The older styling from the lobby continued upstairs as well. Several nice-looking pieces of furniture lined the hallway, but everything nearby looked new, like no one had ever sat in them. I turned both ways in the hallway. Nothing was marked, so I wasn’t sure if Paxton Himura’s apartment was to the left or right. I chose to go right and after a few even-numbered apartments on both sides, I turned and went the opposite way.
Her apartment door was light blue. If my memory from high school could be believed, I think they called it robin’s egg blue—not too different from the color of her hair. Thick, gold moulding surrounded the doorway and an elaborate brass knocker completed the look.
The mistress answered a few seconds after my knock. “Hello, Detective. I was expecting you half an hour ago.” She wore a pair of maroon sweat pants and a black long-sleeve shirt, which was offset by her vivid hair. She’d taken off the blue lipstick, but her eyes remained the same.
“Sorry, Miss Himura,” I replied. “I got caught up with some details of the case.”
She stepped aside and allowed me to slip past her into the apartment. “Do you have any idea who did it?” she asked.
“I can’t discuss that with you, ma’am.”
“Please, Detective Forrest, we’re alone. You can call me Paxton. I’m not comfortable with all the formality.”
“Miss Himura, I’d—”
“No. I refuse to talk unless I can be comfortable around you.”
I stared at her for a moment, giving her a stern look; maybe she’d flinch. She didn’t appear to be intimidated. “Okay,
Paxton
. May I sit down?”
“Of course,” she gestured toward her couch. As she walked away from the door, she called over her shoulder, “Please, take your shoes off.”
Crap. I hope my feet didn’t smell.
I followed her directions and pressed the auto-tighten button on my left shoe. I gritted my teeth as I crouched down to untie the second Oxford manually. It was slightly embarrassing for me that she saw my shoe was broken. Highly unprofessional.
Thankfully, my feet didn’t smell
that
bad after being trapped in leather for almost twelve hours and I walked gingerly across the wooden floor to the sitting area where a chair was placed across from the couch. Miss Himura disappeared around the corner and I heard a few dishes rattle lightly in what I assumed was the kitchen.
I glanced quickly around her apartment while I waited. The furniture was the sleek, modern style that young professionals seemed to prefer, contrasting with the building’s décor and the traditional dress she’d worn earlier at the Diva. It wasn’t that I disliked the style, but I preferred my overstuffed couch and comfortable blankets on a chilly day off from work.
Miss Himura returned carrying a tray with a steaming teapot, a covered bowl and two demitasse cups. She set the tray down on the coffee table and filled the small cups with tea. “Would you like sugar, Detective?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.”
She shook her head, sending her hair flying outward. “Don’t be rude. In my culture, you must drink tea as a part of every meeting. It’s considered poor form to skip this,” she added.
“Okay, I’ll have a little bit of sugar,” I relented.
I watched as she kneeled to prepare the tea. The tiny spoon dipped into the sugar bowl and she stirred it into one of the cups. Then, she rotated on her knee and handed me the cup on a saucer.
Her movements seemed to be some type of Japanese tea ritual, but if there was significance to her actions, it was lost on me. I took a sip. “Mmm, this is good. Is that…a flower?”
She smiled, nodding her head. “Jasmine, vanilla and some cinnamon. It’s my own take on a traditional drink. Too much of it will make you sleepy though, so only one cup.”
She stood and repositioned to the couch as I drained the cup. It was
really
good and made me want more. I set the saucer back down on the tray and opened my notebook. “How are you, ma’am?”
“Detective, call me Paxton.”
“Sorry. How are you? Are you experiencing any problems dealing with what you saw?”
“I think I’m alright, Detective—what’s your first name?”
I briefly considered telling her that it was ‘Detective.’ Instead, I settled on the path of least resistance. “It’s Zachary, but I go by Zach.”
She smiled. “See, we can be civil to one another, Zach.” Paxton shifted on the couch, placing a pillow across her lap and hugging it to her chest.
“You’re right.” I pointed at the pillow. “You sure that you’re okay?”
“It’s a shock to see a dead body—and that one was… Well, you know.”
“If you’d like, the department has some counselors you could talk to.”
Paxton shook her head. “No. I just need to get some rest. The club is closed tonight while the remediation team does their work, so I’ll be able to sleep once we’re done talking.”
I took that as my cue to carry on with my questions. “I have a few questions for you, if you feel like you can talk.”
She rolled her hand. “Of course. Let’s get on with it so I can move past this.”
My notebook page was a jumbled mess of notes and questions that I wanted to ask her, so I’d taken the time during lunch to write numbers beside the questions in an attempt to put them in order. I found the first one and read, “When I asked if it was typical for someone to shower in the club after sex, you said that it was for this client. How often did Mr. Wolfe come to The Digital Diva?”
“Mmm… Probably twice a month. I think it depends on the month, but that’s about average I guess. He’s one of our regulars.”
“How long has he been coming to the Diva?”
Her eyes flicked upward in thought. “A year? He first started coming in about six or seven months before we got the new girls.”
“The…” I checked my notes. “The CS98 Pleasure Droids?”
“Oh, good,” she said, her smile returning. “I’d hoped we wouldn’t have a repeat of this morning’s rude slang term for the droids.”
“It’s semantics. If you prefer them to be called by their manufacturing name, then I can do that for you.”
“I’d prefer them to be called by their names,” she countered.
“Uh, okay…”
That’s odd.
“So, Mr. Wolfe was a regular that you’ve seen for a while. I’ll need you to run a search of your records to determine exactly how often and when he came in. How long have you worked at the Diva, Miss—excuse me—Paxton?”
“Let’s see, I started in 2089 right when the club opened, so… What is that, ten years?”
I blanched. “I’m sorry. How old are you?”
“I’m twenty-eight, Zach… And no, before you ask, I didn’t work as a prostitute before switching to management.”
“That’s not relevant to our discussion. I wouldn’t have asked you.”
“I just want you to know. I started in environmental services assisting the previous model droids with their cleaning. They required much more hands-on attention than our current girls do. Then, I worked as the Diva’s tech manager before the owner elevated me to the position of House Mistress two years ago.”
I began to feel slightly light-headed. I glanced at the empty cup longingly. I needed to drink some water, but I’d never ask the witness for it. I tried to focus. “Forgive me if I’m stepping on your toes here, why do you feel so strongly about these pleasure droids?”
“I… I don’t know. I guess I feel a little sorry for them.”
“They’re robots,” I interjected.
“I
know
that; and I know they don’t have feelings, other than those that have been programmed into them, but it’s a sad ‘life.’ We had the older models, the CS90s, before these. Those girls were worn out by the time the owner replaced them. As a tech—both environmental and programming—I spent a lot of time with them. I really developed a connection with them.”
“Are you this empathetic toward human prostitutes?”
“No. My girls didn’t ask to be designed as a sex slave. The humans have a choice.”
I chuckled. “That’s certainly not the case about most of the human prostitutes that I’ve met. Circumstances have basically forced them into their role.”
“But, they
can
leave,” she countered. “Start a new life somewhere else. Go to school and get an education, work at a grocery store, whatever. If it got bad enough, they could even kill themselves. Robots can’t do that; they’re stuck and their programming doesn’t allow self-termination.”
“Hmm, I hadn’t thought of it in quite those terms before,” I admitted.
“Most people don’t. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating suicide. I’m just saying that there are options available for humans that aren’t there for robots.”
I agreed with her. Suicide was a choice, although not a good one.
The conversation had gotten way off track. “Okay, fair enough. Getting back to the questions in my notebook, what time did Mr. Wolfe come in last night?”
She searched her thoughts. “Mmm, about eleven I guess.”
“How long does he usually stay?”
“Two or three hours. It depends on whether he bought the Amplify or not.”
“Amplify?” I flipped a page and looked at my notes on The Digital Diva. “I thought your club lost its permit to carry that particular aerosolized erectile dysfunction drug?”
“We had a problem with the city’s paperwork last year, but we do have a permit for it now if you’d like to see it. And, we follow state and federal protocol to ensure that the client knows the risks associated with ED drugs.”
I’d have to check with the permit office to make sure the Diva was in compliance and currently licensed. The department’s file on the club may not be updated with the most current information. “Did Mr. Wolfe often use ED drugs?”
“Not always,” she admitted. “Sometimes he’d purchase an aerosol from me and then take his chosen girl back to the bedroom. Maybe he just needed a little more
oompf
occasionally.”
Aerosolized erectile drugs were part of the long list of over-the-counter drugs that anyone could sell these days without a medical degree. As long as the establishment had paid for a drug-dispensing permit, they could provide anything on the list and charge whatever price they wanted to. I imagined that sex clubs made a pretty penny on their drug sales.
“Did he always buy Kelly?”
She frowned at my choice of words. “Not at first. He purchased blocks of time with different girls, but for the past three or four months, he’d been exclusive at our club with Kelly.”
I nodded. Apparently, he’d taken a liking to the robot. “Is that typical? That a client goes to the same
girl
over and over?”
“It depends. I’d say it’s fifty-fifty.”
I smirked. “The married guys must go after a wide variety of women, ‘cause they only get the one at home, huh?”
“That’s a shallow way of looking at things, Detective. Yes, many of our clients are married, but they don’t come to the club to ‘get away’ from their wives, as you seem to think. They come for all sorts of reasons and we provide for them in whatever capacity they need. We have several men who come to the Diva who don’t even have sex with my girls; it’s all about the companionship for them. About half the married men whom I talk with while they wait tell me that their wife knows about and approves of their use of a completely safe and sterile establishment like the Diva.”
I held up my hands. “I’m sorry…again. I just don’t have any experience with pleasure droids. I guess I have some preconceived notions that I need to move past.”
“Please. It’s insulting.”
I was used to being the one in charge, but Paxton had taken the reins out of my hands a few times during this interview. I needed to reestablish control so I could get this moving forward; I still had to drive all the way out to Leonidas tonight.
I cleared my throat. “So it wasn’t out of the ordinary for Mr. Wolfe to go with Kelly and he’s there for two or three hours, about every other week.”
“I’ve already said that.”
“I know; just want to make sure that I’ve got my facts straight.” I paused and checked my notes, looking for the next number. “Did he often engage in activities outside of the bed?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with him getting killed.”
“I’m trying to determine if there was a difference in his routine. So far, it seems like the victim followed a set routine after he found someone he liked.”
“I honestly don’t know,” Paxton replied. “That’s not something I keep track of. You could have my tech folks pull her memory logs about that particular client, but without a court order, I’m not going to grant you access to any of Kelly’s files that don’t pertain to Mr. Wolfe.”
She’s starting to close off.
I needed to regain her trust. “I know this is uncomfortable for you, Paxton. I don’t mean to be so invasive with some of these questions.”
The mistress looked past me to a point on the wall. “I understand. You’re investigating a murder,” she replied woodenly.
I tried to put on a caring expression. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’d just like to get this over with and move on.”