John phoned Garko. Garko seemed surprised to hear from
him again. “Is this something I want to hear?”
“Not on your life. Peugeot and her girls have Dimitri.
They want the pressure off, or they’ll go to the press.”
Garko remained silent long enough to absorb the shock and
contemplate the ramifications of the news. “How in all the labyrinths of
hell did you manage contact with Peugeot, John?”
“Through the child you wanted me to kill, Mr. Garko.
She’s with me now. She was sent with the offer.”
Garko muttered a profanity and again took a moment to
compose himself. “John, why are you doing this to me?”
“You’ve got it wrong, Mr. Garko. I told you Dimitri was
outclassed by this kid and her friends. He never stood a chance. As for
the terms of our agreement, I drew the line before you sent me.”
“I’ll have to get back to you. I’ve got your number. Stay
put.”
John put the phone back in place. Sitting cross-legged in
the middle of his bed, Jennifer rose to her knees with the alert posture
of a wild animal and waited to be briefed on the conversation. With her
head tilted back with unconscious pride, and her lips parted with rapt
attention, she looked like a model posing for a camera.
Her brown eyes drove him wild, and her nubile beauty all
but brought tears to his eyes. He wanted badly to touch, to ravage her
innocence in punishment for her trusting vulnerability, except that she
wasn’t the least vulnerable.
She had him pegged for exactly what he was, hungry and
defenseless. He only hoped the girl could handle the genie she was
unleashing with such tenacious determination. He simply didn’t have it
in him to stop her.
Jennifer said softly. “What did he say?”
“He said he’d get back to me.”
“Will he try something sneaky?”
“I don’t think he’d risk it. Not with me. Sure as hell
not with you.”
“Then we’ll just have to wait.”
Except that she was asking more than he could take. The
thought of spending the rest of the night so close to this feral
creature without being able to touch turned him into a single mass of
hurt. He could not even breathe.
“Don’t do that to yourself,” Jennifer said, sounding
suddenly unsettled herself. “Let’s just get it over with. I’ve been
waiting for ages anyhow. It can’t be all that big of a deal, can it?”
John couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You’re not
for real, kid. How old are you?”
“Old enough. Seriously, I don’t know how old I am in
years, but I might be eighteen.” She raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “You
don’t think I know how considering what my friends do for a living?”
She didn’t, really, no matter how many times she might
have eavesdropped on the activities of Francis Peugeot’s working girls.
It would be a first time for her. It would be something new for him as
well. She sensed that, no matter how many women he had known in the
past. He had never known anyone so innocent or trusting.
Jennifer thought him to be a lot like Gabby. It wasn’t an
act of sex he wanted. He wanted her in some indefinable way, her entire
being, physical and emotional. He didn’t alarm her at all when he sat at
her side and embraced her.
Too soon after that, he was out of control. Jennifer lay
passive across the bed as he undressed her, caught in the throes of her
own budding passion, but not knowing what to do with herself.
She hadn’t planned clearly for this at all. For a time,
she kept whispering in his ear the need for protection, and then it was
too late.
She could not hope to stop him. It was too soon for her,
although it was over within seconds, and it hurt like hell. She lay
quietly, as if in shock, as he finished undressing them both, tearing
seams and popping buttons in the process.
He tried to be more considerate the second, somewhat less
desperate time around, sensing the experience had not been what Jennifer
had expected and fearful she’d not respond to him. But within seconds of
his more cautious stimulation, she came alive beneath him, and her next
cry was one of shock at the unexpected intensity of the pleasure he
managed to stir to life within her.
She clutched at him in astonishment, raking bloody
furrows in his back. She found herself convulsing in his arms for a
time, lost in a universe of sharp physical pleasure. She collapsed when
it was over for at least the immediate moment, and she lay staring at
the ceiling in astonishment.
“Oh, God, Francis is going to be so pissed at me!”
John couldn’t keep his hands off her. The perfection of
her body captivated him utterly. He assumed his behavior would offend
her and that at any moment, she’d roll away and cut her visit short. He
had tried to warn her.
Instead, she threw her hands around his neck and sighed.
“I figured it would be something like this,” she whispered breathlessly.
“The girls kept warning me that my first time wouldn’t be much fun.
Should have known they’ve got their brains screwed around backwards.”
John did not know what to say, or how to react to her. He
had no idea of what she expected of him, whether he was to be some kind
of father-figure to the girl, or mentor. They were far too badly
mismatched to be lovers, a child he had not been able to resist and a
man who had lived on the outskirts of hell his entire life and who
sullied everything he touched.
She was more than he had bargained for, but he expected a
self-centered child with a short attention span regardless. He expected
her to turn moody, or to begin making unreasonable demands and walk out
when he refused. He expected her to talk too much. Now that he had
awakened his own long-neglected appetite, it was going to plague him
long after the girl was gone.
It didn’t happen that way as the hours quietly passed.
Jennifer smiled at him now and then. She sighed a lot. She had little to
say and no inclination to make a run for the shower and wash the stink
of their sweat away. After a time, she stirred restlessly against him
and whispered, “do it again.”
The phone rang hours later, at dusk. John untangled
himself and got up to answer it.
“We will all need to meet and resolve the problem
together,” Garko said. “One word of warning, John. Dimitri seems to have
been tricked into killing one of Francis’ girls. I don’t know the
details of the contract. I don’t know who put him up to it or why. It’s
not anyone in our organization, and I’ve checked around. I have no idea
why he would have involved himself in something so completely off the
wall. Apparently, he got the wrong girl and has been trying to cover his
tracks.”
John stared into space, confused, but already lost in
contemplative thought.
“Our association, yours and mine, is terminated without
prejudice,” Garko said. “This is more than either one of us bargained
for. You needn’t be on hand when we collect Dimitri. I’ll negotiate
directly. I know the reputation of the Peugeot woman. We should be able
to make a clean break with this situation.”
“I’ll field for them on this, if you don’t mind,” John
heard himself say.
Garko gave a cold-sounding chuckle. “This is not like
you, John. From an old friend, one word of advise. I can’t protect you.
Whatever agency is at work here goes over our heads. Personally, I
wouldn’t care to involve myself.”
“How do we handle the meeting?”
“I’ll send a runner with a mobile phone and
instructions.”
There was nothing more to be said. John put the motel
phone back in its cradle.
A nymph arose from the rumpled pile of bedsheets and
waited patiently for him to recount the conversation. “You were the only
eyewitness to the killing,” he said. “You have to watch Dimitri die.
Complicity is the only way to satisfy everyone involved and ensure your
silence and the silence of your friends. Can you do it?”
Jennifer took less time to respond than he would have
thought. “It would be harder if he wasn’t already all shot up, but I
don’t think he’s going to make it anyhow. They won’t just kill the rest
of us, too, will they?”
“Not with the offer coming from Garko,” John said. “Not
with me there to back you up.”
“Then I should speak with Francis.”
John felt a sudden tightening in his gut. She was
leaving. The chances of ever replicating their hours of intimacy would
not likely repeat itself.
“I’ll be back,” Jennifer said unexpectedly. “When Evelyn
arrives, Francis will pair her with Bertha and I’ll get paired with
Francis. I’d rather be with you until this is over with, if you don’t
mind. Francis snores. So do you, but I like your smell better.”
John let a deep sigh escape him. “I don’t mind.”
Jennifer dipped her head and peered at him through dark
hair tumbled about her shoulders and breasts. “Have I made a pest of
myself?”
“Knock yourself out, kid.”
Jennifer shook her head in bemused exasperation. “Francis
is really going to be pissed at me.”
Novels by
William G. Tedford