by Peter James
‘Yes, it is so.’
‘So show me!’
12
Wednesday 18 February
Ten minutes later, entwined in each other, Romeo and Juliet kissed passionately throughout the entire short journey of the elevator up to the fifty-second floor. Still partially entwined, they stumbled along the corridor to the door of his suite.
Inside, he led her to a sofa, then picked up the phone and ordered a bottle of vintage champagne from room service to be sent up urgently. He hung up and disappeared for several minutes through double doors into another room, then returned with a plastic bag full of white powder, a drinking straw and a knife.
He made several lines of cocaine on the glass surface of the coffee table, lifted the straw to his nose, ducked his head down and sniffed up one entire line. ‘Whoohaaaaa!’ he whooped. ‘Whooohaaaaa! I tell you, this is the best! The best in this whole city!’ He handed her the straw.
Just as she took a tentative sniff, the doorbell pinged.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t let anyone in!’
As Romeo went to get the door, she heard the rustle of paper, then a voice saying, ‘Thank you, sir, have a great evening!’ Moments later Romeo reappeared holding a silver tray with the bottle of champagne in an ice bucket, two flutes, a bowl of nuts and another of olives. He set them down on the table, next to the cocaine, kissed the back of her neck and sat down beside her.
Then, without warning, he grabbed the straw from her and sucked up another line, followed by another. Shouting out ‘Whooohaaaaa!’ he hauled her to her feet and began kissing her wildly. So wildly it alarmed her.
She tried to back off. ‘Hey!’ she said. ‘Hey! Gentle, OK?’
‘Don’t gentle me. I know what bitches like you want!’ His voice was slurred. ‘You like it rough, yes?’
‘No.’
He pushed up her skirt and fumbled for her underwear.
‘Hey!’
He shoved her back, violently. She stumbled and crashed into the wall. He was pressing himself against her, pulling her knickers down.
‘Stop!’ she said, increasingly frightened by his sudden mood switch.
He was grinning demonically now, his eyes glazed with alcohol and the drug. ‘You want it, bitch. You want me to fuck you hard, don’t you? You like it rough.’
With one hand he held her against the wall. With the other, he was unbuckling his belt. His eyes were crazed, he was scaring her.
She headbutted him, on the bridge of his nose. He staggered backwards and sank down onto his knees, blood spurting from his nostrils, his face a mask of confusion. Instantly, she lashed out as hard as she could with her right foot, the pointed toe of her Louboutin catching him beneath his chin, snapping his head sharply up and shooting a loud grunt from deep inside his throat.
His eyes stared, unfocused for an instant, then closed. He fell backwards and lay still.
Shaking, aware she had drunk far too much, she staggered forward and looked down at him. He was out of it, but still breathing. Blood streamed down his cheeks from his busted nose and onto the carpet. She grabbed her clutch bag from the sofa, rubbed her head which hurt and, glancing at him again, walked quickly over to the door.
Then she stopped, realizing the opportunity she now had. She turned and went through the double doors he had gone through some minutes earlier, into a large bedroom with a walk-in closet leading off it. She peered around in search of his wallet. There was an open, partially unpacked suitcase on a metal and leather stand close to the bed. She rummaged through it and at the bottom found another plastic bag full of white powder. It was sealed shut.
Her nerves jangling, she looked over her shoulder. Might as well take it, she decided, and put it into her clutch bag. Then – and she had no idea what made her do it – she dropped to her knees, lifted the vallance of the bed and peered under it.
And saw a large Louis Vuitton suitcase.
She ran back to the doorway. Romeo was still totally out of it. She returned to the bed, pulled out the case, popped the two catches and lifted the lid.
Despite her drunken state, she began to shake with excitement.
It was packed with bundles of new $100 bills wrapped with paper bands.
Shit!
She looked over her shoulder again, closed the lid, snapped the catches shut, then picked up the case and went back cautiously to the doorway.
The Romanian hadn’t moved.
She glanced at the opened bag of cocaine on the table, tempted to take that too. But he had slit it open messily and some of the powder had spilled onto the table and floor. She let herself out of the door as silently as possible and closed it behind her, then gripping the case tightly, sprinted along the deserted corridor towards the fire exit sign. She hurried, stumbling, down the bare concrete steps for ten floors until she saw the number on the door of her own floor.
42.
She pushed the fire door open. The corridor was empty. Stepping out, she strode along it as nonchalantly as she could.
Moments later, safely back in her suite, she switched on the lights, closed the door and slipped on the safety chain.
Her heart was hammering, her brain racing.
Music was playing on the television and the curtains were drawn. She looked around warily, her nerves all over the place. The turn-down service had been, she realized.
Hurriedly, she put the suitcase on the bed, then began to check the money. It was in bundles, each wrapped with a paper band marked $10,000. She counted twenty. Jesus! $200,000. A very nice surprise and sweet compensation after the shit she had been through in Muscutt’s office today.
She removed the bundles of bills and stashed them, spreading them between her own three large suitcases, interweaving them with her clothes, as well as putting some in her hand luggage. She was wondering whether to take his case with her, to avoid it being found here, then stopped and decided to check it for any tracking device that might be in it.
She unzipped the side pocket, but it was empty. Then she ran her hands round the interior lining. And felt a small lump.
She went over to the fruit bowl, which had already been replenished, the knife replaced with a clean one by the turn-down service; picking up the knife, she cut open the suitcase’s lining, shooting a nervous glance towards the door every few moments. How long before Romeo woke up – and found out what was missing?
She slipped her hand inside the lining and pulled out a plain white envelope with a small object inside it. She slit it open and saw, inside, a shiny black USB memory stick.
Why was this hidden in the lining?
She looked at her watch. 9.40 p.m. Was it too late to get a night flight out of here?
She put the memory stick back in the envelope and zipped it securely in a pocket inside her handbag. She had a feeling that to have been so carefully hidden, it must have a value. She would call Romeo Munteanu when she got back to England, she decided, in her addled mind, and find out how much he would be willing to offer for the return of the memory stick.
Or maybe not.
After all, two hundred thousand greenbacks, at today’s exchange rate, wasn’t a bad return for one evening’s work.
Hardly the millions she had been expecting from Walt Klein. But not to be sneered at.
She hastily finished packing her bags, transferred the packet of white powder from her clutch to her handbag, then looked at the suitcase, debating what to do with it. She stepped out, looking around cautiously, went a short distance down the corridor and put it in the laundry room, then hurried back and phoned down for a porter.
For the next few minutes she paced around, nervously waiting. When the doorbell pinged a few minutes later, she checked the spyhole before opening the door. She asked the porter to get her a taxi to Newark Airport, gave him a twenty-dollar bill and said she would see him outside.
Again, warily, she went out into the corridor and took the elevator down. She scanned the almost deserted lobby before she stepped out, feeli
ng relieved it wasn’t under siege from the paparazzi. She cancelled the limousine she had booked for the morning, checked out, fearful that Romeo Munteanu would appear at any moment, and hurried out through the revolving door into the bitterly cold Manhattan night.
The porter showed her the suitcases, safely stowed in the trunk of the yellow cab, before slamming the lid.
Moments later she sat back in the cramped rear, as the elderly, turbaned driver headed out across Columbus Circle.
‘Newark?’ he said. ‘Which airline?’
‘Change of plan, I’ll tell you in a minute,’ she said, tapping the Google app on her iPhone, searching for any flights out of here, on any airline, to the UK tonight. Or, alternatively, any flight out of here tonight to anywhere.
13
Wednesday 18 February
Three minutes later, Jodie said to the cab driver, ‘LaGuardia, please.’
A siren wailed.
Shit. Her nerves were jangling.
A police car screamed alongside them, Jodie held her breath. But it carried on past them down Central Park South and bullied its way through the stop lights at the junction with Fifth Avenue.
She pulled her laptop out of her handbag, opened it and inserted the memory stick she’d found in the suitcase. After some moments a new icon appeared on her desktop. She double-clicked to open it and, as she had suspected it might, a password request popped up.
She pulled the stick out and zipped it in an inside pocket in her bag. She knew someone in England who’d be able to discover its contents easily enough.
Then she looked at the bag of white powder. The high partition in front of her, with its television monitor showing the news, silently, and the Perspex shield made it impossible for the driver to be able to see her. She looked around carefully to ensure there was no CCTV camera in the rear, then opened the seal, wetted her finger, dipped it in and put it in her mouth.
Cocaine.
Shame to waste it, she thought. Shame to chuck it, but she’d be mad to keep it. She balled her left hand and put a pinch of powder onto it, cursing as the cab braked sharply, nearly throwing the bag and the laptop out of her grasp. Then she sniffed hard, with each nostril in turn. And felt the instant rush.
It was good!
From past experience of buying cocaine she had some idea how much street value this bag contained. Thousands of pounds’ worth.
Within moments of inhaling the drug, her nerves were steadying and she began to feel great. Really great! Oh yes! Result, lady!
She took another snort, and resealed the bag. She needed to get rid of it, she knew, but she was reluctant. This was good stuff. She was about to replace it in her handbag, to have a final hit at the airport and then bin it, when she had a sudden reality check. How long before Romeo Munteanu woke up? What would he do when he did and found the cash and his cocaine stash missing? It was pretty unlikely that anyone with that amount of cash in a suitcase hidden under a bed was likely to be engaged in something legal. Equally, in his drugged state, he might just be irrational enough to call the police and give them her description.
They had sniffer dogs at airports. Was it worth the risk for a final snort?
Of course, she could repack as soon as she got out of the taxi when they reached the airport, and put the drug at the bottom of her suitcase.
But should she?
She wasn’t thinking straight, she knew.
She had still not decided when she saw, through her window, the first signpost for LaGuardia Airport flash past.
14
Thursday 19 February
It was barbecue night at the Shark Bite Sports Bar. Which meant that in a while the regulars would be drunk and stuffing their faces with charred chicken, cremated steaks and disintegrating fish and crustaceans.
Tooth, a short, wiry man with a shaven head and an angry face, sat out on the deck area overlooking the creek at the south end of Turtle Cove Marina, accompanied by his associate, Yossarian. He was constantly slapping his exposed legs and arms, which were under assault from mosquitoes. Smoke from the barbecue was getting in his eyes and really pissing him off.
The Caribbean evening air was 36 degrees and the humidity was high. Dressed in khaki shorts, a singlet printed with a picture of Jim Morrison, and flip-flops, he was perspiring. He was smoking a Lucky Strike cigarette and drinking a Maker’s Mark bourbon on the rocks. Yossarian sat beside him, twitching his nostrils at the smell of the meat, and occasionally lapping water from a bowl on the wooden decking.
The dog was an ugly mutt. It had different-coloured eyes, one bright red, the other grey, and looked like the progeny of a Dalmatian that had been shagged by a pug. It had started following Tooth along a street in Beverly Hills a few years back, when he was casing a house for a hit, and had ignored all his attempts to shoo it away. So he had ended up bringing it back to this island with him. He wasn’t sure who had adopted who. And he didn’t care.
It was getting to the end of Happy Hour right now, and the air-conditioned interior of the bar was full of ex-pat Brits, Americans and Canadians who mostly knew each other, and got drunk together in here every Thursday night – and most other nights, too. Tooth never talked to any of them. He didn’t like drunks. He was content to be with his loyal, sober associate.
There was a roar of laughter from inside the bar. It was wild some nights. A few years ago two Haitians who had tried to rob the bar had been shot dead by a customer. It was that kind of a place.
This island that he had called home for the past decade was a paradise for tourists, and one of the assholes of the Caribbean to the US border authorities. Around seventeen miles long and five wide, Providenciales – or Provo, as it was known to the locals – sat midway between Haiti, Jamaica and the southern tip of the Florida Keys.
The British made a pretence of policing it, and had put in a puppet governor, but mostly they left it to the US Coastguard, who had a base there, to deal with – or ride roughshod over – the corrupt and inept local police.
It was why Tooth chose to live here. No one asked questions and no one gave a damn. They left Tooth and his associate alone and he left them alone. He lived in a ground-floor apartment in a complex on the far side of the creek, and his cleaning lady, Mama Missick, looked after the dog when he was away on business.
The mosquitoes were particularly bad tonight. He didn’t do mosquitoes. Hated the critters. He’d long ago decided that if he ever met God – unlikely, as he didn’t believe in Him – the first question he would ask was why He had created mosquitoes.
To piss everyone off?
He was pissed off right now. His right ankle, where he had been bitten a short while ago, was itching like hell. Given the chance, he would nuke every mosquito on the planet. But right now he had another more important issue. Business. Or rather the lack of it.
Tooth had left school early and eventually ended up in the army, where he had served two tours in Iraq. It had changed his life forever, because it was there he discovered his real expertise as a killer – and in particular as a sniper. It had served him well.
He drank two more bourbons and smoked four more cigarettes, then headed home along the dark, deserted road with Yossarian, to grill some bonefish he had caught earlier on his boat, Long Shot.
He could do with another good contract. Two of his primary sources, both American, had gone – one doing life without parole, the other shot dead – he had executed the man himself. Now he had two new sources of business, but he hadn’t heard from either in several months. His stash, in his Swiss bank account, was running low. Fuelling his thirty-five-foot launch, with its thirsty twin Mercedes engines, which took him out hunting for his food most days, was expensive.
And one day he might need the boat to make a fast exit from this place. With a top speed of fifty-four knots, not much at sea could catch it. Besides, his days out on Long Shot were his life.
And he never knew how they were numbered. He just lived each year to see if he would get past
his next birthday, which was not for several weeks. He had developed a kind of ritual on each birthday. He would leave the Shark Bite and drive to Kew Town, to visit his regular hooker. There were no drink-driving laws on the island. Afterwards he would drive home and play Russian Roulette.
The same .38 bullet had been in the chamber for the past ten years. He had dum-dummed it himself. Two deep cuts in the nose. These would cause the bullet to rip open on impact, punching a hole the size of a tennis ball in whatever it hit. He would have no possible chance of survival.
Tooth inserted the bullet back into the barrel, and spun the chamber. The gamble was where the bullet ended up. Would it be an empty chamber behind the firing pin or the loaded one?
Physics worked for plays of this game. The bullet weighed the chamber down. So it wasn’t a six-to-one chance. Most likely the bullet would end up at the bottom of the chamber. But one day, and that could be today, it would be different.
Bang.
Oblivion.
Although it wasn’t his birthday, he decided what the hell. Birthdays were just numbers. He pressed the barrel of the revolver to the side of his head. To the exact part of his temple he knew would have maximum destructive effect.
Then his phone rang.
He hesitated. Answer or ignore it? Could be business. And he couldn’t pull the trigger with his fucking phone ringing. He answered it.
And heard the harsh accent.
In recent years his paymasters had changed from American mobsters, who all sounded like they had chewing gum jammed up their nostrils, to these Eastern Europeans who were humourless but precise.
‘Call you back,’ he said, and instantly hung up.
He went over to a locked closet, selected a fresh pay-as-you-go phone from the ten that he had bought on his last trip to mainland USA, and returned the call to his contact. He listened to the instructions carefully, committing them to memory, reminded his client of his terms – one hundred per cent of the cash now to his Swiss bank account – then hung up. He didn’t do negotiation.