Chapter 12

The dog days of summer had set in. The official high temperature – you could just ask Rita the weather girl – had hit at least 100 degrees for seventeen days in a row. We put a pause on our weekly Friday lunches because we preferred spending time by the pool, skinny dipping and sunning ourselves. This week, Friday clocked in the night before Houston’s first preseason football game, which was at home. Like the previous year, the first football party would follow. I liked to think of it as a kind of training camp for whores.

We had finished a very light lunch of excellent takeout sushi, and Kat and Rita indulged in their newest favorite activity, smoking weed out of our hookah. The one at the Hooker House had become extremely popular, and the girls wanted one at home, too.

“The mint shisha with the indica weed?” Rita said. “Oh my god. This is heaven. My favorite high, no contest.”

“Better than coke?” I said, peering over my sunglasses as Rita’s breasts stood up proudly as she leaned back to take a hit from the long hose of the hookah.

She looked at me while she held the smoke, then, while exhaling a minty-acrid cloud, said, “No. Nothing beats cocaine, John. You know that.”

Rita flashed her best smile and passed the hose to Kat. She had switched out her plain white gold nipple barbells for new platinum ones with diamond studs at either end. They were gorgeous. She took a deep inhale and held it in her lungs like a professional.

“More indica next time,” Kat said. “I like the mint, but it’s a little overpowering.”

“When is Jess coming home?” Rita asked.

“Soon,” I said. “She texted about ten minutes ago that she was wrapping up. I’m guessing within half an hour.”

“Any luck finding a new girl?” Kat asked.

“I think she has one,” I said. “Finally. After eight interviews.”

“What’s been the problem?” Rita asked.

“From what she told me,” Kat said, “it sounds like some of these girls were expecting not to be very service oriented.”

“Where has she been finding them mostly?” Rita followed up.

“Referrals from the other girls, but,” Kat said and paused. “But maybe they’ve gotten a little isolated. They don’t have as big a network of friends outside the house.”

“Is there anything we can do to help her?” I offered.

“She could let Nicole loose,” Kat said. “I mean, if anyone knows a fucking hoe, that bitch does.”

Rita and I laughed briefly, but Kat looked at us seriously.

“I’m not joking,” Kat said. “Nicole should be her talent scout.”

“Why don’t you tell Jess that?” I suggested.

“Maybe I will,” she said.

We had finished talking and resumed hitting the hookah, when Jess marched onto the patio. She looked stunning in a high-slitted yellow summer dress and pink sunglasses.

“Welcome home, darling,” I said, getting up and greeting her with a kiss.

“I’m so done with work for this week,” she said. “I need to get high.”

We let her take a couple rips from the hookah, and she sat down, lowering her initial energy level.

“I hear you got a new girl,” I said.

“I do,” Jess nodded. “A good one. If she passes your test. Can you do it tomorrow?”

“Sure,” I said. “Just let me check with my girlfriends.”

The girls laughed.

“If she’s good, we can have her work the party,” Jess said. “Johnny and Bryce said it might be a little bigger crowd. I wasn’t anticipating that.”

“I thought you were done with work?” Rita said.

“A whore’s job is never done, babe,” Jess said and smiled. “Oh! And who sent those flowers out front?”

“What flowers?” Kat and Rita said in tandem.

“Jinx,” Rita said.

“No, I mean, seriously,” Jess said. “There are a ton of bud vases on the front porch. There’s one red rose in each of them.”

“What?” I asked.

We all stood up and walked inside. I grabbed robes for Kat and Rita, who put them on as we descended on the front door. Jess opened it. And we saw it. The front porch was covered in bud vases, each containing a red rose.

“How many are there?” Kat said.

We stood silent initially. Jess found a card attached to a vase near the center.

“There are a hundred,” Rita said. “A hundred.”

“Um, all of you should hear this,” Jess said. She held up the card and began to read the poem printed on it. “You think you are immune to the powers that be. The fates who say that you are meant for me. You try to hide, forever deny, that you are mine. Until the day you die. You don’t understand the bond we share. How forever more, I will strip you bare.”

We looked at each other. Then Kat got a scared look on her face.

“Do you see it?” she asked.

“What?” I asked.

“The shape,” she said. “Of the vases.”

“I don’t get it,” Rita said.

“They’re in the shape of a heart,” Kat said.

“This is fucked up,” Jess said.

“Okay, let’s just calm down,” I said. “We have security cameras. We can see what this is all about. It’s probably a joke.”

“John,” Rita said, her voice shaky. “I don’t think it’s a joke.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Remember when I got those flowers a while back?” she said.

“Yeah, of course,” I said.

“Remember when I said we could talk about it later?” she continued.

I nodded.

“A few years ago, I guess it wasn’t long after Kat left the station,” Rita said, “I had a stalker.”

“You did?” Kat said, concern in her voice.

“Yeah,” she said. “I mean, it wasn’t a huge deal, but it escalated, and the security people at the station had to put me kind of on lockdown. They never found the guy, and one day it just stopped. After a while, I never thought about it again until, well, the flowers.”

“I’m going to check the footage, okay?” I said, trying to take control. “We’re going to figure this out.”

It was easy to zero in on the flower delivery. The content was the difficult part. A silver Toyota Camry had pulled into the driveway about thirty minutes earlier. It had no front license plate. The driver got out and walked straight to the security camera’s perch near the front door. He – I presumed it was he – waved. We couldn’t tell who he was. He wore hospital scrubs, a hair net, and a surgical mask. Over the course of eight minutes, he placed the hundred bud vases of red roses in a meticulous heart shape on our front porch. When he finished, he looked at the camera again and drove away. The license plate on the back of the car was covered.