‘We are a breed in extinction,’ Quaddra said back. ‘I know that. Very, very rare, but there are still a few of us around.’
A ghost of a smile finally shadowed on the women’s lips.
Quaddra extended his hand. ‘I’m Thomas.’
Somehow, the woman was already expecting to hear that name. She gently shook his hand. ‘I’m Denise. Nice to meet you.’
Seventy-Nine
The message from Mary, when it came, just twelve days earlier, caught Denise completely by surprise. Its format was the same as always – a voice message left on her burner phone – a code word started the message, and a different code word ended it. The code words matched the month that they were in, and the ‘abort’word was never used, indicating that the message was legit. The reason why it surprised Denise so much was because it seemed too soon.
The previous message that Denise had received from Mary had come nine months earlier, and all it said was that Mary Smith was now Mary Buckner. Knowing the month that Mary had gotten married, this second message, giving Denise the green light to move on with the ‘mistress’ phase of their con, was at least three months premature. That was why Denise had listened to the message twice before deleting it – to make sure that the code words were correct and that she hadn’t missed the ‘abort’ one.
She hadn’t. This was for real. It was time to play her part.
To avoid the off chance of Denise bumping into Quaddra somewhere by accident, Denise had decided not to stay in San Francisco, and she figured that her best plan of action would be to move to Los Angeles.
Mary had told Denise about Quaddra’s businesses in LA. She explained that he would make the trip from SF to the City of Angels at least twice a month. Yes, he had businesses scatteredall over the US – Silicon Valley, Dallas, Detroit, Columbus, New York, Washington DC and Seattle – but due to how demanding the movie industry was in Hollywood, his film production companies in Los Angeles required more of his time and attention than all of his other companies combined, and to Denise, that information was key.
One thing that playing the ‘mistress’ role had taught Denise over the years was that being in the same city as your lover was abadmove – at least for Denise, who wasn’t really in love with the mark, all that she was doing was playing a part.
A cheating husband and his lover living in the same city would open the door to quick, ‘last-minute’, opportunistic encounters, like an evening when the wife was supposed to be home but decided, ‘last minute’, to go out with the girls. In cases like that, it was almost a guarantee that the cheating husband would contact the lover for a quick ‘pop around’ job… and that was something that Denise simply hated. If the lover lived in a different city, all meetings, in theory, had to be prearranged. That had also been the reason why back in Massachusetts, Mary and Nelson lived in Woburn and Denise lived in Boston.
Yes, there was a downside to living in a different city from the cheating husband, but after playing the role of the mistress twice, Denise had enough experience to be able to navigate that minefield pretty well.
So, after considering all the pros and cons of staying in San Francisco or not, Denise decided to ‘not’. She would still have to meet Quaddra ‘by chance’ somewhere once Mary had given her the green light, and since she’d learned from Mary that Quaddra would be in LA at least twice a month, Los Angeles became the clear choice.
Twelve days ago, after Denise had listened to Mary’s message, she called Mary’s new burner phone and left a message of her own. The message was simple and brief. It told Mary that Denisewas now based in LA before asking Mary to let her know the next time that Quaddra would be making the trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The next day, Denise got a new message from Mary with Quaddra’s upcoming travel schedule.
Since Quaddra’s arrival in the City of Angels just a few days ago, Denise had been tracking him like a stalker – but the man seemed to do nothing else other than work. For days on end, Denise had been on him from the crack of dawn all the way until bedtime, just waiting for an opportunity to get him by himself – breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks… any chance would do – but Quaddra was like a machine, going from meeting to meeting, or spending countless hours locked inside studios – no lunch or dinner breaks.
Denise was starting to think that maybe her ‘moving to Los Angeles’ plan hadn’t been a good idea after all, but when she saw him and his team leave the production company’s building together earlier that day, she sensed that maybe an opportunity was just about to show itself. They were all laughing and congratulating themselves, and Denise had had enough experience observing crowds to know that that group was celebrating something.
In the boot of her car, Denise had at least three different outfits – one for a casual daytime encounter, one that would suit a more upmarket location, and an evening dress that would suit most types of night out, so when she realized that Quaddra and his team were going for drinks at the rooftop bar at the same hotel that he was staying at, she quickly changed into her evening dress and retouched her makeup. Her hair had been professionally French braided just a couple of days ago – a hairstyle that would suit pretty much any occasion.
Denise arrived at The Umbrella Social Club rooftop bar about fifteen minutes after Quaddra and his party. She immediately clocked them at a booth by the pool and took a seat at the bar – farenough away for her not to be noticed by anyone at the booth. She ordered a cocktail and quickly began hatching a plan in her head.
Since they were at the rooftop bar at the SIXTY, Denise was hoping that one of two things would happen. Either Quaddra would retire to his room early, leaving his party to continue the celebrations by themselves, or he would be the last to go. Those two options were ideal because in both cases she would get a small window of opportunity to get Quaddra by himself.
There was a third option as well, which was Quaddra and his party leaving together. They would then all get into the lift together and Quaddra would jump out on the penthouse floor. That was the only option that would mess things up for Denise, so when she saw the entire group getting up and leaving Quaddra behind, she knew that this was her chance.
The bullshit story that she had come up with was simple, short, but very believable – another take on the ‘damsel in distress’ tale. Denise was an actress who had gone to The Umbrella Social Club for a ‘business’ meeting and a possible script reading with the producer for a brand-new TV series, but it turned out that there was nothing ‘business’ about the meeting. All the producer really wanted to do was take her down to his room and have sex with her. A very distraught Denise had then told the producer to go fuck himself and left the rooftop bar almost in tears… and that was when she, ‘by chance’, bumped into a very attractive man inside the lift at the SIXTY Hotel, just as the doors were about to close.
Eighty
It had been three and a half months since Mary had called Denise with the green light for her to start implementing the ‘mistress’ side of their con.
To keep things as real as possible, Mary and Denise would always keep their communications down to a minimum. Messages were only exchanged if truly necessary, so the last message between them had been the one that Mary had left Denise with: Quaddra’s LA travelling schedule for that particular month.
In real life, a mistress wouldn’t message her lover’s wife to update her on how the affair was going, so why would they do it?
Keep it simple… keep it real.
That tactic also played a huge part in the surprise effect at the end of their con. In several months’ time, when Denise had to walk into that court of law, as a last-minute witness for the prosecution, Mary wouldn’t have seen her for well over a year. Denise would certainly look different… very different in fact, and that would reflexively trigger a realistic surprise reaction from Mary – the kind of reaction that is very hard to fake.
But the fact that there had been no more exchanges between Mary and Denise was a message in itself. No news was good news. It meant that Denise had encountered no problems in moving ahead with her role in the con, which, in turn, would mean that her affair with Quaddra was well under way. Theirplan was working, just like it always did… so why did Mary feel so low and betrayed? Why did she have to fight a panic attack every time that Quaddra mentioned that he was flying back to LA again? Why did she feel like crying, and fighting, and screaming blue murder until he held her tight in his arms to calm her down like he always did when she felt anxious about anything? Why did she miss him so much every time he was away?
Mary hated the way that she was feeling inside because she had never experienced anything like that before. Love, or at least ‘real love’, had never been part of her vocabulary. She hated the anxiety that woke her up in the middle of the night every time Quaddra was away… because she knew that instead of sleeping by her side, he was probably inside Denise.
