Taming A Sea-Horse Part 13

"What's your connection with Marcus?"

"I know him, I talked with him. He doesn't like you."

Lehman laughed, "Tough s.h.i.t for him."

"He said you were wired."

"He was right," Lehman said. "Connected, solid. Keep it in mind."

"Floyd told me he was connected too," I said.

Lehman laughed. "Yeah, he's connected all right. To me. I'm his f.u.c.king connection." He drank more champagne. He wasn't sipping anymore. "Connected." Lehman laughed again. "What a hot s.h.i.t." He shook his head. He emptied the champagne gla.s.s and gestured at Gretchen. She poured out the rest of the bottle. Lehman saw the bottle was empty. He nodded at Brutus.

"We got anything else to talk about?" he said.

"Not this minute," I said. "But maybe we could get together again soon. I'd like to get your philosophy on things."

Lehman's face had a slight flush beneath the deep tan.

"If it's for sale buy it," he said. "If it's female f.u.c.k it. That's my philosophy, pal."

"Perhaps I should take Mr. Spenser to my office," Gretchen said, "and help him find out where Miss Buckey went."

Brutus appeared with a new bottle of champagne and put it in the ice bucket.

"Pour me a little more nectar, Miss Efficient Sufficient," Lehman said. "Then you can go."

Gretchen poured his champagne. I stood.

"Remember," Lehman said. "Buy it or f.u.c.k it-sometimes both."

"Words to live by," I said. And followed Gretchen out.

21.

Gretchen's office was two floors down. Mauve walls, pale mint moldings, a gray lacquered desk with a mauve wash, purple silk flowers in a chrome vase on the desk. There was a computer on a black worktable coupled to a word processor. Against one wall were two black file cabinets. The window was covered in chrome-colored Levolor blinds, the kind with the narrow slats. A low marble table stood in front of the window. On it was a chrome water carafe and two violet-colored water gla.s.ses. There was a gray-and-black striped couch opposite her desk.

"Please sit down, Mr. Spenser, while I see what I have on Ginger Buckey."

I sat. "Must be a real treat," I said, "working for Perry Lehman."

"This is a very challenging opportunity," she said.

"Um," I said.

"The marketing schemata is one of the most energetic conceptualizations I've ever implemented."

She was thumbing through folders in the second drawer of one of the file cabinets.

"Um."

She paused. And turned toward me. "Mr. Spenser, I have an MBA from the Wharton School. The women in my graduating cla.s.s are averaging thirteen thousand a year less than the men." She glanced at the label on one file folder and put it back, "I'm earning eight thousand more than the men."

"Liberation," I said.

"Whatever Mr. Lehman's att.i.tudes are, he pays me what I'm worth. It's a kind of liberation that translates directly."

"What exactly is the conceptual schemata of this operation other than s.m.u.t peddling, so to speak?"

Gretchen turned holding a folder in her right hand and looked at me. "You're incredible," she said. "That's like saying what's the marketing strategy for Coca-Cola other than selling soft drinks."

She closed the file drawer and stepped to her desk and sat down. She put the folder on the desk before her and straightened it carefully so all four corners aligned with the four corners of her blotter.

"There's a cla.s.sic phrase in marketing," she said. She put both elbows on her desk and placed her hands together as if she were praying and rested her chin on the tips of her fingers. "Sell the sizzle, not the steak."

"Cla.s.sic," I said.

"We're not, as you put it, peddling s.m.u.t. We're selling self-image. We're selling realized fantasy. We are marketing fully realized lifestyle-masculine, s.e.xually fulfilled, powerful, solid, complete, energized by a sense of the permanent in clothing and wines, in dining and entertainment. We're saying simply every man is a crown prince."

"And you're making eight thousand a year more than your male cla.s.smates."

"And implementing the whole concept," she said. "It's not just the money, Spenser." She dropped her hands onto the desk and leaned forward. "I'm in charge."

"Until Perry tells you to get undressed and you say no."

She shook her head. "He talks a little rough, but there's nothing like that." She shook her head again. "Nothing. I find it offensive that you'd suggest it."

"At least I a.s.sumed you'd say no," I said.

"And if I said yes?"

"I'd figure you had a cast-iron stomach," I said.

"I have no relationship with Mr. Lehman beyond a business relationship." She opened the file folder and studied it. She frowned slightly.

"Ginger Buckey came to us in August last year. She remained here as a hostess until this May, when she resigned."

"To do what?" I said.

Gretchen shook her head. "I don't know. The girls come and go. There was nothing outstanding about Ginger. There's no reason we should remember her, and quite frankly I don't."

"Lehman did," I said.

"Mr. Lehman has a remarkable memory."

"May I see the file?"

"No, I'm sorry, but it is confidential. All our files are." I thought about taking it. She must have sensed, that because she got up briskly and put it back in the file and locked it. "Perhaps you'd like to see some of the facilities here?" she said, and opened her office door. Another of the King's African Rifles was standing at parade rest.

"Place looks like the Grambling locker room," I said.

Gretchen smiled and we went along the corridor past the sentry and into the elevator. "First floor is health club and screening," she said.

"Nicely done," I said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You were afraid I might s.n.a.t.c.h the file on you so you locked it up and walked me out into the corridor past the footman without even hinting at distress. Very smooth."

"I had no such fear," Gretchen said.

"You should have," I said. "The minute you said it was confidential I wanted to see it"

"There's nothing in that file, Mr. Spenser. Confidentiality is simply our policy."

"Sure," I said.

We got off the elevator and walked a short paneled corridor and into the health club. It was carpeted and mirrored and staffed with female training a.s.sistants in white short shorts and yellow halter tops. To the left a waterfall cascaded down a marble wall into a full-size Olympic pool. There were two men in Speedo racing suits swimming laps. To the right was a bar that sold beer, wine coolers, Perrier, yogurt shakes, and fruit juice. There were also health sandwiches listed on a blackboard. Today's special was jack cheese, avocado slices, sunflower seeds, and alfalfa sprouts on seven-grain bread. The rest of the room was devoted to Nautilus equipment, a profusion of it in chrome and colors. Several men in state-of-the-art sweats were working out, while a training a.s.sistant stood by with their chart, offering water after each exercise and cheering them on.

"We have the most complete Nautilus setup in Ma.s.sachusetts," Gretchen said. "We also have ma.s.sage rooms, whirlpool, steam, sauna, inhalant and tanning rooms, each staffed by a highly trained professional."

I opened a door marked Ma.s.sAGE. There was a plump guy getting a ma.s.sage, a towel draped across his b.u.t.t. The ma.s.seuse was dressed like the training a.s.sistant except that she had on yellow high-heeled backless shoes.

We moved on and looked at the racquetball courts. We went into the screening room, a small movie theater, attended by a young woman dressed like an old-time movie usher. "We run a continuous program of adult entertainment," Gretchen said, "rather like the old newsreel theaters in train stations."

The current feature showed a woman wearing horn-rimmed gla.s.ses and white stockings having intercourse with a skinny black-haired guy on the banister of a flight of stairs.

"Precarious," I said.

"We have a library of several thousand adult film cla.s.sics," Gretchen said.

The woman on the screen told her lover in an excited way that she wanted "more, more, more."

"Cla.s.sics,"' I said.

We went back in the elevator and went up a flight.

"This is the lounge and library," Gretchen said.

It was a big room lined on three walls with books. Along the fourth wall was a bar. There were leather chairs and reading lamps and a c.o.c.ktail waitress dressed like Hollywood's idea of a prim librarian stood near the bar with her round tray. No one else was there. The t.i.tles were mostly simple p.o.r.nography with a scattering of works like The Decameron, to make the readers feel less like perverts. We moved on.

There was a restaurant staffed with waitresses dressed like French maids, a nightclub that opened after nine. I didn't ask what the waitresses wore.

"What's on the fourth floor?" I said.

"Guest rooms for the members."

"Complete with hostesses?" I said.

Gretchen smiled. "All of our girls are hostesses," she said.

"Which kind of hostess was Ginger Buckey?" I said.

"I'm not sure, I think she was a.s.signed to the guest floor."

"What are the duties of a guest floor hostess?" I said.

"Maid service, butlery. There's a pantry there, they are a bit like a concierge, and there are enough so that the members get immediate personal attention at any hour."

"Turn-down service, two chocolate mints on the pillow, that sort of thing," I said.

"Among many others," Gretchen said. "The girls are there to serve the needs of the members."

"Including s.e.xual service," I said.

"We are not a house of prost.i.tution, Mr. Spenser. Nor are we a college dormitory. The girls are free to form relationships with the guests, should they choose to."

"And if they don't choose to?"

"Our policy is very simple and it's part of our success. The member is always right. If there's a complaint about a girl, she is disciplined."

"What kind of discipline?"

"It depends on the complaint, fines, dismissal, other things."

"What other things?"

"I'm sorry again, Mr. Spenser. Specific company policy is confidential. I'm sure you understand."

"Any complaints about Ginger Buckey?"

"None," Gretchen said.

"How nice," I said. She seemed to remember Ginger after all.

We were back on the first floor, in the Edwardian foyer.

"So what do you think of our operation," Gretchen said.

"I think that if Walt Disney had been obsessed with s.e.x and dominance, and was uncertain of his manhood and had grown up reading the novels of H. Rider Haggard and had the sensibility of a dung beetle he'd have founded a chain of clubs just tike this."

The bones in Gretchen's face seemed more prominent. "I see," she said. "Have you any further questions?"