Whore Corners

When someone asks me how much, I just naturally respond, “How much what?” I never thought I’d regret that.

6:00 a.m.

After thawing out the family jewels, I called Grover last night. He was surprised to hear from me. In fact, I don’t think he remembered who I was at first. Oh dear.

“Grover, I need to know about a piece of jewelry,” I said after we’d finally established who I was and he’d caught up. “It’s a necklace of Georgia’s that has a large square-cut amethyst pendant. Do you remember it?”

“Remember it! Why do you bring that up? The only thing we ever fought about and it’s gone forever now. I don’t want to have to talk about that,” he practically yelled into the phone.

“Grover, I’ve found it,” I said calmly. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. A lot of people seem to be interested in it.”

“No, you can’t have found it now. She told me she lost it. It was the high school prom. I gave it to her to wear and she lost it. It almost ruined us. Her mother was dead and the one thing I had to give her she lost the first time she wore it,” Grover was sobbing. “We didn’t speak to each other for months. Then I realized that we’d lose each other if we didn’t patch it up. We agreed never to mention it again. Oh, if only she’d known that she had it all along, we could have put it all behind us.” He was desperately weeping now and I was afraid the old man would have a heart attack right there on the phone and I’d have another estate to settle.

“Is there a story behind it?” I asked.

“Oh yes, a story,” he said. It seemed that was the right thing to ask because he settled right in and started relating the most improbably tale I’d ever heard.

“Back before the first World War in about ’07, golly, a hundred years ago, Georgia’s great grandfather on her mother’s side was an advisor to the King of Prussia. He’d worked in the U.S. Trade Department and was responsible for setting up trade agreements with several different countries. He ended up getting along so well with King Wilhelm that the King hired him for his own personal advisor on matters of international investment. And with Granddaddy’s advice, did quite well for himself and his country. Well, before the war broke out, Granddaddy decided it was time to come back to the U.S. and find a wife. King Wilhelm II was so fond of him that he gave him a jewel from the crown jewels as a gift. That amethyst is not a valuable stone of itself, but the mark of the King of Prussia that is engraved on the back of it would probably. As part of the Prussian Crown Jewels, it’s priceless.”

I turned the pendant over in my hand. Engraved on the back was a symbol that I didn’t recognize, but I was willing to bet that I was going to find was the mark of the Crown Jewels.

“Grover, were there any other jewels?”

“Oh no. Granddaddy had a lot of treasures, but I don’t know that any of it ever came to Georgia. That one piece is worth the family fortune. I suppose it is yours now. That was our agreement.”

“Grover, I’m not taking advantage of you. I’m going to put this in a safe deposit box and we’ll get it back to you as soon as I close down the house here.” I hesitated before I went on. “And I don’t think Georgia committed suicide, Grover. She may not have been a perfect daughter or person, but I just don’t think she killed herself. I’m going to find out what really happened.”

“If you do, I’ll give you that jewel regardless.” He hung up.

12:00 p.m.

WTF? I decided I had to get out this morning and exercise my leg, which is bruised all the way up one side. I really don’t need the pebble in my shoe to limp at the moment. I knew that if I didn’t walk a bit, I’d be too stiff to walk. So I went down to a coffee shop, got an Americano and a newspaper and sat outside to to drink it in peace. It was only 40 degrees, but I was warm in my big parka. Frankly, I looked like a tired, crippled middle aged woman bundled up lie an Eskimo, drinking a cup of coffee and reading the paper.

I’d been there about ten minutes when a guy comes up and stands about three feet away from me. I tried hard not to notice him and concentrate on my coffee and paper, all while I was watching him carefully. He was scanning up and down the block and looked a little nervous. These were warning signs to me and I prepared to defend myself. I wasn’t prepared for what happened.

“How much?” he asked me.

“How much what?” I responded automatically.

“The usual.”

“What?”

“Are you a cop?”

“No. Are you?”

“Look, I was told just to ask for the usual. You know, suck & fuck.” Oh my God! He thinks I’m a hooker! I didn’t know what to say. That was the most unappealing proposition I think I’ve ever heard. Was I sitting in the whore seat?

“I think you’ve got the wrong woman. I don’t usually sit here,” I said at last.

“Oh shit.” He turned on his heal and headed around the corner as fast as he could go without conspicuously running. A minute later I heard a car peal out from the coffee shop parking lot.

What kind of man thinks a middle aged lady drinking coffee at what looks like a respectable busy espresso shop is a hooker? How could he possibly imagine that I’d be interested, let alone how could he possibly be interested? Yuck! My stomach turned sour and I ditched both the coffee and the paper and walked back to Georgia’s house.

10:00 p.m.

I spent the rest of the day reviewing videos while Cinnamon focused on Georgia’s financials in the dining room. What I saw made my stomach turn. She had a lot of videos stored on Georgia Central. Most were from the camera in the office and didn’t show much. It looked like she actually used the office for business transactions and chat room discussions. It would all seem innocuous if it weren’t for the fact that she normally was in some kind of Teddy or other lingerie. It looked like she did a lot of talking there, but whatever the conversations were, the audio didn’t seem to be connected with the video. It took me a while to figure out that she was “chatting.” There’s all kinds of chatting that goes on on the Internet. but the most common is still through text messages on screen. I was seeing video that was taking place while she was trying to convince guys that they should subscribe and join her upstairs.

There were a few videos of performances; some were solo and obviously in Georgia’s bedroom. Others were with partners. None of the partners were the same from clip to clip. I suddenly had a feeling I knew where they came from.