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It was bad form to start a fight with a client, especially one who hasn't paid, but my professionalism was being scraped away like rust to a spinning wire brush. The abrasive man opposite me was rich, as shifty as a sack of live rats, and getting offended that I didn't just pretend like he was making sense. I tried again. "Mr. Trump, I'm sorry, I don't understand. You want me to investigate the people---" "Who are starting this vicious, incredible rumors against me, trying to damage me and my family, when we haven't done anything, and in fact its these people" he said, leaning forward for emphasis, "who've committed monstrous crimes against the electorate of this city. And you let them!" The accusation was new, but I ignored it. " ---but you just told me that you've done the things that you are being accused of." "Yes, of course!" There was a pause. Mayor Trump was a man who might have been described as 'florid' a hundred years ago. The first thing I noticed when he was ushered into the interview room was his red tie, so long as to be a cartoon of itself. The rest of him was scarcely less subtle: he had a bad toupee for such a rich man, and an oddly ill-fitting suit. He was a big man, six foot, but in at least his early 70s, and was soft. He tried to shake hands like a hobbyist blacksmith, but was dressed like a vain matron, a great beauty of the last age trying to hold onto the shadow of what she was, living in terror of mirrors. "What's the problem here? I want to pay you to do this. Why are you being so difficult?" Being shiny with this one was not going to do anything; I decided to cross examine instead. "Well, Mr. Mayor, it's just that I deal in mysteries and finding things out. " It hit me: "I'm afraid that if I'm being paid to find out about things that," and I gestured to the manila folders Trump's lawyer had flopped across my desk, "and these things are already known to the client, I might not get paid as I wouldn't be doing anything." There. Nice and clear, uses money, appears weak by invoking fear---- "But I told you, it's these people spreading these lies about me. Who are these people? They can't get away with this." Strike. I stood up and turned around, gritting my teeth for a moment. I looked out over the parking lot and its fussy and pointless strips of grass atop high curbs, least the next parking lot over co-mingle. "Okay" I said. Let's try another angle. "So you will pay our standard fees, usual expenses, to track down the source of these rumors?" "Yeah, exactly, it's so simple, I don't know why you don't get it." "Even though they are facts, and not rumors." "Exactly. In fact..." Trump hunched forward and began speaking in a theatrical whisper. "...I wanna pay you a little extra under the table, $200 a week. Those files the District Attorney is trying to get, he supena'd me. I want you to hold onto 'em for now. Attorney-client privlage." He winked at me. I wasn't a lawyer, but I decided to leave it, and then God pitched another fastball of inspiration at me. "Is that so?" I let myself melt, just a bit. If Trump only saw people as marks, I'd have to play one. "Listen," I leaned over, voice low, like we were planning a robbery in a possibly bugged motel room, "you do that for me, that's fine. But in the contract I need you to parse specific instructions as to what mystery I'm being paid for. My boss isn't going to like it if I'm being paid for nothing." That got through to Trump. He looked pleased now. "That's the mystery: you are looking into what you are being paid for. That's it. Rudy will get you something by the morning". He lumbered to his feet. It made sense and I was onboard. Job done. "Keep that stuff in a safe or something, it shows my family is laundering kickbacks for me. They'd all be in prison if it came out. " He opened the door. His entourage awaited him. "Oh, and Trump." I leaned against the desk, folding my arms. "This has to be a cash upfront operation. My boss won't like it otherwise." Trump was notorious for trying to screw people on money he owed; the only way we were doing this is pay as you go. The old man turned as I was talking but was already turning away when I finished. Over his shoulder he said "that's no problem. Is that just for the under the table stuff, or the whole thing?" His entourage didn't even blink. Or maybe it took them awhile to process things, it was hard to tell coolness with numb stupidity with this crowd. "Everything you have to pay has to be upfront." He waved a little hand, acknowledging and dismissing such petty detail. "That's no problem, Rudy will do it. Rudy! I want you to do something for this here detective..." Trump and his followers decamped, already conspiring to use an offshore slush fund to pay our fees and me and my partner under the table. At least that is what Lisa at the front desk told us later.
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