The Murderers (Badge of Honor 6) - Page 30
She had first practiced her profession as a freelance entrepreneur, until, inevitably, her nightly presence in the lounges of the better Center City hotels had come to the attention of the plainclothes vice officers assigned to the Inspector of Central Police Division.
Following her third conviction, which resulted in a thirty-day sentence at the House of Correction for violation of Sections 5902 (Prostitution) and 5503 (Disorderly Conduct) of the Crimes Code of Pennsylvania, she realized that she would either have to go out of business or change her method of doing business. By then, she had come to know both many of her fellow freelance practitioners of the world’s oldest profession, and several gentlemen who she correctly believed had a certain influence in certain areas in Philadelphia.
With a high degree of tact, she managed to get to meet Mr. Cassandro, and to outline her plan for the future. If it would not interfere in any way with any similar arrangement in which any of Mr. Cassandro’s friends and his associates had an interest, she believed the establishment of a very high-class escort service would fill a genuine need in Philadelphia.
Since she was unaware of how things were done in Philadelphia, and was a woman alone, she would require both advice, in such things as finding suitable legal and medical services, and protection from unsavory characters who might wish to prey upon her. She said she believed that ten percent of gross receipts would be a fair price to pay for such advice and protection.
Mr. Cassandro had told Mrs. Osadchy that he would consider the question, make certain inquiries, and get back to her.
He then sought an audience with Mr. Savarese and reported the proposal to him. After thinking it over for several days Mr. Savarese told Mr. Cassandro that he believed Mrs. Osadchy’s proposal had some merit, and that he should encourage her to cautiously proceed with it.
It was agreed between them as men of honor that Mr. Savarese would receive twenty-five percent of the ten percent of gross proceeds Mrs. Osadchy would pay to Mr. Cassandro, in payment for his counsel.
The business prospered from the start. Mrs. Osadchy chose both her work force and her clientele with great care. She also understood the absolute necessity of maintaining good relations with the administrative personnel of the hotels—not limited to security personnel—where her work force practiced their profession.
For example, if she anticipated a large volume of business from, say, a convention of attorneys, or vascular surgeons, or a like group of affluent professionals, she would engage a room (or even, for a large convention, a small suite) in the hotel for the duration of the convention. No business was conducted in the room. But between professional engagements, her work force would use it as a base of operations. This both increased efficiency and eliminated what would otherwise have been a parade of unaccompanied attractive young women marching back and forth through the hotel lobby.
And Mrs. Osadchy was of course wise enough to be scrupulously honest when it came to making the weekly payments of ten percent of gross income to Mr. Cassandro.
For his part, Mr. Cassandro introduced Mrs. Osadchy to several attorneys and physicians who could be relied upon to meet the needs of Mrs. Osadchy and her work force with both efficacy and confidentiality. And, more important, he let the word get out that Mrs. Osadchy was a very good friend of his, and thus entitled to a certain degree of respect. An insult to her would be considered an insult to him.
It was a smooth-running operation, and everybody had been happy with it.
And now this fucking cop was getting greedy, which could fuck everything up, and was moreover a personal embarrassment to Mr. Cassandro, who had not liked having to go to Mr. Savarese with the problem.
I should have known, when he started wanting to help himself to the hookers, Mr. Cassandro thought angrily, that this sonofabitch was going to cause me trouble.
He’s a real sleazeball, and now it’s starting to show. And cause me trouble.
What I have to remember, because I keep forgetting it, is that Lieutenant Seymour Meyer is a cop, a cop on the take, and not a businessman, and consequently can be expected to act like an asshole.
When Mr. Cassandro left Mr. Savarese in the Ristorante Alfredo, instead of getting into the car that was waiting for him outside, he walked to the Benjamin Franklin Hotel on Chestnut Street and entered a pay telephone booth in the lobby.
He telephoned to Mrs. Harriet Osadchy and told her that he was working on their problem, that he had been given permission to deal with it.
“I’m really glad to hear that,” Mrs. Osadchy replied. “He’s really getting obnoxious.”
“Financially speaking, you mean?” Mr. Cassandro asked, laughing. “Or generally speaking?”
“He called up about an hour ago, and asked what the room number was at the Bellvue. So I told him. And then he said the reason he wanted to know was because it was a slow night, and he was a little bored, so why didn’t I send Marianne over there, so they could have a little party.”
“He’s a real shit, Harriet,” Mr. Cassandro sympathized.
“It’s not just the money that he don’t pay the girls and I have to. He’s a sicko with the girls. I had a hard time making Marianne go.”
“He’s a real shit,” Mr. Cassandro repeated, and then he had a pleasant thought. “Harriet, why don’t you call over there?”
“What?”
“Tell her to keep him there. I want to talk to him. That’s as good a place as any.”
“I’ll call her,” Harriet said dubiously. “But I don’t want her involved in anything, Paulo.”
“Trust me, Harriet,” Mr. Cassandro said, and hung up.
Detective Matt Payne turned off the Parkway into the curved drive of a luxury apartment building and stopped with a squeal of tires right in front of the door. The uniformed doorman standing inside looked at him in annoyance.The car was a silver Porsche 911. It had been Matt’s graduation present, three years before, when he had finished his undergraduate studies, cum laude, at the University of Pennsylvania.
Miss Penelope Detweiler, who was his fiancée in everything but formal announcement and ring-on-her-finger, frequently accused him, with some justification, of showering far more attention on it than he did on her.
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