LITMIR.BIZ

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perk he’d negotiated: acquiring the entire floor below his suite of offices. He’d been disappointed that he hadn’t had to go to the mat on that one. The “powers that be” gave in meekly, and he rented it out for outrageous sums of money, which he, in turn, donated to his favorite charities.

      Cosmo looked at Mickey again and saw that it was almost six o’clock, which meant it was almost nine o’clock back East. He looked forward to calling Elizabeth and talking for an hour or so. God, how he loved that woman.

      Mickey told him he had fifteen more minutes to reflect before he headed home. Thinking about Elizabeth Fox made him smile. Never in his wildest dreams had he ever thought a woman like Elizabeth would fall in love with him. Or that he could love her as much as he’d loved his parents. It just boggled his mind.

      Cosmo’s smile widened when he remembered his parents sitting him down when he turned six and was about to go off to school. They told him how he was different and how the other children were going to react to him. He’d listened, but he hadn’t understood the cruelty of children; he learned quickly. It hadn’t gotten any better as he aged, but by the time he went off to college, he didn’t give a shit what anyone said about him. He accepted that he was big and that his feet were like canoes and that he was ugly, with outrigger ears and a flat slab for a face, and that he had to have specially made clothes and shoes and a bed that would accommodate his body. He was comfortable in his own skin and made a life for himself.

      And then along came Elizabeth Fox, or as she was known in legal circles, the Silver Fox. At first he couldn’t believe she loved him, or as she put it, “I don’t just love you, Cosmo, I love every inch of you.” And she meant it. He was so light-headed with that declaration, he’d almost passed out. She’d laughed, a glorious, tinkling sound that made him shiver all the way to his toes. Then she’d sat him down and told him everything she was involved in.

      “You can walk away from me right now, Cosmo, and I will understand. If we stay together, you will know I’m breaking the law, and so will you. I’m giving you a choice.”

      Like there was a choice to be made. He’d signed on and never looked back. He was now a male member of that elite little group called the Vigilantes.

      Cosmo looked over at Mickey and saw that it was time to fight the Vegas traffic and head for home. He looked around to see where his jacket was. Ah, just where he’d thrown it when he came back from lunch, half on one of the chairs and half-dangling on the floor. He was heaving himself out of his rocking chair when he heard the door to his secretary’s office open and close. Mona Stevens, his secretary, always left at five o’clock on the dot because she had to pick up her son from day care. Mona had been one of his pro bono cases. A friend of a friend had asked him to help her out because her husband had taken off and left her and her son to fend for themselves. He’d hired her once he’d straightened out her problem and gotten her child support, and he paid her three times what other secretaries earned on the Strip. She was so grateful and loyal she would have brushed his teeth for him if he’d allowed it.

      Cosmo opened the door to see a woman sitting primly on one of the chairs. She looked worried as well as uncomfortable. When the door opened she looked up, a deer caught in the headlights. “Can I help you?”

      She was maybe in her mid-forties—he was never good at women’s ages—well dressed, with a large leather bag at her feet. Her hair looked nice to his eye, and she wasn’t slathered in makeup. All in all a pleasant-looking woman whose husband had probably gambled away their life savings and the house as well. He liked to think he was a good judge of character and always, no matter what, he waited to see a client’s reaction to meeting him for the first time.

      This lady, whoever she was, didn’t flinch, didn’t blink, didn’t do anything other than ask, “Are you Mr. Cricket?”

      “I am. I was just leaving. Do you have an appointment I forgot about?”

      “No. I did call three different times but…no, I don’t have an appointment. Should I make one and come back? If I do that, I might not…”

      “I have time. Come on in,” Cosmo said, stepping aside so the woman could enter. He knew little about women’s fashions and wondered what she carried in the bag that was heavy enough to drag her shoulder downward. He wasn’t even sure whether the bag should be called a handbag, a backpack, or a travel case. His mother always referred to her bag as her pocketbook. It was where she kept a fresh hanky with lace on it, a small change purse, a comb, and a tube of lipstick. This woman’s bag looked like it contained a twenty-pound rock and maybe the hammer she’d used to dig it out. He felt pleased with his assessment when the bag landed next to the chair with a loud thump.

      Cosmo made a second assessment. The woman didn’t want to be there. But she was, and she’d called three times, and had hung up probably because she lost her nerve. For some reason women did that when their problems involved errant husbands. He reached into a drawer and pulled out a clean yellow legal pad and a pencil. He never used pens, just in case he had to erase something. His first rule was: never commit something to paper you don’t want anyone else to see.

      Pencil poised, Cosmo spoke, his tone gentle for such a big man. “We’ve established that I’m Cosmo Cricket, attorney-at-law. Who might you be?”

      “Right now I’m Lily Flowers. Last week I was Crystal Clark. Before that Ann Marie Anders. And before that I was Caroline Summers. I don’t care to tell you at this time what my real birth name is. I have”—she bent down to poke in the bag at her feet, her voice muffled as she fumbled around for what she wanted, finally finding a small envelope and spreading the contents out on Cosmo’s pristine desk—“a passport in each name, a driver’s license in the same name, along with a credit card that matches the picture ID on the driver’s license. Each one of these identities has a bank account with minimal activity, rent receipts, and utility receipts. In different parts of the country. And a birth certificate,” she said breathlessly.

      Cosmo made no move to inspect the documents on his desk. “I assume you got these,” he said, pointing to the lineup on his desk, “illegally.”

      “It depends on your definition of the word ‘illegal.’ That’s me in every photo. Just a different hairdo, a little spirit gum here or there to alter the facial features, a little shoulder padding, but it is me.”

      “At the outset I say to all my clients, ‘Tell me the truth, or I can’t help you.’ I’m sure you are aware of the confidentiality agreement between client and lawyer. If you aren’t, what that means is I can never divulge anything you tell me to a third party. So whatever you say to me today, here in this room, I cannot tell another soul. Whatever your secrets are, they are safe with me. Having said that, I now need to ask you why you feel you need four identities other than your real one? What kind of trouble are you in?”

      The woman of many names drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Right now I am not in any trouble, but I will be very shortly. I’m here because…because…I want to know if there is any way I can head it off. What my options are, assuming I have any.”

      “Okay. But you have to tell me what type of trouble you think is headed your way.”

      Lily Flowers took another deep breath. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

      Cosmo shook his head. “No, I don’t recognize you. Should I? Have we met somewhere? Right now you appear to me to be a potential client in distress. Like I said, you have to tell me your problem; otherwise, I can’t help you.”

      “I operate the Happy Day Camp for Boys and Girls in Pahrump. Until a month ago, our revenues exceeded those of Sheri’s and the Chicken Ranch. Uh, that’s according to my accountant.”

      Shit! Good judge of character, my ass. “Prostitution is legal in Pahrump, which is over sixty miles from Vegas. What’s the problem? Did your girls fall short of the medical requirements?”

      “No, nothing like that. I operate the cleanest, safest brothel in the state. My girls are the highest paid in the state. My problem is that some of my powerful, wealthy clients asked me to branch out for special

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