Thrill Kill (Matt Sinclair #2) - Brian Thiem Page 0,42
cut and let Danielle keep the rest. If Danielle got several cash-paying clients in a row, Helena would set up a meet, often for lunch, to collect the money. When they met in person, they’d talk about the work, and Helena would give her advice on how to keep her clients happy and how to keep herself safe.
“Does Helena mention specifically that she knows you’re having sex in exchange for the money?” Braddock asked.
Danielle looked at her, puzzled. “Of course she knows.”
“Yes, but does she say it, or do you say it and she acknowledges?” Braddock said.
Braddock was searching for the necessary legal elements for a pimping-and-pandering case against Helena, which required that Helena must receive money from someone knowing it came from an act of prostitution. Before the DA would charge a case, they needed to get the money transaction and acknowledgment on tape, which wasn’t easy, since some pimps—or a madam in this case—were so careful, never discussing sex with their workers.
“Sure,” Danielle said. “Helena is more of a mother figure, but she used to be a call girl herself, so she loves talking about what the men like and what I do with them.” She looked at Sinclair and pouted. “Sorry, I don’t mean to embarrass you.”
“He can handle it,” Braddock said. “What would it take for you to set up a meeting with Helena?”
“She’d meet if I had a real problem with a client.”
“That could make her suspicious,” Braddock said. “I mean if you were to tell her that Carlos got rough with you or something.”
“She’d want to meet if I collected a lot of cash.”
“What’s a lot?” Braddock asked.
“A few months back, a client paid for an overnight in cash. The next day, Helena said she wanted to meet for lunch. Guess she thought I’d spend the money.”
“How much did you have?”
“The way it works is it’s three hundred for extra hours, but we can agree to two thousand total for eight hours if we’re just sleeping with the client for most of that. So I had two grand, not including a tip he gave me.”
“Did you have to give all of it to Helena?”
“Yeah, but she just wanted to see it. Then she gave me my cut, twelve hundred.”
“If you tell her Carlos wants to do an overnight with you, will she want to meet tomorrow?”
“Maybe the next day.”
“Could you insist on tomorrow?” Braddock asked.
“It might sound weird.”
“Does a client ever ask a girl to go away for a weekend?” Sinclair asked.
“Other girls have done weekends.”
“Would that get Helena to meet with you sooner?” Sinclair asked.
“Bet it would. She’d probably want the client to pay something up front, and if he paid in cash, she probably wouldn’t want me walking around with it.”
Braddock stayed with Danielle while Sinclair, Roberts, and Cummings returned to the command post across the hall. Archard began downloading Danielle’s phone data into her computer.
She spoke to Cummings as if Roberts and Sinclair weren’t even present. “We can have Danielle send a text that says Carlos wants an overnight and already gave her two thousand in cash. In the morning, we can have her text that Carlos wants her to spend the weekend with him in Las Vegas.”
Cummings said, “That should get a response from them.”
“Are we going to let her go tonight?” Sinclair asked.
Archard ignored him and said, “As I suspected, the Find Your Phone app is installed on the girl’s phone. I’m sure the agency set it up so they can track her.”
“I wouldn’t have trusted her anyway,” said Cummings. “We’ll let the girl sleep in Sinclair’s suite tonight. With the other two agents outside, we’ll have four of us to take shifts watching her. Meanwhile, we’ll reserve a suite at a Las Vegas resort in Carlos’s name for the weekend and get everything else set up.”
“What do you want me and Braddock to do?” Sinclair asked.
“Go home,” Cummings said. “It’s good that the girl likes you, but with you around, it’ll be harder to control her.”
Sinclair was about to object, but he’d worked enough informants to know Cummings was right. “I want to be there when she meets Helena. And I get first crack at interviewing her.”
Before Cummings could object, Roberts said, “It’s only fair. Sinclair turned her, and besides, his murder case is the priority.”
“Okay,” said Cummings. “But we run the operation, and you take orders from us. Go home and get some sleep. We’ll meet here at eight in the morning.”