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Beauty

Ed Gorman

Most of us use code words. I suppose that sounds a bit melodramatic, but how else are you going to separate the wheat from the chaff? Or, more specifically, the real client from the undercover FBI agent who wants to bust your ass and send you away for a long, long time.

The lady called me while I was on the Stairmaster in my hotel room. She’d guaranteed a nice sum to fly to her city. I was nice and winded from my workout while she went through this nervous little introduction without once giving me that one word that could put us in business.

“Oh, damn,” she said. “The—what do you call it?—the code word. You want that, don’t you?”

“Be nice to hear it.”

“Associates.”

“There you go.”

“So how do we proceed from here? I suppose you can tell I’m sort of nervous.”

“Where are you?”

She told me. I mentioned a nice little Chinese place two blocks from her hotel.

***

During my brief tenure in the loving arms of the fine folk who run Joliet state pen —bank robbery gone wrong; nothing to do with my present occupation—I spent a lot of time reading psychology books. I figured that psychology would be useful no matter what kind of work I took up when they gave me back my cheap suit and the free bus ticket.

I had a friend in high school that had spent every possible minute tending to this cherry 1957 red Ford Thunderbird his wealthy father had bought him at the start of our senior year. Ken had once been a fun guy. No more. After he got the T-Bird, he lost interest in girls, smoking dope, cruising our hangouts, and even the XXX videos that had just become available to the general public.

The woman who slid into the booth across from me also had an obsession. Her obsession wasn’t with a thing. It was with herself.

I don’t keep up on all the things women can do to keep themselves beautiful if they have the money. I know about plastic surgery, of course, and facials and bikini waxes and things like that. But I’m sure there are at least a dozen devious little tricks most men know nothing about. With her, it was probably two dozen devious little tricks.

She was stunning more than beautiful. A lot of her appeal was in the important way she carried herself. She was fighting forty and winning.

The smile disarmed you. One of those ridiculously outsize Hollywood smiles that mere mortals can’t muster.  And what the smile couldn’t accomplish, the blue blue eyes did. Now you were not only disarmed, but raising your arms in surrender. The elegant suit looked to be Armani, the enormous tooled earrings looked to be real gold, and the long, calculatedly tousled golden hair finished you off.

But she irritated me immediately. “What if I change my mind?”

“I’m told that’s a woman’s prerogative.”

“Do you have a kill fee?” The smile was genuine. “Oh, God, I used to work at a magazine and that’s what we called it when we canceled an article but wanted to give the writer something for his work. A kill fee. In this case, I guess it’s a bad choice of words.”

I smiled. “Nothing to worry about. And a kill fee is already taken care of.”

“It is?”

I nodded.  “Remember what I said on the phone. First half is payable right here, right now. If I don’t have the second half in cash by the end of the day, I keep the first half whether I do the job or not.”

“What if I called the police?”

“Again, your prerogative. But you’d be implicated in hiring me to kill someone. Conspiracy to commit murder probably wouldn’t go over too well with your friends at the country club.”

“How do you know I belong to a country club?”

“Please.”

She frowned. “What you’re saying is that I’m a cliché.”

Never accuse a narcissist of anything. Their egos move in for the kill.

“You have a manila envelope. Let’s get to it, shall we?”

“I resent your remark.”

I started to slide out of the booth.

She held up her perfectly manicured hand. “Oh, forget it. I am very country club and I may as well admit it. It’s just that common people are so snobby about country clubs. They don’t know about all the fine people you meet at them.”

Like ladies who hire hit men, I thought. Not to mention robber barons that cheat their employees out of their pensions, and then go home to sleep on thousand-dollar silk sheets in their ten-bedroom mansions.

She opened the 8 X 10 manila envelope and slid out a small package wrapped in brown paper, accompanied by a newspaper story that included a full-color photo with the caption: Beauty of Beauties. The rest of the text listed the names of the three runners-up and the beauty pageant winner. The runners-up tried desperately to look happy. The queen didn’t have that problem, flashing a Hollywood smile that made you reach for your sunglasses.

“You won this beauty contest.”

“State winner. I went on to Miss U.S.A. I was eighteen, just a sophomore in college.” When she mentioned her age, melancholy hushed her voice to a whisper. I wondered if she’d cry. She wasn’t putting me on. She was lamenting her lost youth. I suppose we all do that, though given all the time I'd spent in county jail time, my youth wasn't much to lament. “I didn’t win Miss U.S.A. I was the second runner-up.” She mentioned the name of a prominent male singer popular at that time in the mid-80s. “He was one of the judges. He knew I should have won and he wanted to help me get through it. He took me dancing and other things.”

I knew better than to inquire about those “other things.”

“Now my daughter is in a beauty contest and I don’t want the same thing to happen to her.”

“What ‘same thing?’”

“To be cheated out of it. The word I’m getting is that the advertising agency man who runs this particular pageant is actually the father of one of the contestants. He got a girl pregnant when he was already married and now the daughter is in his show. I think the mother is blackmailing him. He won’t have any choice but to figure out some way for his daughter to win.  This could be a very important stepping stone for my daughter. I don’t want some dirty old man to ruin it for her.”

“When’s the pageant?”

“Tomorrow night.” She named a convention hall. “Eight o’clock. My daughter’s all ready to go. She’s not only the most beautiful, she’s also the most talented.”

“If you do say so yourself.”

Another genuine smile.  “If I do say so myself. I’m sorry if I sound egotistical. It’s just that I want my daughter to win this.”

“So I address my skills to the advertising man?”

“Oh, no. The man might be dead, but his illegitimate daughter would still be alive and ready to compete again. I hate to admit this, but she’s a very good looking girl. And not bad in the talent department.”

“So I direct my attention to her.”

She leaned forward. “Yes, but not the full thing.”

“The full thing?”

She nodded. “Right.” Her voice dropped even lower. “I don’t want her killed. I just want her disfigured. Permanently.”

***

I spent the rest of the day deploying all the things I’d need for a perfect strike. Access would be the first problem. While the girl would be in her hotel room at various times, her floor would be shared by other contestants. A whole lot of problems there. She would be at a banquet tonight. I could get the security uniform I’d need, but again, the contestants would be everywhere. A clean getaway was dicey. My client had given me an itinerary that the girl followed every day. Up early for a quick jog around the hotel pool and then fifteen minutes of swimming before showering, eating a light breakfast, and then her singing and ballet lessons. A star in the making. The only problem was that this star seemed to always be accompanied by another woman, an older one, perhaps her mother or aunt or someone. It didn’t matter to me; she was an inconvenience, nothing more.

I disguised myself for a quick tour of all the hotel sites that were possibilities for the attack. Late in the day, I went downstairs to where the maids and the bellboys check in and check out. Each had its own small locker room. I always carry a few elementary burglary tools with me. In one locker I found a bellhop uniform still in its dry-cleaning plastic. It wouldn’t fit perfectly, but it would fit well enough.

Tonight, coming back from the banquet, the girl and her escort would probably walk back to her room via a wandering garden-like area that led directly to her entrance. My client said that this was the route they had followed the last three nights. She also said that the two never joined the other contestants in staying out a little longer. They went right back to their room. They would be virtually alone on the garden walk. Neither one would be startled by seeing a bellhop.

***

I don’t pretend to be Superman. I don’t even pretend to be Jimmy Olson. Over the years, I’ve found that my job-related anxiety is at its worst two or three hours before the gig itself. I’ve tried antidepressants, a few shots of whiskey, even a joint or two of pot. But they all left me logy. Maybe the worst danger of all to a man in my profession.

Then I discovered the Stairmaster. I now insist on hotel rooms with Stairmasters. Pricey, yes, but invaluable. An hour of hard exercise and then a cold shower leaves me not only wide awake but focused entirely on the task ahead.

I’d just stepped out of the shower when the call came that I’d been expecting.

“I guess I’m backing out.”

“Figures.”

“You don’t have to be sarcastic.”

“I’m ready to go. Guess I’ll have to find some other amusement for tonight.”

“I was just thinking to myself I’m not this kind of woman. I’m a Junior Leaguer, for God’s sake.”

“All right. I’ve got the money and I’m hanging up now.”

“I feel foolish. You must think I’m an airhead.”

“A Junior League airhead? A contradiction in terms.”

“There’s that f-ing sarcasm again.”

“Good night, Madam.”

I was just adjusting the clip-on necktie that fitted the white shirt I wore under the uniform jacket when the second call came.

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“Who is this?”

“You know damn well who this is. Now quit playing around.”

“Oh, yes, the Junior League lady.”

“I ought to hang up on you, you bastard.”

“Go ahead. It’s your turn.”

“I want you to do it.”

“I’ve already made other plans.”

“You prick. You’ve got my money and I want satisfaction. And don’t get cute with that last word.”

I checked my Rolex. If I was going to do it, I had to move fast.

“One thing,” I said.

“What?”

“I never want to hear your voice again.”

I hung up, grabbed my stun gun, and drove over to the hotel.

***

The banquet ran late. A minor celebrity sang some songs and an even more minor celebrity gave a speech about why beauty pageants were the best expression ever of true American values. If there’d been a vomitorium nearby, I would have gladly bought my ticket.

Someday when I tell this story again to a few friends of mine, I’ll fill it with a lot of intrigue and suspense. The whole stalking sequence you see in all those noir films. Close cuts of me hiding in the front of the garden area. The beautiful contestant coming out the door that leads to the garden, her mother holding her hand. Her innocently looking around. My hand tightening around my weapon of choice for this evening. Her walking briskly toward her entrance door.  And then me coming up behind her, devilishly disguised, and saying in a safe, sensible voice, “Excuse me.”

And her turning around and—

***

I’d just poured myself a drink when the phone rang in my hotel room. I picked up and said, “I thought I told you I never wanted to hear your voice again.” Nobody else it could be. Nobody else knew where I was.

“I just wanted to thank you.”

“I did my job.”

“You did a fine job. Of course, I feel terrible about it. It’s not the sort of thing I’d normally do but my daughter—” Then, “But this Tiny Tiara contest is real important to her.” I could feel rather than hear her smile on the other end of the phone. “Call me the ultimate stage mother, I guess.”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“Well, that’s nice. All I wanted to do was thank you. I mean it must’ve been weird for you throwing acid in the face of a little five-year-old girl. I’m just glad you could get through it.”

I hung up.

The local news was all over it of course. A beauty contest for five- to seven-year- old girls. A barbaric act unheard of in the history of these pageants. Police searching for a dark-haired man dressed as a bellhop. So stealing the uniform and spending the time to get just the right wig had been worth the trouble.

Sleep didn’t come easy but when it finally arrived I had an unwanted dream about screwing the woman who’d hired me. She was a lot better than I would’ve thought.

Copyright(c) 2006 by Ed Gorman

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