Saz had already sold her ninth bottle of champagne by the time Mr James came in on Friday night – no mean feat for three hours of work with bottles of champagne selling for a minimum $200 a bottle. It was her second night and the first time that Mr James had come to check up on her. He’d employed her almost at once – apparently believing her story that she was a traveller who needed a bit of extra money before moving on again in a couple of weeks’ time. He seemed to have no trouble believing that the woman from Ohio would have given Saz his address – said he often found his employees that way. Best of all he didn’t seem to recognise her from Monday afternoon at all – though the fact that Saz’s blue black bob was now pure peroxide probably had something to do with it. He said he liked her English accent, he loosened his soft silk tie, he didn’t mind taking girls on for “holiday work”, he asked her what she’d like to drink and told her that if she was any good at it he’d be happy to have her back next time she was in New York. Saz said she never drank at work, then he told her a few basic rules and left her to get on with it. It was simple. So far.
The other girls had shown her the ropes. How to talk to the New York businessmen like an intelligent bimbo – that is, always understanding what they were talking about, but never knowing more about it than them. How to spot the ones who wanted more than just champagne and cards – and how to fend them off politely. Finally and most importantly, though the least lucrative – how to deal with the ones who actually brought their wives or mistresses with them – act like a waitress.
Saz, well practised in lying and quick witted, took to it like a debutante to champagne. She’d been relieved when James had told her that he positively demanded a “friendly but celibate interaction between members and staff”. And when she checked it out with the other staff she’d found that he actually meant it – a girl had been fired in the summer for having an affair with one of the members – and no, she didn’t have an English accent. The rates of pay weren’t great – a mere $90 for a six day week, or just $12 a day if you couldn’t make all six – but then the tips were outrageous – one man had given her a $100 note for directing him to the bathroom, another gave her $50 for helping him on with his coat, and there was also a $20 commission to be made on each bottle of champagne sold. In two nights Saz had made over $600, what with that and the money owing from John Clark, she’d be able to afford half a dozen answerphones.
She was just starting to get into the swing of things, playing the gamblers off against each other, laughing at their unwillingness to buy more drinks when Mr James called her from the door,
“September, can I have a word?”
She’d frozen a little when he first said he thought she should be called September – she’d told him her name was Mary but he didn’t want to check it out. He wasn’t interested in references or the fake ID Saz had spent Wednesday arranging. “September” seemed a little too close for comfort, but then she remembered it was only she who’d called the missing woman September, Charlie had called her June and of the five other girls she’d met, only one remembered an Englishwoman and she had called her April, “because she was English and England always makes me think of spring – you know, like the Romantic poets?”
Saz chose not to tell her about T.S. Eliot and the dead land lilacs.
Actually, the other girls had been extraordinarily unhelpful. Not because they didn’t want to talk, gossip was their mainstay, but because it seemed like hardly anyone worked every one of their six nights per week, and anyway, most of them hadn’t been at Calendar Girls longer than six months. The turnover was fast, most of the girls were doing the work because it could pay well – cash in hand and no question of needing a green card – and, as Saz was finding out, it wasn’t even too difficult. Most of them seemed to keep a friendly distance from Mr James, either because they were scared of him or he was just disinterested – Saz had yet to find out. What did seem to be well known was that he was singularly uninterested in American women, and that if he ever did date any of the girls it was always those from “elsewhere” – Europe, England, Asia – definitely not those just arrived in town from the West Coast. True, most of the women admitted that he was attractive, but then most of the women were also in the work solely for the money and very glad to get out the door as soon as their shifts ended.
She pocketed her receipt for another sale of champagne and made two mental notes – one, now that she knew September might have been faking her appearance, she’d have to go back and check all the other women she’d eliminated because of wrong hair or eye colour – another forty at least, and two, if September could earn so much doing this four times a year why had she needed John Clark’s money? The thought of the first September broke her daydream and Saz crossed the room to where James was waiting.
“I just thought I’d check how you’re getting on, come in to my office and we’ll have a chat.”
Saz followed him into the room. It was pretty much the blueprint office of any successful businessman – padded leather couch, polished mahogany table, full drinks cabinet, a few tasteful prints and very little that actually looked like it could function in a working office other than the imposing desk where Mr James now took a seat. The kind of desk Saz just wished that the over-officious Colleen from the Enterprise Allowance office could see her sitting behind. He motioned her to sit down opposite him.
“Well, September, you seem to be doing very well indeed.”
Saz put on her friendly, slightly stupid face.
“Yeah, thanks Mr James. To tell the truth I’m enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would.”
“You thought you wouldn’t like it?”
“No, not that, I just didn’t know if I’d be any good at it, but it’s quite fun really.”
“Have you given any thought to how long you’ll be staying with us then?”
“Oh, well, as I told you, I do plan to move on in a week or so …”
“Once you’ve got what you came for?”
Saz was startled out of her dippy persona.
“Sorry?”
“What you came for – building up the bank balance. Adding to the travel fund?”
Her pulse slowly descended to its usual rate.
“Oh, yes. Building up the bank balance. Right.”
James got up and went over to the drinks cabinet.
“English. Now let me see – gin and tonic?”
“Um, oh all right, yes, I’ll make an exception this one time – please.”
“Never did know an English girl to refuse a gin!” He smarmed and handed her the glass.
“Have you been travelling long?”
“A few months.”
“I guess your funds must be pretty low then huh?”
“Well, yes, but this seems to be doing the trick.”
“You’re very good at the job you know September, you could stay on longer if you wanted. Or come back maybe, in a few months.”
“Well, yes, I suppose I could.”
She took another gamble, thinking of what Charlie had told her about the other September’s work habits.
“I mean, I love New York. It would be wonderful to be able to come back three or four times a year.”
“Become one of my regulars, you mean?”
James was smiling now, looking more relaxed.
“Yes, I suppose I do.”
Saz smiled back at him, trusting this tall, extremely good-looking man less and less with every sip of her too-strong gin.
“Well, we’ll see what we can do, yeah September? Time you got back to work now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“And that’s all he said?” Caroline muttered, valiantly trying to stay awake while Saz changed and told her the story of her evening’s work.
“That’s it. I’ve got three theories now. Wanna hear them?”
“Do I have any choice? You might as well tell me, you’re only going to keep me awake all night trying to work it out in your head if you don’t say them out loud.”
“OK. Theory Number One – he’s running a drugs ring and is going to ask me to take a … a CD of Neil Sedaka’s ‘Calendar Girl’ back to London for a friend, but actually it’s really a cleverly disguised stash of cocaine.”
“Some drugs ring. The amount of coke he’d fit into a CD is hardly going to make him Mr Big of the Underworld!”
“Well, we’ll know when the time comes for him to give me my going away present won’t we? Stop interrupting. Theory Number Two – he’s a member of the mafia …”
“With a name like Simon James? Shouldn’t he be called Riccardo or Giorgio?”
“Right, he’d really name himself after a perfume! James is just a pseudonym. And the gambling tables are a cleverly disguised way of laundering stolen funds.”
“Marginally more possible. But unlikely given just how drunk you’ve told me the gamblers get. However if it is the case then I think you’d better leave New York now and never come back! You may be my ex-lover, but an ex-lover with a concrete overcoat, I don’t need!”
“Don’t you mean concrete boots?”
“Not once you’ve spent the winter in New York you don’t. Theory Number Three?”
“I’m not sure, I don’t have it clear in my head yet, but I think it’s something else. Something to do with the wigs and the pretence and the falsity. I think maybe September enjoyed the game of it.”
“Oh please! She’d come all this way just for the fantasy? Hell, she could get that in Streatham for a tube fare.”
“Not any more she couldn’t. Anyway, I do.”
“Do what?”
“Enjoy the role playing. I quite like it. New hair, new name. It’s exciting.”
“Yeah, but lying’s part of what you do for a living.”
“Thanks, you put it so nicely. Well, maybe she was a frustrated actress. Maybe that’s the only reason she did it.”
“Right. That and the money.”
“Oh yeah, the money. Well maybe she’s just a con-artist. Conning drunks to buy champagne and conning John Clark to give her all his money. Perhaps she’s the baddie after all.”
“You think so?”
“I don’t know. Everything else just seems so extreme. I know Calendar Girls sounds like something out of a movie, but actually all the girls are really nice, and it’s not as if we don’t know plenty of women in London who’ve paid their way by hostessing.”
“Yeah Saz, only most of them were gay.”
“Who’s to say September isn’t? John Clark said they were ‘friends’ – he was very clear on that. And I believe him – I don’t think he’s the type to have an affair …”
“What’s ‘the type’?”
“You are Carrie, remember? Now shut up and listen. So we assume she wasn’t shagging Mr Clark and though I don’t like James, that’s more because he’s just one of those slimy arrogant men, than because he might be … whatever he might be. But none of the girls would seriously consider having an affair with him – the odd fling maybe, but he certainly isn’t take home to your mother material. All the same, I think he is exactly what he seems …”
“And what’s that?”
“A slightly nasty, definitely shady bloke, who’s involved in something which is bigger than just the facade of ‘Calendar Girls’ – but that’s all. It’s not as if we haven’t come across similar set-ups back home.”
“Yeah sweetheart, but neither of us have ever actually worked in them.”
“I know, but you know what they’re like, you’ve heard the stories – it’s bound to be to do with gambling or drugs or whatever … but despite everything, the strangest person here is still September herself right? The woman who comes over here regularly from London, who has dinner with John Clark and who no-one seems to be able to put a name to. So the answer must lie with her. I still need to get closer to her.”
“Check his records.”
“CDs?”
“No! Records stupid! He must have personnel records. Go through them. See what he’s got on her.”
“Well how do I do that?”
“Oh for God’s sake Saz, you’re the ‘detective’ here, remember? How on earth did you persuade them to give you that Enterprise Allowance?”
“Told them there was a lot of debt collection work in south-east London. Funnily enough, they believed me. What’s that got to do with it?”
“Well you’ll have to get access to his files somehow – I don’t know, break in, scale the drainpipe, bribe the cleaner, marry the owner … do some detecting!”
“I hate all that climbing through windows in the middle of the night shit.”
“When have you ever done it?”
“I haven’t, I just hate the idea.”
“Then walk through the door in broad daylight – which I might point out, is only a few hours away and some of us have creative work to do tomorrow – go to sleep.”
“OK, sorry. Goodnight.”
Saz turned out the light and thought for a while as she watched the lights from the cars in the street play with the shadows on the ceiling.
“Yes? What?”
“Do they deal in microfilm at that college of yours?”
“Microfilm?”
“Yeah, you know, like in the movies?”
“Oh Lordy! I’ll find out. I suppose you’d need a micro camera too?”
“I guess so. Do you think they do exist in real life, now that the Kremlin’s dead?”
“Sweetheart – this is America – the Iron Curtain may be dead but the FBI and the CIA are alive and kicking. I expect we can find you some secondhand spy equipment from somewhere.”
“How exciting!”
“Yeah. Just don’t get caught! How are you going to get hold of his files anyway?”
“I don’t know. I’ll dream on it and then work it out when I go for my run tomorrow. Something will come up. Something always comes up.”
“Yeah, like daybreak – shut up!”
“OK. Goodnight sidekick.”
“See you in the morning gumshoe.”