57 #StreetWise

Haye called the number Stephanie Cooper had given him from her driveway, two hours after he first arrived. That was a long ten minutes, he thought to himself, before a female’s voice answered the phone.

‘Is that Lindy Del-war?’ Haye asked, not sure how to say her surname.

‘It’s pronounced, “Del Wha”. And it depends who’s looking for her,’ came the response. Lindy sounded streetwise.

‘Someone with a thousand dollars to spare,’ Haye replied coolly.

Lindy’s demeanour instantly changed. ‘Well, that’s my kinda language. How can I help you?’

‘I have two hours to kill before my next meeting and need a lie-down. I was hoping you could lie with me?’ Haye asked.

‘Well, you can lie down if you want, and I’ll do the rest,’ Lindy giggled.

Haye gave his own apartment’s address, assuring Lindy, ‘Don’t worry, I’m divorced. I live alone. Can you be there in half an hour?’

‘Oh I’m there, honey. But money up front, okay? No money, no touchy,’ said a woman who had clearly been stung before. Her demands also suggested that she would be alone. Moonlighting, without telling her lover, as Stephanie Cooper had said.

‘I can’t wait, Lindy. See you then,’ Haye said, before phoning the captain. He hoped tracking down the hooker would divert attention from the fact he had slipped off the radar for the entire morning.

He drove back to town, mulling over Stephanie Cooper’s business offer. She wanted Haye as her new ‘eyes and ears’ to keep vice off her back. She had even come up with a plausible explanation: ‘Tell them I’m your snitch. We’ll throw them a name or two every now and then. A bail jumper who turns up looking for a girl. That’s what Coops used to do.’ Haye was beginning to wonder if the brothel madam had another agenda when she slept with him – after all, in her line of business, there’s no such thing as a freebie.

Twenty minutes later, Haye was waiting for Lindy in his first-floor apartment. He watched at the window as a cab pulled up and a pair of high heels and long legs exited first, followed by the woman he recognised from the hotel CCTV – Stephanie Cooper had come up trumps. Lindy Delwar rang the buzzer and Haye let her in. She looked stunning and although in her mid-twenties, she could pass for being in her teens. Haye thought it was no wonder she could charge top dollar.

Lindy was all business. ‘The money first, please.’

‘What about these,’ Haye said, producing a pair of handcuffs.

‘We can do the kinky stuff later. Money first or I walk, mister,’ Lindy replied, with the penny clearly failing to drop.

‘How about I give you a lift downtown,’ Haye grinned.

Lindy’s smile vanished as she realised she’d been well and truly busted. ‘Oh no, Coops is gonna kill me.’