable.

Heather had known where to find her, and so had Ruth.

“I stopped going to church when I was fourteen,” said Diana.

“What‘s your point?” said Ruth.

The muzzle of her gun pointed down at Heather.

“I got sick of priests,” said Diana. “My friend Cindy told her mother that our priest had hands, and her mother slapped her. He got away with it.”

Ruth's gun hand hadn't wavered, but she was listening.

“Your priest molested you,“ said Diana. “You were blackmailing him into giving you an alibi. You were going to get away with it. Why blow it by coming after us?”

“Because I don't have much time,” said Ruth. “He'll fold under the pressure. He never did have any balls. Why do you think he picked on children?”

“What did we do to you?”

“Whores like you ruined my marriage.”

It wasn't the time to argue that point.

Behind Ruth, Waverly appeared around the corner of the building. He wasn't ready for what he saw. He must have come looking for Diana, not Ruth. His gun, if he had one, was still holstered.

He reached inside his coat. Ruth read something in Diana's expression, and she turned and aimed her gun at Waverly.

“I wouldn't,” she said.

Waverly froze.

Ruth glanced the other way at Diana, then down at Heather, and finally back to Waverly, all without giving him time to make a move.

No one was in a good position. Heather was down and out, Diana was unarmed, and Waverly couldn't get to his weapon. Even if he got the gun out fast enough, he might miss Ruth and hit Diana, who was in the line of fire behind Ruth.

Ruth had her own problems. She needed to turn her head a full one-eighty to keep track of Diana and Waverly, but she was the only one with a gun in her hand. That made up for a lot.

The gun must have been heavy. Ruth let it fall to her side for a moment. Waverly's gun hand began to inch up again. Diana took a small step to her left, toward the dumpster. Ruth looked at her, and she stopped. Ruth raised the gun again, this time with both hands. She aimed at Heather.

Diana's left hand was on the lid of the dumpster. She heaved the lid upward. It was heavy, but all of those military presses in the gym had helped. A hot jet of adrenaline didn't hurt, either. She pulled the lid down as hard as she could and dove to her right.

The clang of the lid was loud and sharp and just what she had wanted. Ruth flinched, and her shot pounded into the ground next to Heather. Ruth forgot about Heather, and Diana knew she'd better move. She rolled further to her right. Ruth pursued her with the gun barrel. She adjusted her stance awkwardly as she twisted her body. Waverly shouted, “Police! Don't move!” Ruth turned toward him, then back toward Diana, who wasn't where Ruth had left her. As Ruth aimed at Diana again, Waverly shot once, twice.

Ruth fell.

An EMT dabbed something on Diana's skinned elbows and knees. Whatever it was, it stung. He taped gauze everywhere. While he worked, his colleague told Heather what to do about her concussion.

There was nothing anyone could do for Ruth.

North Plainfield detectives conferred with Waverly and photographed everything.

“They're not exactly fans of mine,” Waverly told Diana when the other cops gave him a break. “They think I should have brought them in on it. I think I convinced them that I didn't come here looking for her. I just wanted to ask you some more questions.

“You look like my daughter after a soccer game,” he said.

“Maybe I should do a schoolgirl act for the clients,” said Diana.

He winced, and she joined him.

“Sorry,” she said. “Bad joke. Very bad. Did you figure out about the priest?”

“I did, and I didn't. I'm Catholic schools all the way. I just couldn't make myself believe it. Talking to you was my way of putting it off, I guess.”

He shook his head and looked at Ruth's body, still on the ground, but covered.

“How did you know I'd be here?” she said.

She cut off his reply.

“Never mind.”