The Gods of Guilt(10)
“Yes, if you have to know. I don’t hide it.”
“Well, in here maybe you should, for your own safety. I can also get you moved into a homosexual module once you’re arraigned tomorrow.”
“Please don’t bother. I don’t want to be classified in any way.”
“Suit yourself. What was Giselle’s website?”
“Giselle-for-you-dot-com. That was the main one.”
I wrote it down.
“There were others?”
“She had sites tailored to specific tastes that would come up if someone searched with certain words or things they were looking for. That’s what I offer—a multi-platform presence. That’s why she came to me.”
I nodded as though I were admiring his creativity and business acumen.
“And how long were you in business with her?”
“She came to me about two years ago. She wanted a multidimensional online presence.”
“She came to you? What does that mean? How did she come to you? Do you run ads online or something?”
He shook his head as though he was dealing with a child.
“No, no ads. I only work with people recommended to me by someone I already know and trust. She was recommended by another client.”
“Who was that?”
“There is a confidentiality issue there. I don’t want her dragged into this. She doesn’t know anything and has nothing to do with this.”
I shook my head as though I was dealing with a child.
“For now, Andre, I’ll let it pass. But if I take this case, I will at some point need to know who referred her. And you cannot be the one who decides whether someone or something has relevance to the case. I decide that. You understand?”
He nodded.
“I’ll get a message to her,” he said. “As soon as I have her okay, I will connect you. But I do not lie and I do not betray confidences. My business and my life are built on trust.”
“Good.”
“And what do you mean, ‘if I take the case’? I thought you took the case. I mean, you’re here, aren’t you?”
“I’m still deciding.”
I checked my watch. The sergeant I checked in with said I would get only a half hour with La Cosse. I still had three separate areas of discussion to cover—the victim, the crime, and my compensation.
“We don’t have a lot of time, so let’s move on. When was the last time you saw Giselle Dallinger in person?”
“Sunday night late—and when I left her she was alive.”
“Where?”
“At her apartment.”
“Why did you go there?”
“I went to get money from her but I didn’t get any.”
“What money and why didn’t you get it?”
“She went out on a job and my arrangement with her is I get paid a percentage of what she makes. I had set her up on a Pretty Woman Special and I wanted my share—these girls, if you don’t get the money right away, it has a tendency to disappear up their noses and other places.”
I wrote down a summary of what he had just said even though I wasn’t sure what most of it meant.
“Are you saying that Giselle was a drug user?”
“I would say so, yes. Not out of control, but it’s part of the job and part of the life.”
“Tell me about the Pretty Woman Special. What does that mean?”
“The client takes a suite at the Beverly Wilshire like in the movie Pretty Woman. Giz had the Julia Roberts thing going, you know? Especially after I had her photos airbrushed. I assume you can figure it out from there.”
I had never seen the movie but knew it was a story about a prostitute with a heart of gold meeting the man of her dreams on a paid date at the Beverly Wilshire.
“How much was the fee for that?”
“It was supposed to be twenty-five hundred.”
“And your take?”
“A thousand, but there was no take. She said it was a dead call.”
“What’s that?”
“She gets there and there’s nobody home, or whoever answers the door says he didn’t call for her. I check these things out as best as I can. I check IDs, everything.”
“So you didn’t believe her.”
“Let’s just say I was suspicious. I had talked to the man in that room. I called him through the hotel operator. But she claimed there was nobody there and the room wasn’t even rented.”
“So you argued about it?”
“A little bit.”
“And you hit her.”
“What? No! I have never hit a woman. I’ve never hit a man, either! I didn’t do this. Can’t you be—”
“Look, Andre, I’m just gathering information here. So you didn’t hit her or hurt her. Did you physically touch her anywhere?”