The Anonymous Man Read online

  Jerry swallowed. With her so closely resembling Holly, meeting her seemed something meant to be and that he needed to do. And arranging it seemed so easy. All he had to do was call the number in the ad, set up an appointment, an “outcall,” at the house. Exotic, exciting, pleasurable. Jade. No one would ever have to know, not Jeff, and certainly not Holly. Jerry got hard just thinking about it.

  He had brought the pre-paid cell phone to the restaurant, but using it for such a call would be dangerous, stupid. In the lobby of the diner, he had noticed a phone stall, perhaps one of the few left in existence. He had plenty of quarters, and could place the call from there. See if he could reach her directly or simply leave a message giving out his address and inviting “Jade” to come over that night. It was Thursday, so how busy could she be.

  After several moments of indecision sitting in the car, Jerry finally decided to just go ahead and do it. He opened the driver’s door and hurried back into the lobby of the family diner. He stood for a time at the pay phone with the Tri-Cities Arts and Leisure under his right arm, immobilized again with indecision. What if the ad was a fake and Jade was a cop? That would be the end of everything. All over the prospect of a night of cheap sex with a sleazy whore.

  A departing customer edged past Jerry as he opened the weekly and flipped to Jade’s ad. He dug some quarters out of his jacket pocket, splashed them onto the sill of the phone stall, picked one up and placed it the coin slot. After another sigh, he punched in the number given by the ad. Jerry sucked in his stomach as the phone rang four times before a voice mail message clicked on – a slow, sultry voice: “Hello, can’t take the call right now. At the tone, leave a number where I can reach you.” There was a beep, then silence. Jerry was caught unprepared and quickly hung up the receiver, losing the quarter.

  “Shit,” he muttered and looked up inside the diner. The bird skinny old hag of a waitress standing at the cash register gave him a scowl wondering why a customer who left fifteen minutes ago was loitering in the cramped lobby like a homeless panhandler. Jerry ignored her and stood there for a time considering a decent message to leave for Jade—a name (“Tom”), that he’d be free for a date any time after nine that night, and, then give the address of his apartment in Endicott since, of course, he didn’t dare leave a number. He’d also tell her he had just moved in and didn’t have a phone turned on as of yet, and she would just have to trust him and show up if she wanted some action that night. Or something like that. Then, after another breath, he punched in Jade’s number again.

  This time, someone answered.

  “Hello?” said the voice, a sultry whisper, like the voice mail message only this time, it was real, live. When Jerry didn’t respond right away, the voice chided, “Hell—Low?”

  “I, um,” he mumbled, “I—I was calling about the ad. The ad for Jade.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Is—is this Jade?”

  “Yes, hon, you got Jade.”

  Jerry looked down at the ad, saw the word “hiring.” “You, ah, hiring?”

  “What?”

  “You know. Available?”

  “Sure. When, hon?”

  “Huh?”

  The operator came on and stated his thirty seconds were up, he needed to deposit another fifty cents.

  “You calling from a pay phone?”

  “Yes,” Jerry said, and fumbled with some difficulty and panic to pick up two more quarters and placed them into the slot. “Yes.”

  “What time you need me?” she asked when the line was free again.

  “Tonight?” he said. “Around nine?”

  “Where?”

  “My house.” Jerry gave the address.

  She paused a moment, maybe she was writing it down. “Okay,” she said. “See you at nine. Put your donation in an envelope on your kitchen table so I can see it when I walk in. Two hundred.”

  Jerry gulped. He was actually doing this and thought momentarily of Holly. Cheating on her. Nevertheless, he found himself saying: “Oh–oh–okay.”

  “See you at nine, hon,” she said with an expectant attitude.

  “Yeah,” Jerry said. “Nine.”

  And she hung up.

  Chapter Fourteen

  At about eight o’clock, after a long hot shower, Jerry put on one of his brand new extra-large sweat suits that would hide the blubber around his waist. He went over to the dresser and pulled out the manila envelope stuck under his white athletic socks containing the fifty-one hundred dollar bills Jeff had given him that was supposed to tide him over until the insurance money came in. He took out two of the bills for the fee Jade had quoted for her services and slid them into a small white envelope which he then placed on the kitchen table, as she had directed.

  For the next hour or so after that, he alternated between sitting and watching TV and pacing the apartment, driven to distraction in anticipation of Jade’s arrival. Of course, there were feelings of guilt muddling his resolve and urging him to call it off. But his biological yearnings won out and, despite the guilt, he could not resist letting it happen. A woman was coming over to his lonely house for the sole purpose of giving him sexual pleasure. A woman who looked uncannily like Holly, the woman he loved, or thought he loved. And with Jade, there were no strings attached, just the exchange of a two crisp one-hundred dollar bills. At long last, he decided to just go with the flow. Let it happen.

  Finally, at nine, at least according to the cheap battery-operated clock he had hung some weeks ago on the wall of the kitchen, Jerry went to the kitchen window and tried to look out at the street, but it was dark and the angle was bad so he had no idea whether this or that car that passed was her.

  At ten minutes after nine, a car pulled up and parked in front of the house. After another minute, out she came, a girl looking to be in her early twenties, of medium height and slim build, attractive, with short dirty blonde hair. The advertised Jade. She was wearing gaudy pumps that made it difficult for her to walk. A moment later, the doorbell rang and Jerry went over to it to let her in. The car remained parked in front of the house on the narrow street.

  Jerry opened the front door and looked at Jade, then just stood there, gawking.

  “You, Tom?” she asked in that sultry voice. “You called for me?”

  Jerry stuttered a moment but was finally able to admit yes, he was “Tom.”

  “What you looking at, hon?” she asked. Jade gave him a wide, friendly smile. “You gonna let me in?”

  Jade didn’t know, of course, that what was distracting Jerry was how closely she resembled Holly. Her photograph in the escort ad of the Tri-Cities Art and Leisure had not done that resemblance justice. Not only could she be Holly’s twin, but it also appeared she really was. She had Holly’s same short blonde hair, small, Scandinavian features, pert little nose, smallish forehead, and those intense, determined brown eyes.

  “Y–y–you look like someone,” Jerry said. “A–a girl I know.”

  “Well, I hope a girl,” Jade laughed. “Your wife? Girlfriend?” Jerry shrugged then stepped aside and let her in.

  “No,” he said. “Just, just some girl.”

  She followed him into the living room. Jerry turned and stepped toward Jade in the darkness. Seeing his wife in her eyes, Jerry found himself kissing Jade long and deep. She let him, of course, casually and completely, letting it last, giving back to him a full measure of her wet and active tongue in the process, as if she was Holly, as if she had known him for many years, as if she was his wife. Then, her right hand went down to his crotch and rubbed him there.

  Jerry backed off, gasping, suddenly unsure, and looked at her.

  Her grin was as seductive and sweet as Holly’s had been the first time they had kissed, and Jerry was caught up in the memory of that night as if it was only yesterday. Jade paused a few moments, letting whatever dream he was into dissolve into the reality of just her, an escort, standing before him.

  Then, looking around, she asked, “You got the donation, hon?�
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  Jerry nodded to the kitchen. “It’s in there,” he said. “On the kitchen table.”

  She walked to the doorway and looked into the kitchen, saw the envelope on the table.

  “Two hundred?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded. “You got a bedroom, hon,” she asked, “or you wanna do it right here on the floor?”

  “I thought you’d want to count it first.”

  “I trust you, honey,” she said. “You look sincere.”

  Smiling, Jerry took her by the hand and led her to down a short, narrow hallway to the back of the apartment, to his bedroom. Jade completely took over, which was not unlike Holly. She pushed him onto the bed and went about expertly stripping off Jerry’s sweat suit and underwear. But Jade didn’t seem to mind the mound of his belly nor the frumpy roll of his shoulders and arms.

  “You like getting sucked?”

  “S–sure,” he stuttered.

  She smiled, then knelt down and leaned forward and started. After bringing him close to orgasm several times in the next five minutes or so, she pushed him onto the bed and ended up on top of him. In the next indeterminable minutes, Jerry got all his two hundred dollars’ worth and then some.

  Afterward, Jade rolled over and cuddled close next to him. “That okay, hon?” she asked.

  “It was great,” he gasped. She laughed.

  “Was it okay for you?” Jerry asked, meaning it.

  “Sure, hon.”

  They laid in silence for a time staring up at the grimy white ceiling. Finally, he turned onto his side and facing her, put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him, seeing Holly in her every gesture and expression. Jade didn’t resist the display of tenderness on his part. Even whores had feelings, he guessed. He wondered if they ever fell in love with their tricks.

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “Twenty-three,” she said, and though she looked younger, Jerry had no reason to doubt it.

  “You?”

  “Thirty,” he said.

  “You want to do this again sometime, hon?” Jade asked. “Become one of my regulars?”

  She let him move his hand down to her crotch. But after about half a minute, she moved his hand away.

  “I could handle that,” he told her. “When you gonna be free again?”

  “Not until the week after next,” Jade said. “I’m meeting a friend up in Albany. We do some tricks up there sometimes.” She shrugged. “Then, from there, me and my friend are flying down to Florida.” She laughed momentarily. “Taking a vacation in Orlando – Disney World.”

  “Nice,” Jerry said, thinking that even whores deserved vacations.

  “It’s my favorite place in the world,” she added.

  Suddenly the girl wiggled out of his arms and jumped out of bed, got dressed. Only forty minutes of the hour had been used up, but Jerry didn’t protest. He was spent physically and emotionally from the sex and the shock of seeing so much of Holly in her.

  Fully dressed and looking sexy in her tight jeans and low cut top, Jade glanced down at him laying helplessly before her in his bed and asked why he spent so much time looking funny at her. Did he have a problem with her face or something?

  He laughed and assured her it was only because she reminded him of somebody.

  “Must be your ex.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your ex-wife.”

  He shrugged, unsure how to answer that. Instead, he asked, “You really got to go?”

  She gave him an odd look.

  “How much for you to stay the night?” he asked. “Be my bed-mate?”

  “The night?” Jade asked. “You mean as in a sleep over?”

  “Yeah,” he said and rubbed his flabby belly under the sheets.

  “A sleep over.”

  She had to think a minute. No one had ever proposed such a thing before.

  “Another four hundred,” she said flatly, though the figure was certainly arbitrary. In the next moment, she blurted: “No, four-fifty.”

  Jerry told her it was a deal. He would have paid even more for the privilege of having Holly’s look-a-like sleep next to him that night, and maybe screw her again sometime in the middle of it, just like he and Holly used to do way back when in the first few months of their love affair, back in college, and even the first few months after they were married.

  “You gotta show me the money before I can go down and tell Luke that he can leave,” she said. “Another four-fifty.”

  Jerry got out of bed and fished around his dresser for the money, found five crisp hundreds and showed them to her. The thought popped in the back of his mind that Jeff would be furious with him for wasting his money this way on a whore.

  Smirking in that crooked, suggestive way that so reminded Jerry of Holly, Jade sat on the edge of the bed and counted out the bills herself—one, two, three, four, five.

  “Hey, there’s five hundred here. I said four-fifty.” Jerry smiled at her and stroked her back.

  “I got no fifties,” he said. “And to have you overnight, like my wife or something, is worth five.”

  Jade smiled back at him. He was so different from most of the other gruff johns, who couldn’t be rid of her fast enough after they came or sometimes tried to beat her up.

  “Okay, I have to go down and tell Luke. Be right back. Why don’t you get back into bed and keep it warm for me; okay?”

  Jerry nodded and let her go. He did as she asked and got back into bed, pulling the covers on top of him. For the next minute or so, he feared she wouldn’t return, that he’d been scammed. But then he heard her let herself back into the house. Jerry almost burst with happiness when she entered and started stripping off her clothes.

  In bed, after cuddling up next to him, she asked: “You got a real name?”

  “No,” he told her flatly, leaving that issue non-negotiable.

  That made Jade pause, but she did not press him on it. In the next moment, he was gently snoring next to her. Jade decided to let him sleep for a while. She was tired too, but it was only just past ten o’clock, the time of night she was first going out to meet her johns. Now, she was going to sleep early just like a married woman.

  But she only let him sleep for a little while. After about ten minutes, she woke him up and gave him a nice surprise.

  Certainly, not like any wife he ever had, or ever would, she laughed to herself. But after a moment, she frowned, wondering why she was thinking about being somebody’s wife.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Fox saw much of the same the second night of his stakeout of Jerry Shaw’s former residence. This time, he brought a zoom digital recorder to record the event.

  Just like yesterday evening, the slick Jeffrey Flaherty arrived in his silver Lexus at around eight. He parked it in almost the same location on the street as the night before, a couple houses down from the Shaw residence. After inspecting his wavy hair framing a square-jawed face and bedroom eyes in the rear-view mirror, Flaherty strode straight up to the front door. This time, after opening the door a foot or so, Fox saw through the lens of the digital recorder the insured’s widow greeting Flaherty wearing a skimpy lavender negligee and flashing a crooked, suggestive smile. Flaherty stepped into the house and the door shut.

  If there was any doubt what the two-hour visit last night was all about, tonight’s meeting resolved that. Simply put, Flaherty was banging Mrs. Shaw. However, Fox had no way of knowing how long he had been doing so—before or since Jerry Shaw’s unfortunate demise? Should he be able to find out that it had been going on for a time before Mr. Shaw’s death, that might lead to some other conclusions. It would, if nothing else, provide a potential motive for his murder. Thus, it became important to find out how long Jeff Flaherty and Mrs. Shaw had been carrying on. Fox knew that they worked at the same law firm, and therefore, there existed at very least the opportunity for their affair to have blossomed long before Jerry Shaw’s death. But Fox also knew that he was getting way ahead of hi
mself in proving that an affair between Jeff Flaherty and Holly Shaw had been the catalyst for Jerry Shaw’s death. Still, the idea intrigued him. It fit all too well his idea of human treachery.

  The obvious hypothesis, of course, without a single, corroborative shred of proof to back it up, as Fox freely acknowledged at the time—except for the posthumous affair between Flaherty and the widow Shaw—was that they had conspired to kill the insured for the life insurance money and either fell in love before, during or after hatching the plot. No shit. You didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that. What Global Life needed was for him, as their Mr. Holmes, to come up with incriminating evidence of it, a statement, something. But for the moment, Fox had nothing but conjecture, or “bare speculation,” as Chief Reynolds would have called it with a disapproving scowl.

  Toward nine o’clock that night, about an hour or so after Flaherty’s arrival, Fox left the homey and safe comfort of his rental car and snuck around to the back of the Shaw house for the purpose of eavesdropping on whatever Flaherty and the widow Shaw were up to in the master bedroom on the second floor (to where they surely had retired). But after standing directly beneath the darkened window of that bedroom for at least half an hour, shivering in the chilly late October night, just a few days short of Halloween, and hearing nothing save an occasional exchange of muffled voices, and with a growing ache in his kidneys from having to take a wicked piss, Fox decided to abandon the effort. He needed a better vantage point anyway, somewhere he could overhear more than incriminating grunts. He needed statements out of their respective mouths about the deed he suspected them of committing.

  Fox finally retraced his steps to the car. He gently closed the driver’s side door and held himself a moment to regain his warmth. He started the car and drove off to the Noco station and took a long, delightful piss in the public bathroom. On the way out, he bought a Kit-Kat bar and returned to Northview Drive. Flaherty’s Lexus was still there. Fox decided to take a new spot, three houses down. Finally, an hour and a half later, just past eleven, Flaherty emerged from the Shaw house and sauntered to his Lexus and drove off.