She wore a black dress with matching heels. Her brown hair hung to her shoulders in curls. In one hand, she clutched a small purse. With the other she reached up and stroked the side of my face, her skin soft against the rough stubble.
“Poor baby,” she purred in passable English. “You look awful.” Her hands slid down my sides and stopped at my bandaged finger. “Oh my God, what happened to your—”
I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her into me. Our mouths met, and her tongue quickly began searching for mine. I swung the door shut and pressed her against it. Her hands fumbled at the front of my pants while I hiked her dress up above her hips and pulled her panties to the side.
A few quick thrusts. Some muffled moans. The earth didn’t move. It didn’t have time.
I stood there for a moment, panting into her shoulder. When I felt her shift uncomfortably against the door, I took a step back and pulled my pants up while she flattened out her dress. She started toward the kitchen but I held up a folded wad of cash to block her way.
“You don’t need to pay me now, sweetie. You’ve got me for the whole hour.”
“Just take it,” I said.
She considered the cash, then turned her eyes toward mine. “Honey, what’s wrong?”
“Just take it and go, please,” I said again.
“Are you sure? I can fix you something to eat, or we can just—”
“I said take the fucking money!” It was louder than I intended, and my throbbing throat hated me for it, but I didn’t care. I crushed the bills into a ball, took her by the wrist, and shoved it into her palm. “Get out!”
Her features—full of sharp angles yet somehow still soft in a way that reminded me of Denise even more than the black dress I insisted she wear for all our encounters—twisted into a sneer. She was no longer every man’s fantasy, a woman who could become whatever you desired, but a contract worker who just realized the guy who hired her is a piece of shit. To put an exclamation point on the transformation, she spit in my face and stormed into the hallway.
I slammed the door shut behind her, which was pointless with the lock and doorknob both broken. She kicked it once, swinging it back toward me, and shouted, “Asshole!” before stomping off. I gave the door a hard kick myself, decided that wasn’t enough, and punched it too. Then I turned and collapsed against it. My legs gave out and I slid to the floor where I hugged my knees and started to sob.
CHAPTER FIVE
The next morning, I showered, dressed, vomited, and made breakfast, though not in that order. Everything hurt, and I wanted nothing more than to lie in bed for a week, but that wasn’t an option. The extra $450,000 in my bank account ($550,000 if you count the “engagement fee”) staring back at me from my phone screen was a reminder that I had a pressing obligation to some very serious people. As if the one they sent me home with yesterday wasn’t enough.
I’d cleaned the nub of my finger as best I could in the shower—that’ll wake you up—and wrapped it in fresh gauze afterward, but it needed real medical attention. The bleeding had mostly stopped, save for a little seepage here and there, but the skin around the wound had turned an ugly, purplish black. The bone was still exposed, and the entire finger had yet to regain feeling beyond the second knuckle. Going to the hospital meant paperwork, so that was a nonstarter.
Didn’t matter. I knew a guy. Finding a medical professional who accepted cash and asked no questions was priority number one whenever I set up shop in a new location. He and I were set to meet later that day. Before that, though, I had a call to make.
I’d only met Leon White two weeks ago and knew very little about him. Since he hadn’t shared anything useful about his relationship with Trish’s group at the time, and what I knew about him only made his ties to them more puzzling, I decided to back up one degree of separation and talk to the person who connected me with Leon in the first place. He picked up on the second ring.
“Hey Rick, good to hear from—”
“Who tipped you off about Leon White?” I interrupted.
“What?”
“Your lead about the White contract, Freddie, where did it come from?”
“I don’t know, some guy. Why are you pissed? Did Leon not pay? I read the paper yesterday. Contract looks like it went smoothly.”
“Oh it did,” I said, “right up to the point when Leon hooked me up with a very well-funded referral who cut off part of my finger when I turned down their search opportunity. So, if you want me to continue paying off your gambling debts, you better come up with a better answer than ‘some guy,’ Freddie. I need to know who told you about White, because whoever he was neglected to mention that Leon knew people that high up on the food chain.”
“Look, he was new, what do you want me to say? I’d never worked with him before, but he dropped all the right names and I knew the contract would interest you. It’s not the first time I’ve sent you a lead from a source like that. Did they really cut off your finger?”
“Focus, Freddie. What did he look like?”
I could almost hear him shrug over the phone. “Average height, average build. Short brown hair, like a crew cut.”
“Great, you just described half the guys in Belgium. Anything else, anything I can use? A name, maybe?”
“No name, but the ones they give me are almost always fake anyway.” He snapped his fingers. “Oh, he had a neck tattoo! Some kind of Chinese symbol.”
“Okay, that’s at least mildly interesting. Nothing else, though? Nothing that seemed suspicious?”
“Not that I recall,” he said. “Sorry, man, I’ve got a lot on my mind.” His voice became more annoying than usual when he wanted pity. Sounded like someone slowly letting the air out of a balloon.
“Why?” I asked, rubbing my eyes. “Who’s going to break your legs this time?”
“Nobody, as long as I get them the thousand I owe. Fucking sure thing trips up in the final lap. Just my luck.”
“You got no luck Freddie, never have. Which is why I keep telling you to stay away from those dog races.”
“Yeah, but Rick, this was a ten-to-one sure thing.”
I sighed. “They’re all sure things, Freddie, until they trip and fall.”
“Rick . . .”
“The contract went off without a hitch, just like you said, and your referral fee will be in your account tonight. Don’t get all squeaky.”
“Thanks, Rick. And hey, I’ll make it up to you next—”
I hung up.
