"Interesting and very good. This will probably ensure that you aren't going to spend much time with the cops. Jack can certainly use these. Did either of them get a shot off?"
"No," Cole told him.
Jim nodded in a way that let Nicole know he already guessed that this was the case. "Well, when you get outside with these things, I want you to pump a round out of each of them and you were the one who took these things off the corpses, not Brian."
"Got it," Cole agreed.
CHAPTER SIX
Jim set the bag forward to the edge of the desk in front of Cole and then turned thoughtful again as his focus came over to Nicole. His gaze felt like it had weight and she tried to sit a little straighter. "Let's return to the email I got offering the overly-done reward."
"I've already notified the men in my club, the ones who do a bit of bounty hunting in underworld affairs, that you are an internal matter for now and that you are under the protection of Cole.
"Cole is a good man, but you already know that part. He carries an impressive amount of respect around, handed to him by most of the members of our club and myself. So, for now, no one from this club is going to be looking to cash you in, but the note also mentioned that you took something from Gabriel when you left.
"He was very vague about what the missing something might be, but from the looks of you, I would guess it was his heart."
Nicole studied him and then said, "He doesn't have a heart. It's a birth defect."
"Rendering him all the more unpredictable in situations like this. Why are you so important to him?"
"I don't know," she sighed. "I mean, I was a call girl for him and good at what I did. I might have been better than some of the other girls, but we were never given information along those lines. I figured that he didn't want us figuring out that we were more valuable to him than we suspected."
"How, um, valuable were you?" Jim asked. Then he glanced at Cole, who calmly gave him a nod of permission to carry on.
So, Nicole told him, and told him about the tips, and what she learned about the bidding wars for her, which were common on particular days during the year. "When I overheard that conversation, the ravings were about how they raked in twelve times my fee that year."
Jim lifted both eyebrows to this and then gave her a long appraising look. "Forgive me. I agree you are very nice on the eyes, but that's a lot of money for a night of sex."
Nicole quirked the edge of a grin before she was able to control her lips and replied, "No, Jim, that's an insane amount of money for a night of sex even with twelve women." She shook her head, "No, it wasn't about the sex. A prostitute gives you a climax. What I did was give you a night of freedom and then the sex."
"Interesting, but freedom from what?" Jim pressed.
She glanced over at Cole and said, "We were going to talk about this later, but now seems like a more appropriate time, if you agree."
Cole was silent for a moment, "It's important that Jim knows as much as he can right now about what is going on and why. So, yes, I agree."
She nodded, focused her thoughts, and let the words pour out. The men who were on her calendar regularly were very rich -- the multiple millions kind of rich in cash value with many times that locked up in investments and deals all the time. They were also extremely powerful and you could tell that by the way they came into a room and how they perceived things.
"For example," she explained, "a bomb threat at the Chicago airport would not be seen as terribly important. It would not delay them. They would simply make some calls -- one, or two at the most -- and then they would not only make their flight, but it would leave on time. Their problems aren't the problems other people have. They're the problems other governments have."
She paused for a moment and then continued, "If men like these just want sex, they don't come to me. They bend their willing secretary over the desk, fuck her, and get on with their day. Or, maybe it was their girlfriend, or perhaps their wife, or sometimes the young nanny, or perhaps three of those women in the same day.
"Men of power, like them -- and I suspect you, Jim, have experienced the beginnings of this lately -- don't see sex as an attractive goal; they view it as the release of nagging tensions and if they could get away with it, they wouldn't have it at all. Of course, they wouldn't sleep at all either. Since it is necessary and regular feedings of the animal urge result in improved concentration, they ensure they have some around, like a diabetic might feel keeping insulin around would be a good idea.
She met Jim's eyes, "And really Jim, pussy is just pussy, right? From what I gathered so far about Cole's lifestyle and the population who choose it, there are plenty of willing women here most nights of the week. And when you are feeling the tension in your shoulders and your mind is a little foggy even after you did a line, or maybe the imperious urge is on the path again, wandering out there to the bar, finding a willing woman, fucking her here on this desk, which appears to be the right height for a man your size, is a viable and reasonable response."
Jim shifted a little uneasily, but then nodded, "All right, go on."
"Even with the money, power, and resources these men have, they don't have any moments of freedom. Throughout their lives, they have been committed and focused. They've learned and practiced the mental skills necessary to have as many irons in the fire as they can at one time.
"Time is not recoverable and the general belief among them is that only the insane waste it. While they were learning and loving the results of their growing mental abilities, and very invested in taking multi-tasking to the level of the divine, something else was happening to them, as well.
"Their minds now no longer actually leave the boardrooms or negotiating tables. They never really shut the computer off and sigh with satisfaction after a long, but rewarding day. They have like this bubble around them, which traps them inside with themselves.
"There are no moments of actual leisure in their lives while this bubble is there. Inside the bubble there are always ten or more things that need their focused attention and their email cues always have an important message they need to compose a response for. The list of important and critical things is always long and impossible to compete.”
“After I meet a new client, I learn as much as I can during the time I am with him, so that I can talk his language the next time he comes over. The nights with me normally begin with decompression. I allow them space for a while, getting them drinks, perhaps getting their shoes off while they catch up on a few emails or stock positions.
"Then I begin a subtle seduction, which normally begins by engaging them in conversation on topics I know are appealing to them. During these conversations, for the next two, maybe three hours, I guide their emotions and the topics of interest, to places outside of that bubble. I may take a shower with them, or dance for them, or even perform masturbation for them, but normally the seduction at this point is subtle.