“What are you two doing, playing Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut?”

“Yeah.” Cindy quoted: “ ‘I was a nice girl, wasn’t I?’ ”

Barbara and Cindy were in lounge chairs on the deck of the beach house. The small, round table between them held their glasses, a half-empty bottle of Scotch, and an ice bucket.

“A banana split for lunch and Scotch at night,” Fletch said. “Better be careful you don’t go to hell, Cindy.”

She stretched her arms. “That’s okay. I’m retiring real soon.”

“Yeah,” Fletch said. “You’re going to the dogs.”

There was a quarter moon over the ocean. Far out to sea a good-sized freighter was moving south.

“Have a drink,” Barbara said. “Join us.”

“Yeah,” Cindy said, “you’ve had a long day, I think, getting a job this morning, when you already had one, then a business lunch…”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“A discouraging day, too, I think,” Barbara said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Cindy said. “Discouraging, presenting yourself so well at the job interview, then being discovered a liar, an impostor, so quickly at lunch.”

The women laughed.

In the kitchen Fletch half-filled a glass with tap water.

“Poor Fletch,” Barbara said. On the deck he added Scotch and ice to the water in his glass. “He was so discouraged he drove himself all the way to Tomasito, just for a drink.”

“A warm beer,” he muttered. “What’s to eat?”

“Nothing,” Barbara said. “Remember, you canceled dinner with my mother.”

“We haven’t eaten,” said Cindy.

“It’s ten o’clock,” Fletch said.

“We’ve been talking,” said Cindy. “Story of my life.”

“Maybe you’ll go for pizza,” said Barbara.

Fletch sat in the chair near the railing. “So, Cindy… Did you ruin my prospects for employment? Did you tell Marta I’m an impostor? That I’m not really a male whore but rather an honest journalist out to screw the Ben Franklyn Friend Service?”

“I thought about it,” Cindy said. “I thought a lot about what to do. This afternoon my clients didn’t get my undivided attention. Seeing I wasn’t controlling the situation as well as I should have been, one guy came on real strong. I had to make an accident to cool him off. One of the lift bars swung against his nose accidentally-on-purpose.” She was dressed as she had been at lunch, in a short kilt and loafers. “It’s okay. No blood got on the rug.”

“You were ready with a towel,” Fletch guessed.

“I’m always ready with a towel. Men are always spilling one fluid or another.”

Barbara took a gulp of her drink.

“Did you tell Marta, or not?” Fletch asked.

“I decided either I had to tell Marta who you are and screw you,” Cindy said, “or tell Barbara who I am, and screw Marta.”

“A tough decision.” Fletch watched Barbara. “So you’ve told Barbara, your old friend, who you are, what you do for a living … et cetera?”

“Yeah.”

Fletch asked Barbara, “How do you feel about that?”

Barbara didn’t answer immediately. “I guess I understand. I’m more surprised at myself, than anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“That I could have a friend and really know so little about her. It makes me doubt myself, my own sensitivity, my own perceptions.” For a moment Barbara looked into the glass she held in her lap. “This is difficult to explain. I mean, now I’m wondering who the hell you are, Fletch, the guy I’m going to marry in three days. What don’t I know about you? How good are my perceptions?”

“Jitters,” Cindy said.

“Today,” Fletch said, “I discovered things about a few people I would never have guessed. I added some real interesting people to my collection.”

“I mean, here we go along in life assuming everybody is more or less as he or she appears to be, as he or she say they are. Forgive my bad grammar. Enough of that he-or-she shit. And, wham-o, in one minute over a drink or something you discover they’ve been living this whole life, having thoughts, doing things, being someone you never knew about, never even dreamed possible.”

Cindy said, “I think with orthodontics and psychiatry, health care, clothing fashions, too, with the great American idealization of normalcy, which doesn’t exist, people think they want to love people similar to themselves.”

“All that’s the mother of prejudice,” said Barbara. “Economics is the father.”

“It’s the differences between people that we ought to love,” said Cindy.

“If we were just exactly what people think we are,” Fletch said, “we wouldn’t have much of ourselves to ourselves, would we?”

“Yeah,” Cindy giggled. “Hypocrisy is our last bastion of privacy.”

“My.” Barbara waved her glass in front of her mouth. “Pour a little booze into this trio and we pick up a philosophical text fast enough, don’t we?”

“It wasn’t much of a decision,” Cindy said. “I’m leaving Ben Franklyn Friday. I don’t mind letting the Ben Franklyn Friend Service know I have a sting in my tail.”

Fletch said, “And there’s Marta’s fondness for Carla….”

Cindy smiled at him. There was light coming through the window from the living room. “The human element is in everything we do. Isn’t that what we’re talking about?” She plopped two ice cubes into her glass. “Anyway, that’s no way to run a business. People should not be allowed to win career advancement in bed.”

Barbara giggled into her glass. “You’re talking about a whorehouse here, Cindy! I’m sorry, old pal, but that’s funny.”

“My business has less to do with sex than you think,” Cindy said.

“I’m sure.”

“So what have you really decided?” Fletch asked.

“I’ve decided to help you get your story,” Cindy said. “Let’s expose Ben Franklyn.”

“Great!”

“It will be my wedding present to you and Barbara. I was going to give you a collie when you come back from your honeymoon….”

“A collie!” Barbara exclaimed. “If Fletch doesn’t keep his job, we won’t be able to feed ourselves!”

“Tell me what you need,” Cindy said to Fletch.

“I need to know who owns the Ben Franklyn Friend Service.”

“Something called Wood Nymph, Incorporated.”

“That’s beautiful.”

“Nymphs would,” Barbara giggled.

“Who owns Wood Nymphs?” Fletch asked.

“I have no idea.”

“Nymphomaniacs always would,” Barbara said. “Isn’t that the point?”

“I need to know that. I need to know specifically and graphically what services you provide, and the specific fees for those services.”

“I can tell you that right now.”

“Please don’t,” Barbara said. “Not while I’m drinking.”

“I’ll need some sort of a deposition from you regarding the performances you put on for voyeurs. And that the man frequently doesn’t know he’s being watched, that his ass is being sold.”

“Oh, charming!” said Barbara.

“Also, a description of the whole escort service, that you’re really operating as call girls, call people. The parties at which you have performed, how that works, how much it costs. The whole blackmail thing, the cameras—”

“Cameras!” clucked Barbara. “Hypocrisy is the last bastion of privacy.”

“Listen,” Fletch said to Barbara, “a week ago you suggested you and I get married naked in front of everybody.”

“I was kidding.”

“Were you?”

“I thought I could lose eight pounds.”

“Can you get all that by tomorrow?” Fletch asked Cindy.

“I’ll try.”

“Pizza,” Barbara said. “I am feeling a distinct need for pizza.”

Cindy looked fully at Fletch and asked, “What about a list of our clients?” She watched him closely as she waited for his answer.

“Sure,” he said evenly. “Prostitution can’t exist without the Johns.”

“Will you publish their names?” Cindy asked.

“I don’t know,” Fletch said. “I honestly don’t know. I will present their names for publication.”

“Uh!” Cindy said. “It’s still a man’s world, Master!”

“Will you please go get some pizza, Fletch?” Barbara asked. “Better make mine pepperoni. Right now I don’t think I could look an anchovy in the eye.”