CONTACTING ELITE AGENCIES

* How do I identify an "elite" agency like yours? How can I tell it from imposters?

* I can tell you how to spot a fake. It takes out lots of advertising and office space. It shouts about being high-class and exclusive (and, amusingly, discreet). It couldn't care who you are or whether you'll be coming back, but it's very interested in hustling you for as much money as possible as quickly as it can.

The real McCoy is the opposite in each respect.

My old agency didn't advertise. I haven't seen other elite agencies do so either, though I have heard second-hand that one or two elite agencies may occasionally advertise in small- circulation magazines likely to be read by the sort of people able to afford its services. (I do NOT mean contact magazines!) Word of mouth referral remains the means by which elite agencies get 99% of their business though. (See my next answer for a detailed explanation of this.)

They don't shout, they whisper. Discreetly. Into the right ears. They are effectively invisible to anyone outside their closed circle - which suits them and their clients -, and they have no need for high-profile office-space. Indeed, my former employers didn't rent one square foot in the entire United States.

Far from giving you a sales-pitch and a quick "show me the money!", the real elite agencies will effectively require you to sell yourself to them. They'll want to see a load of I.D.. They'll need convincing you've the money to be a "regular": they don't want event-junkies who want to be able to say they've "spent a night with a top-dollar call-girl" like it's part of a list that includes having bungee-jumped and visited the Taj Mahal. And, needless to say, they don't want anyone who could turn out to be "trouble", for the agency as a whole or for the girl he picks. The agency can, and does, pass on anyone whose vibes are wrong. It's not going to risk the smooth-running of the business on someone it's not sure about.

* If the international agencies don't advertise, how do they get custom?

* By word of mouth. By referral. By having an "in" to the world from which their customers come.

I realise this is a hard thing to grasp, especially for us Americans who grow up under a non-stop barrage of advertising - what we put up with astonishes foreigners - and sort of come to accept that everything has to be "sold", usually at high-volume and as brazenly as possible. This though, is one of the few areas in which those norms don't apply.

Part of this, of course, is down to the gray legal area the industry inhabits. Quite as much, though, has to do with the psychology of elites and clubs and exclusivity.

Let me illustrate by reference to - of all people - Heidi Fleiss and her operation.

An odd choice, I acknowledge; especially as I've been so critical of it. But, for all that was wrong with it, I would point out that even Heidi - who wasn't big on discretion - didn't take out advertising space in the L.A.Times.

Why?

Well, partly because even she wasn't that stupid. But mainly because she would have known that's not how you get custom at this level.

Think about it. You're a Hollywood Director and you want to get laid: who do you call? Some guy advertising in the yellow pages who could be anyone? No. You call someone who is a part of your own party-circuit, born into Beverly Hills society herself, that everyone knows can get you some MAW for the night, no questions asked. It's safer. It's simpler. It's just the logical way to go.

That's how Heidi Fleiss got her clients. She had an "in" to this world and she exploited it, making a ton of money. Which, but for a big mouth, a coke habit and bad choice of company (but then, in Hollywood, there probably aren't many good choices of company), she would still be doing.

The key factor though was her "in". That, not advertising, is what counts. Being known to, and trusted by, a sector of society which can afford a high-class agency's services. (Though, of course, trusting Heidi very nearly turned out to be the biggest mistake the Hollywood crowd ever made.)

Let me give you another example.

Cast your mind back to the film "Wall Street".

(I know, I know, it's a reach to take an Oliver Stone film as a yardstick of anything. I mean, that guy needs counselling, and soon. But Ollie's paranoia notwithstanding, the movie is right on message when it comes to the psychology of big money.)

Specifically, think of the scenes that come thick and fast after the Charlie Sheen character (forget his name) begins to get thick with Gekko (the Michael Douglas character). Gekko takes him to this exclusive restaurant. Gekko takes him to his private club. Gekko tells him which tailor to go to for a decent suit. Gekko hires him a call-girl.

Now what's the sub-text here?

Gekko is showing the new guy the ropes. He's telling him that in this gilded universe the kid wants to enter, you do things certain ways. To establish yourself as a player. To fit in. And, unless the kid's completely stupid, he'll learn and he'll learn fast.

Which is why the Charlie Sheen character - and it's real-life equivalents - make a point of going to that restaurant and that tailor. To show they're part of the club. To show they're on the inside-track. And, if he feels the need for a call-girl (which, as it's Charlie Sheen, is a pretty safe bet), he'll ring the agency the girl Gekko got him came from.

So it's the "in" that counts. It's reputation. It's contacts. It's being the agency the Gekkos of this world know to trust and recommend to their proteges.

* Do you know of an elite agency in LA/Chicago/wherever?

* Wrong approach. My former agency - and, from what I know of them, others too - don't link themselves to this or that city. It doesn't matter to them whether you're in Miami or Seattle, Buffalo or San Diego; or London or Paris, for that matter. The girl will travel to where you want her: nationally or, within reason, internationally.

* Could you give me a contact-address for your old agency?

* Could I? Of course; I'm still friends with them and we're still intermittently in touch.

Will I? No.

As I explain elsewhere, the agency would prefer that I hadn't set up this site at all. Although it can live with these pages in the form I've done them, it is emphatic that I not give out any identifying information about it. I have agreed to respect its wishes.

Sorry.

* How can I find a high-class, discreet agency like yours?

* If you've read this far, you won't be surprised to learn the answer is "not easily".

I could say "make a lot of money and wait for them to find you"; but, although there's more than a grain of truth to that statement, even it isn't anything like sure-fire. To come across them you would really need not only to be wealthy yourself, but to move in the world of other wealthy people. To be in a Chamber of Commerce. To be in a professional association (especially around its conventions). To be part of a big city's society circles. A Chicago attorney or a New York broker is far more likely to know about the agency than is, say, a guy ten-times richer than them but stuck on his stud-farm in Kentucky. Bottom-line: a lot of it is knowing the right people and being at the right place at the right time. I'm sorry I can't be more specific, but that's the way it is.

If it's any compensation, my agency was itself painfully aware that there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of potential customers out there it was unable to reach. But what to do?

In the end what it always did - and, from the evidence of its injunction that I not publish its name, still does - was to preserve what it has, taking the fewest risks possible. Maybe that means the flow of new customers into it isn't as great as it might be. But, as I say over and over again, its focus was always on turning new customers into regular customers and, as it usually succeeded in doing this, it didn't need the constant traffic that other agencies were so desperate for.

To those of you whose rather mournful e-mails have taken an "it's unfair we can't get into this world" line, I can only point out it's not just you who are "outsiders". So, it seems, are people for whom you would assume all doors are open. Take that English actor Hugh Grant, for example; the one who got caught with (from memory) a low-rent Sunset Strip hooker. Now the first question anyone in the know in L.A. would have been asking when they heard that is "What the hell was he doing cruising the strip? Why didn't he just ring Heidi?"

But that's my point. He may have been a movie-star, but he was English, an out-of-towner, without the right local connections. Lowly assistant directors and associate producers - heck, even screenwriters - who hung out at the right parties would have known "If you wanna girl you gotta ring Heidi", but he didn't, and so he ended up spending the night down Parker Center.

(My timings may be off with the above - i.e. The Hugh Grant business may have come after Heidi Fleiss's gig got shut down - but it scarcely matters. If it's not "Ring Heidi" any more, it'll be "Ring Caroline/Samantha/Whoever". There will always be someone to ring; several someones in fact, including one for gay sex. That's just the way things work, and only politicians in heavy election-mode bother pretending it's ever going to be any different.)

* You really can't give me any more help finding an agency?