“It turns out the IP we tracked belongs to a building, that in turn belongs to a company.”
“Okay. So?” Jack replied.
“Thing is…” Reno stopped and sucked on what had to be a straw. “The company is a front for an escort service called Direct Connect, owned and run by a Margaret Lewis.” He sucked again and swallowed loudly.
“Can you put your beverage down for the duration of this phone call? It’s highly annoying,” Chase said.
“Cola. Sorry about that.” Reno sounded embarrassed. “I’ve been working on this all day without a break. I need the sugar.”
“Talk,” Jack said.
“I don’t have much more at the moment, but somebody who was there that night had to make the money transfer.”
“How many working girls do you know who can make a fifty-thousand-dollar transaction?” Jack asked.
“Could be a wealthy client. Or the owner of the agency?” Chase mused.
“Maybe. Give me the agency’s digits,” Jack said, and wrote them down.
“Anything else, Reno?” Chase asked.
“Nope.”
Chase disconnected.
“I’d forgotten how easy you guys have it,” Jack said.
“Easy?”
“Guys like Reno do all the homework and send you on your way.”
“Is that why you faked your death? Was working for the organization not challenging enough?” Chase asked.
“You’re hilarious.”
“Anyway,” Chase said, “I say we call the agency and see where that gets us.”
Jack started to dial the number.
“What are you doing?” Chase asked, surprised.
“Calling Direct Connect. I doubt they’re closed. Night time is the right time for this kind of business.”
“Have you done this before?”
“I’ve never had to pay for it and never would, so no.”
“Because that would have interfered with your otherwise noble existence,” Chase shot back.
Jack put the call on speakerphone. “Hi. I’d like to make an appointment with you to talk about—”
“I’m sorry that’s not the way we work,” the woman on the other end said.
“I see. Well, then, can we—”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Give me that, Neanderthal,” Chase muttered in a low voice as she grabbed the cell from Jack’s hand. “Please, excuse my friend,” she said into the phone. “She’s new at this. An acquaintance gave me your number. He happens to be a very satisfied customer.”
“We do aim to please all sorts,” the woman said. “What are you looking for?”
“He recommended the woman he saw last Tuesday, but he wasn’t certain your employee met with same-sex customers.”
“Tuesday,” the madam repeated. “And what is your friend’s name?”
“I doubt he uses his real name, and I was remiss in asking his alias,” Chase replied, oozing charm. “He was with her at an address on West 76th around seven o’clock.”
“Aha. Hold on, please.”
“Of course. Take your time.”
The madam came back on. “It was either Amber or Priscilla. Priscilla does girl-on-girl and is available tonight.”
“And Amber?”
“Her availability is limited, I’m afraid.”
“Then I’d like to make an appointment with Priscilla,” Chase said. “Half an hour from now?”
“Your name?”
“Jaclyn.” Chase smiled when Jack shot her a look of death.
“That won’t be a problem. Payment is made beforehand. Two hundred and fifty dollars for an hour.”
“Very reasonable.”
“Please go to the rear entrance.”
“I will. Thank you.” Chase hung up.
“That went smoothly,” Jack said. “Now let’s hope Priscilla’s our girl.”
They drove in silence until they reached the brownstone, arriving fifteen minutes before the appointment. Chase had to circle the block a few times before a parking spot opened up in front.
Jack stared up at the building. “Not too shabby for a brothel.”
“House of pleasure.”
“Yeah, right. I don’t see how anyone can get pleasure out of screwing a woman who’s pretending to enjoy it.”
“It happens every day in most households.”
“Too true. But at least within the privacy of their own sad marriage they don’t enable the skin trade.”
The remark hit a sore spot with Chase. She was certainly aware her own habits had consequences, but she’d managed to neatly justify those feelings, at least in her own mind. Prostitution would continue to exist with or without her contribution, and she figured selling one’s body was better than turning to theft and drugs. “Besides, not all customers are filthy, selfish pigs.”
“Yeah, I bet most are gentle, charming princes,” Jack said. “I seriously doubt any woman who gets paid to fuck enjoys it.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“Don’t be so naïve. It’s their job to tell you you’re the fuck of the century. They’ll say anything to guarantee a return customer.”
“Anyway…” Chase was tired of the turn the conversation had taken. “Let’s hope our girl is here tonight.”
“Haven’t done surveillance in years.” Jack sat back and studied the brownstone.
“I’m sure you have, only your people use the term clock,” Chase said, referring to mafia terminology.
“I didn’t work exclusively for the mob and I was never one of them.” Jack was clearly aggravated.
“It’s reassuring to know you seek variation at the bottom of the barrel.”
“I’m not going to defend myself.”
“Good, because I doubt whatever you have to say is a page-turner.”
“Screw you, Land—” Jack looked past her. “Two o’clock.”
A well-dressed woman was walking up the driveway, headed toward the rear of the brownstone.
“You’re on,” Chase said. “And go for subtle.”
“If you don’t think I can handle it, do it yourself.”
“I want to sit back and bask in the regaling of your first time.”
“Oh, my God. You are so witty.”
“Your sarcasm is a bit stale, but I appreciate the effort.” Chase had reasons for not taking this one. She’d used various agencies for her own pleasure and knew all too well that most girls liked to move around. Although she’d never ordered from Direct Connect, she wouldn’t be surprised to come across someone she knew.
“Maybe later I can show you where you can stick my effort.” As she left the car, Jack tried not to imagine what Cassady would think of what she was doing, even though it was a necessary step in their efforts to find her. With a sigh, she walked to the rear entrance of the brownstone and rang the buzzer.
A seven-foot closet of a guy answered. “Come in. I’m Massimo.”
Jack mentally added him to their list of possible suspects. “I have an appointment with Priscilla.”
He smiled. “Second floor, second room to the right.”
“Thanks.” Jack took the stairs and knocked.
A brunette, probably in her early twenties, opened the door. “Hi, Jaclyn.” She gave Jack an appreciative once-over. “Come on in and get comfortable.” The call girl wore a sheer black teddy that barely covered her ass and displayed more cleavage than would be tolerated in public.
Jack tried not to stare at her breasts. “A friend of mine visited you last Tuesday.” She tossed the agreed amount on the dresser. “He said you were amazing.”
The young woman giggled. “Tuesday…” She pursed her lips in thought. “Ah, the Cleveland Mattress King. He’s a sweetheart, and a generous tipper. I’ve been seeing him for three years. Are you in the same business?”
Do I look like I sell mattresses? “No. I know him from the local bar.”
“Well, any friend of Bill’s is a friend of mine.” The girl snickered.
“He also talked about an Amber?” Jack wondered if she was being subtle enough. Damn Landis for not taking this one.
“Did he?” Priscilla sounded surprised. “He’s never…been with Amber. Amber doesn’t take clients here except for Dario. Frankly I don’t know why she continues to see that creep.” She reached over and slowly unbuttoned Jack’s shirt.
“What do you mean?” Jack froze. She looked down at the girl’s busy fingers like they were pesky flies and grabbed her hand to stop her. “Why don’t we slow down?”
The girl laughed. “Your time, your money.”
“So, Amber and the creep?” Jack asked.
“Well, she never has to please the guy, but she has to put up with him watching while she has sex with whoever she picks up or he asks her to do.”
“You mean, he never screw…participates?”
“Nope.” Priscilla licked Jack’s neck. “You know, a watcher.”
Jack took a step back. “Huh? Yeah, sure.” She tried to sound like she’d heard the term before.
Priscilla guffawed. “A creep. Plus, he’s like some big man of mystery. Comes and goes by special arrangement so no one ever sees his face. Not even Amber.” She clearly had no qualms about discussing her colleague’s affairs.
“No kidding,” Jack replied. A guy with secrets. Could be their man, she surmised, ’cause Bill the Mattress King sure didn’t fit the profile. “Do you think I could hook up with Amber?”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Uh…nothing. But Amber sounds like she might be good for a different kind of…weird. You know, if the mood strikes me.”
Priscilla giggled. “Yeah, I don’t do kinky.”
“But you’re…beautiful.” Jack tried to sound interested and charming.
“Can we get started?” The call girl started to pull off her teddy, exposing her bare breasts.
Jack swallowed hard and stopped her. “Uhm…hold on.”
Priscilla smiled. “Oh, you want to undress me? That’s cool, too.”
“I was actually wondering…where can I find Amber?”
“I don’t know. Through the agency, I guess. Like I said, she’s not here much, just for the one guy. And she usually doesn’t hang around after.”
“Is she cute?” Jack asked, hoping for a description.
“I guess, if you like the gorgeous type,” the girl replied. “I’m kinda glad she won’t put her face in the catalogue. It’d leave the rest of us in cardboard boxes, eating out of Dumpsters.”
“Can you give me her number?”
“What? No. Besides, she doesn’t do girls.” She giggled again, her annoying trill beginning to grate on Jack’s nerves.
“I can be very persuasive.”
“Look, are we going to get busy?” The girl suddenly got serious, annoyance creeping into her tone. “Or are you going to drool over Amber?”
“Okay, here’s the deal.” Jack pulled out her wallet. “I’m giving you another two fifty for Amber’s phone number, and this whole conversation never happened.” She threw the money on the bed.
The call girl ogled the cash. “I don’t have her number.”
“What do you have?”
“She mentioned she’s going to the Cave tomorrow night. It’s a club, near—”
“I can find it. What does she look like?”
Priscilla fished a few pictures from her purse. “This is us last Christmas.”
The photo was a little blurry, but Jack could make her out. She put the picture in the pocket of her jacket.
“Hey, it’s not for keeps.”
“It better be, for two hundred and fifty bucks.”
Priscilla giggled yet again. “I guess you can have it.”
Jack buttoned up her shirt. “Thanks for the…good times, Priscilla.” She strode to the door.
“You’re welcome, I guess.”
“There’s a certain glow about you,” Landis said as soon as Jack got in the car.
Jack ignored the comment. “If I hear the words I guess or a giggle one more time, I’ll implode. Aside from that, I don’t think she’s our girl. But we should check her anyway.”
“Why do you think it’s not her?”
“Because her elevator doesn’t go all the way up, and a few hundred bucks were enough to make her spill on her friend. For a few more, I could’ve bought her mother. Not the type Rózsa would trust his laundry to, never mind keep his cash and secrets. Her Tuesday client doesn’t sound likely, either.”
“How about the other girl—Amber?”
“My bets are on her for now. Or her john—he fits the profile. Very secretive, doesn’t want anyone, including the call girl, to see him.”
“A watcher,” Landis said.
“I knew that.”
“Knew what?”
“Nothing. We also need to check out the muscle at the door. Name’s Massimo.”
“Massimo what?”
“He didn’t exactly give me his business card.”
“Looks like we’ll have to follow him home. Get an address.”
Jack nodded and sat back. “Get comfortable.”
Landis smiled. “You didn’t know what a watcher was.”
“For all I know he likes to screw with a bag over his head.”
“I don’t know how to process your obtuse conclusion.”
“What are you babbling about?”
“He’s a watcher, and very careful to hide his identity,” Landis concluded.
“My point. Sounds like someone we should meet.”
“And I do not babble.”
“Whatever you say,” Jack said smugly.
“After we get an address on this guy, I say we go to that place you try to pass as a home to pick up some clothes, and then to a hotel.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my—”
“I’m sure pigs feel the same way about their sty.”
“Babble, babble, babble,” Jack whispered.
Priscilla left the building a few minutes later. Another hour passed and a businessman in a suit came out, then another call girl. One by one, the lights in the brownstone clicked off.
Jack sat up. “Closing time.” She was so focused on the front door Landis saw the light come on upstairs before she did.
“Fourth floor. Think he lives there?” Landis asked.
Jack trained her binoculars on the window. She could make out a picture hanging on the wall, but little else—until Massimo walked by in his wifebeater T-shirt, drinking a beer. “Looks like it. I say we bag it for tonight, come back tomorrow. He’s got to leave sometime. Give us a chance to get in and look around.”
Landis called Reno and, after updating him on what they’d learned, asked him to find out anything he could about Massimo and the others who’d been in the brownstone that night. Though it was unlikely he could get anything on most of them with only first names to work with, some of which were probably aliases, he’d worked miracles before. When she hung up, she checked her watch and started the rental. “Now, which way to Sty Central?”
Chapter Seven
Shanghai, China
Simon huddled in the corner of the bleak cell, furiously seeking a plan to get himself out of this nightmare. A month ago, he’d been apprehended at the airport with a half kilo of opium, and every development since then had been increasingly horrific. Deprived of any contact with either the US Embassy or family, he’d been taken immediately to a local jail, where soldiers wielding electric batons coerced him into signing a statement in Chinese he presumed was a confession. Not long after, a man who said he was Simon’s attorney told him in broken English he’d been given the death penalty for his crimes.
Four days ago, he’d been transferred to the Qing Pu Prison, a squalid and massive complex, and placed into a cell block dominated by Westerners. His cellmate Rollo, a freelance Aussie journalist, was being detained without trial on suspicion of industrial espionage, a charge he vehemently denied.
A sudden chaos of noise in the ha
llway broke Simon from his reverie. Several soldier-guards marched past his cell in a tight formation and began pulling inmates from their cots farther down the hall. The inmates apparently knew more than he did about the purpose of the exercise, because many of them screamed or fought back until they were subdued with electric batons.
“What’s going on?” he asked Rollo as they watched.
“Doesn’t look good for them,” Rollo replied somberly. “I saw the doctor down there a couple of days ago.”
“What does that mean?”
“They’re next. Their number’s up, man.”
“What are you saying? They’re all going to be executed?”
Rollo nodded. “They’re coming faster. Some of those guys haven’t even been here half a year.”
Simon fought a sudden urge to vomit. “You’re kidding, right? What about appeals?”
Rollo’s laugh was devoid of humor. “This isn’t the bloody States. Haven’t you caught on there’s no such thing as justice here, or even basic human rights? Once you’re in, they do what they want to you.”
The soldiers marched past them again, dragging a half-dozen inmates, including one young woman.
“Marcia,” Rollo said solemnly. “Catholic nun from Canada, arrested in a raid on an underground church. She’s made it a year, poor girl, but they finally got her to sign the donor card.”
“Donor card?”
Rollo looked at him incredulously. “Where you been, man? Don’t you ever read the fucking newspapers? We’re a precious commodity to the Chinese.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“This country’s like ground zero for black-market organs. It executes more prisoners than any other country so it can sell our kidneys and livers to the highest bidder. Why do you think they give the death penalty for virtually any kind of crime?”
“So the doctors…when they visit…”
“Are running blood tests, to make sure you’re healthy and a match for whatever fucking orders they have to fill.”
Another surge of nausea roiled in his stomach, and Simon dry-heaved into the bucket that served as their toilet. As he wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve, screams erupted from the courtyard outside their window. He and Rollo peered out through the bars.
The six prisoners who’d been marched past them were lined up against a brick wall on their knees, their hands tied behind their backs. A soldier on either side held each one in place. Many were screaming or yelling. At a barked order from a man with gold braid on his uniform, six soldiers armed with rifles approached each prisoner from behind and aimed his weapon at his target’s head. Another barked an order and shots rang out in the courtyard, silencing the screams. With chilling efficiency, the dead prisoners were hoisted onto stretchers and put by pairs into three ambulances parked near the gate.
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