by R. J. Jagger
Leather, skin, chains and masks were everywhere.
Liquor and sex permeated the air.
Several women were already on bondage display at the makeshift stages against the walls. A busty brunette wearing only a white thong, a thin bra and a mask was secured tightly and inescapable to an X-Frame. Another woman was stretched out on a rack. Another was face down on a table, hogtied and gagged. Another was in a standing position, with her wrists tied together and stretched high above her head. And there were five or six more.
Durand’s cock tightened.
He ordered a double Jack, downed it and ordered another.
Flat-panel TVs throughout the club played bondage movies.
Lots of females milled in the crowd. In fact, there were probably more women than men, women of all flavors.
Hardcore.
Curious.
Exhibitionists.
Teasers.
But a good number of them were prostitutes, trolling for the big money, willing to get kinky but only for the right customer and the right price. Those were the women Durand was most interested in.
But there was no need to rush.
He had all night.
He wandered over to take a closer look at the woman stretched out on the rack, who was attracting a crowd.
THE RULES WERE SIMPLE.
Admire but don’t touch, unless the guy standing guard gave the okay. Sometimes the guy was a boyfriend and didn’t allow any touching at all. Other times, the guy was a pimp and allowed touching for a price. Even then, though, no sexual or inappropriate contact was permitted.
The girl on the rack must have been a whore, because the man by her was accepting money and letting people, one at a time, feel her.
Durand watched, mesmerized, and figured out the exchange rate; five Euros for sixty seconds.
No meanness or pain was allowed, only caressing, and not the crotch or the tits.
A female was now doing the feeling. She ran her hands down her captive’s arms. When she got to the woman’s armpits, she detected a reaction.
“Are you ticklish?” she said.
“No.”
“Good, then you don’t mind if I do this.”
She wiggled her fingers in the woman’s underarms. At first, the woman bit her lower lip and didn’t respond. Then she busted out in laughter. The next person up, a man, spent his entire minute tickling her.
So did the one after that.
Then the woman had enough and asked to be released.
NO PROBLEM, THOUGH. Another woman with long blond hair, wearing a white mask, came over to take her place. She spoke briefly to the man taking the money and then, right there next to the rack, she stripped off her street clothes until she got down to a black thong and matching bra.
Durand watched.
She had quite the body, quite the body indeed, plus some kind of large tattoo on her stomach.
Good.
A wild woman.
She laid down on the rack, raised her arms above her head and stared at the ceiling.
The crowd clapped.
Two men cuffed her, stretched her tight and then wrapped a blindfold over her eyes, on top of the mask. Durand wedged in closer to take a better look at the tattoo.
It was a vine of exotic, sensuous flowers.
It started on the woman’s stomach and wrapped around her hip, over her ass and then twice around her upper thigh, ending about six inches above her knee.
A man paid 5 euros and immediately went to work directly on the woman’s armpits. The crowd watched, hypnotized, wondering if she was another ticklish one.
She was, even more so.
Durand laid down 5 Euros and waited for his turn.
Chapter Thirteen
Day Two—July 13
Tuesday Morning
______________
TEFFINGER WOKE BEFORE DAWN on Tuesday morning. The lights of Paris bounced off the Seine and bathed Fallon’s sleeping body in a warm patina. Teffinger studied the sensuous curves of her naked body as he dressed and pitied every guy in the world who wasn’t him. He kissed her imperceptibly before he left, walked to his hotel, and jogged five kilometers on the banks of the river as the city woke up.
Recharged.
That’s how he felt.
He showered and came downstairs to find the curvy beauty from yesterday, Sophia, behind the reception desk. “You never came to the club last night,” she said.
True.
He got busy.
“Too bad,” she said. “You missed out.”
“On what?”
She ran a finger down his chest and said, “On everything. I knocked on your door last night. You didn’t answer. I may never forgive you.”
Really?
Yes, really.
He pulled a rose out of a vase, pinched off the stem, and worked it into her lapel. “There, pretty in pink—forgive me now?”
She did—
—But only if he promised to take her out for a drink at some point, if not tonight, then soon.
He shrugged.
“Sure.”
“No, not sure, sure means nothing. You need to promise,” she said.
Fine.
He promised.
She smiled and kissed him on the cheek.
“Don’t break your promise, Nick Teffinger from America. Otherwise I won’t show you my tattoo.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“You have a tattoo?”
She looked around, saw no one, unbuttoned her shirt and pulled up her bra. Her breasts were perky and perfect. On the left one was a tattoo.
A pink rose.
Teffinger couldn’t believe it.
“It’s almost a perfect match,” he said, referring to the one he just put in her lapel.
She nodded.
“That’s why I had to show you.” Then she took his hand and put it on. “Smooth, isn’t it?”
WHEN TEFFINGER GOT TO FALLON’S OFFICE, she wasn’t there yet, so he sat at her desk and spent half his time studying the Tracy White file and the other half ping-ponging between the coffee machine and the restroom. He didn’t read French, but did understand the steps of the investigation and the forensic reports.
Fallon had done a good job.
Teffinger wouldn’t have done anything differently.
Unfortunately, there were no forensic leads or witnesses.
The file had photographs and information on Michelle Berri, the missing roommate who hadn’t been seen or heard from since Friday evening when Tracy White got murdered. She was five-three, 24, blue eyes, brown hair, mildly but not wildly attractive, and worked in the preservation department at the Louvre. Most likely, she was already home, or unexpectedly came home, while Tracy White was getting her eyes gouged out. Her blood hadn’t been found at the scene. Nor was there any other evidence to suggest that she had been killed there. What Teffinger couldn’t figure out is why the caveman didn’t just slit her throat then and there.
That’s what he would have done.
Why go to the bother and risk of keeping her alive and dragging her out into the world?
WHEN FALLON SHOWED UP, Teffinger looked up and said, “Motive, that’s what we need to figure out to get Michelle Berri back. What was the caveman’s motive to take her instead of slitting her throat right then and there?”
Fallon grunted.
“Here’s the problem,” she said. “You have two pots of coffee in your gut and I don’t.”
She tossed a newspaper on the desk, said “Page 5,” and then disappeared out the door.
Page 5 was beautiful.
The sketch of the caveman was there; big and clear, with a nice story.
There was no mention of Fallon Le Rue by name, meaning that their plan to pretend that she was the witness behind the sketch hadn’t been spoiled.
Teffinger expected Fallon to be back in thirty seconds, holding a cup of coffee. Instead, she didn’t return for ten minutes. When she did, she had coffee in one h
and and two pieces of paper in the other.
“The caveman calls are already coming in,” she said, “two potential suspects so far, both different guys. Let’s go.”
Teffinger fell into step and followed her out the door.
“Hold it,” he said.
He ran back into the office and returned three heartbeats later with his cup in hand.
“Okay,” he said.
Fallon rolled her eyes, turned and walked down the hall.
Teffinger made sure they were alone and said, “I woke up last night. You weren’t there.”
“Sometimes I have trouble sleeping,” she said.
“Where were you?”
“I took a walk,” she said. “It’s what I do. Let’s go.” A pause, then, “We need to figure out how we’re going to do this. We can’t let these guys see you, because you’re supposed to be in Denver. And we can’t let them see me, because I might have to end up being the witness-slash-bait, which won’t work if they know I’m the detective.”
Teffinger thought about it and said, “I have a plan.”
Fallon look surprised.
“You do?”
Yes.
He did.
“What is it?”
“My plan is to come up with a good idea as soon as possible.”
Fallon chuckled and punched him in the arm.
“I don’t know if I can take a whole day of you,” she said.
“Few can,” he said. “In fact, the only one I know of is Sydney Heatherwood.”
“Who’s she?”
“A detective I work with,” he said.
Fallon must have detected something in his voice because she gave him a sideways look and asked, “Are you sleeping with her?”
“No. She doesn’t have time. She’s too busy reprogramming my truck radio to hip-hop stations.”
“Did you ever?”
“What?”
“Sleep with her.”
Teffinger chuckled and said, “No, even I have a few boundaries. I bounced a quarter off her ass once, but that’s a whole separate story.”
They took her car and pointed the front end west, still not sure how they were going to handle things when they got to where they were going.
Chapter Fourteen
Day Two—July 13
Tuesday Morning
______________
THE TERRIBLE NOISE LAST NIGHT was a man beating the life out of Alexandra Reed. Deja fired the gun before she even knew what she was doing. The man stumbled backwards, grabbed his upper chest, gurgled something painful, and hobbled out the door. They immediately slammed it shut, locked it and pointed the gun at it. When nothing happened, they went to the terrace and looked down.
A shadowy figure stumbled out of the building.
Hurt badly.
A car squealed up the street and skidded to a stop. The back door opened, a strong arm pulled the man inside, and the driver floored it while the door was still open. The acceleration slammed it shut and then the taillights disappeared around the corner.
Deja set the gun on the kitchen table and held her hands together to keep them from shaking.
“If he dies, I just killed a man,” she said.
Alexandra said, “Screw him,” and hugged her.
Tight and long.
They listened for the sounds of neighbors coming.
No one came.
Not a single person knocked on the door.
After a long time, they turned on the lights. Alexandra’s face was a bloody mess. The man’s blood was on the floor, lots of it, plus something they didn’t expect—a wallet. The driver’s license belonged to someone named Pascal Lambert, a 42-year-old man with a mean face.
“Do you know him?” Deja asked.
“No.”
They cleaned Alexandra’s face.
Then they confirmed that no one was in the hallway and quietly wiped up all the blood droppings, plus the ones in the stairway.
No doors opened while they worked.
They grabbed their purses, threw the gun in Alexandra’s, and got the hell out of there.
They watched the building from the shadows across the street to see if any lights turned on or if any cops showed up. Everything stayed normal. An hour later, they walked down to the Seine, found a dark grassy enclave and fell asleep with their arms around each other.
That was last night.
NOW THE FIRST LIGHT OF MORNING softened the eastern sky. Dawn would break in a half hour. They washed their faces in the river.
Deja asked, “What do we do with the gun? Should we throw it in the water?”
Silence.
Then Alexandra said, “No, we might need it. You need to go to work today, just as if nothing happened.”
Deja agreed and they headed for her apartment.
“By the way, I don’t think I told you thanks for last night,” Alexandra said.
“No problem.”
“He would have killed me. I could feel it in his fists.”
Deja nodded.
“What I don’t get is how he connected you and me together so fast.”
“He must have seen us together and followed us,” Alexandra said. “Maybe he tailed us to Remy’s last night. Maybe he thought we found the map and that’s why he came over, to get it. He probably figured we’d never tell him where it was so he’d just kill us upfront and then search the place at his leisure without having to worry about us screaming or something.”
Deja nodded.
It made sense.
“I told you these guys were vicious,” Alexandra added.
Deja grunted.
“I’m starting to see your point.”
MID-MORNING, Deja’s cell phone rang at work and the voice of Nicholas Ringer from Nice came through. “I just wanted to let you know that I retained a P.I. last night, a man named Marcel Durand. He’s a little edgy but he’s the best there is, so we’re in good hands.”
“Thank you so much.”
“No problem,” Ringer said. “As soon as he calls me with something, I’ll call you.”
Deja briefly considered telling him about last night so he better understood the gravity of the situation, but decided against it.
“When is he going to start?” she asked.
“Today. I told him to make it a top priority and he promised he would.”
Ten seconds after she hung up, the phone rang again. She thought it was Ringer calling back to tell her something he’d forgotten, but it turned out to be Alexandra.
“My guess is that all Remy’s stolen stuff is at this guy’s house, this Pascal Lambert guy. We need to get over there and get it before it disappears,” she said.
“You’re kidding, right?”
No.
She wasn’t.
“Tonight,” she added. “After dark.”
Chapter Fifteen
Day Two—July 13
Tuesday
______________
MARCEL DURAND DIDN’T GET HIS P.I. ASS HOME until four in the morning and slept until noon to prove it. His head throbbed from too much Jack and his tongue felt like someone had taken a hairdryer to it. He popped three aspirins, drank water until his eyes floated, climbed into the shower and pissed into the drain while he lathered up.
After coffee and croissants at a café table in the sun, he started to get functional again.
There.
Better.
Time to work.
Which file should he start on first?
He chuckled.
That was easy.
The file of the client who was paying the most money.
Which meant the mystery-man file.
ALL HE HAD TO START WITH was a license plate number, the one provided by the client, but that was more than enough. It took all of two minutes to get the vehicle’s registration information.
Luc Trickett.
That’s who owned the mystery car.
It took another two minutes to get a printout of his d
river’s license. According to that, he was six-three, 235 pounds, 37-years-old and looked like a boxer.
An ugly boxer.
An ugly boxer with a crooked nose and a scar on his chin.
He turned out to live in a rundown house ten kilometers south of Paris. Durand drove past the place in the early afternoon, found all the window coverings closed, and pictured rats in the basement. No cars were in the driveway and he detected no signs of movement.
He headed back to his office to do deeper research on the man.
It wasn’t pretty.
MID-AFTERNOON HE WAS FEELING HORNY, so he headed over to Verdant Park and got a 50-euro blowjob behind a tree from a blond with bloodshot eyes who said she was twenty-five but looked forty.
There.
Better.
On the way back to his office, he called the client and said, “The man’s name is Luc Trickett.” Then he told him everything he’d found out so far. “The guy’s dangerous,” he added. “What’s your interest in this man, anyway?”
“It’s better that you don’t know.”
“That may be, but my advice is to keep your distance.”
Silence.
“You want me to keep digging, or is what I gave you enough?” Durand asked.
“Keep digging,” the client said. “Get into his house and have a look around.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know,” the client said. “Just get deeper information on him. Be sure you’re keeping everything absolutely confidential. Not a word of this to anyone.”
Chapter Sixteen
Day Two—July 13
Tuesday Morning
______________
THE FIRST CAVEMAN CALL this morning was anonymous and the voice message was short: “The guy in the paper, the one on page 5 who you’re looking for, looks like a DJ who plays sometimes at Rex, except it can’t be him because he has a mustache and goatee and his hair is a lot longer.”
“What’s Rex?” Teffinger asked.
“It’s one of those high-energy dance places with a thousand speakers,” Fallon said.
“Have you ever been there?”
She nodded.
“Years ago.”
Teffinger studied the cityscape as Fallon coped with traffic.