Killer Tease

by Danny Hogan

  Her hand reached up slowly but giving herself a confidence injection, she gave the door a couple of firm thumps. There was no answer but she went in anyway.

  After the cramped corridor she had not been expecting to find herself in this immense office. The ceiling was at least twenty feet above her and hard backed books lined the walls. Eloise noticed from the spines that most of the books were by the notorious hack fantasy novelist N. Reg Mother, who had founded his own religion that was popular with low-brow celebrities.

  Again, the same carpet as the bar and the corridor covered the floors and in the centre of the room was the biggest wood and marble desk she had ever seen. Looking out of the far window was the man who had approached her in the pub on Saturday night and sitting at the desk was, who had to be, Napoleon Hammerstein.

  She had expected a fat balding bastard but instead was met by a scrawny bastard with out-of-control, wiry hair and a badly kempt goatee.

  ‘Eloise Murphy,’ he said, grinning.

  Eloise felt instantly at ease; this person was clearly a fool. He reminded her of a pervert who had tried to teach her at school once.

  ‘Please sit down, make yourself comfortable,’ he continued. ‘Maybe I should ask you to take your clothes off.’ He broke into a long stupid laugh, as did the man at the window. These two were dads for sure.

  ‘OK, what’s the gig? When do I start? How much do I get paid and let’s get something straight from the get-go; I don’t do stripping, numb-nuts,’ said Eloise, sitting down gingerly and allowing her bag to slip from her shoulder and fall to the floor.

  Just to the left of Hammerstein stood a large safe. Eloise wondered if that’s where he kept the lion’s share of his bonus, afraid the tax man would get it and too worried that an offshore bank might crumble under civil upheaval in this insecure day-and-age.

  ‘And neither would I expect you to,’ said Hammer-stein, in the kind of tone a Frenchman would use, his big bulbous eyes gleaming in a skull that looked a little too small as he rifled with a file on his desk in a clearly theatrical display. ‘I am opening a club for discerning gentlemen with very special tastes. Your name has been mentioned several times by some of the customers I am hoping to attract, so naturally I am interested in you becoming part of the team here.’ He grinned in a way that didn’t inspire confidence at all.

  ‘What you offering?’

  He slid a slip of paper across the desk at her. She picked it up and looked at it, making sure she maintained a flippant air. It was an air she could no longer keep when she saw what was written on it. If she was careful with her finances, she could afford to finally take it easy and relax.

  Eloise was, however, not one to be bought no matter how much nearer her dream it would get her.

  ‘Specialist tastes? I don’t like the sound of that one bit.’

  Hammerstein didn’t answer; instead he picked up the file in front of him and opened it. He scrutinised its contents seriously for a moment and then gazed at it with a sympathetic expression.

  ‘It always both amazes and horrifies me,’ he began, ‘how photography can capture things that the human mind dare not conjure.’

  Eloise found it hard to breathe again. She knew exactly what he was talking about.

  ‘Would you like a peek, my dear?’ he said holding the file out to her.

  ‘No,’ she replied and saw the man at the window grinning as well.

  Hammerstein’s whole manner changed in a split second. He no longer seemed like the buffoon she had originally took him for; his features appeared darker.

  ‘If something has been befouled then it in turn becomes foul. Thus, Eloise, you are foul. Broken. A broken doll useful only to a very few. I am one of those very few, Eloise, d’ya hear me?’

  She struggled harder to breathe.

  ‘You will dance for me every night, the customers can do as they please. Look,’ his mean, angry mouth turned into a leery smile, ‘touch,’ the smile grew, ‘whatever they please.’ He sat back in his chair and seemed to relax somewhat. ‘If you so much as raise a hand to one of my clients,’ he slammed the closed file on the desk in front of her, ‘this!’

  There was a long horrible silence. Eloise couldn’t say anything and she was starting to feel faint and nauseous.

  ‘Furthermore, every night you will come here into my office and thank me.’

  She broke into a fit of coughs and felt the overwhelming urge to be sick.

  7

  ‘Can I have a glass of water?’ asked Eloise, fighting the urge as best she could.

  Hammerstein just looked at her with his mouth pursed and hands together.

  ‘May I have a glass of water please,’ he stared at her sternly, ‘sir.’

  She was faced by a difficult choice. She hated being sick more than anything but would she just let loose on the floor there and then rather than debase everything she stood for? She felt the bile rising and clamped her eyes shut. If she was sick now, then almost certainly tears would involuntarily stream from her eyes. She decided that looking like she was crying in front of these two was the worst case scenario.

  ‘May I get…’ she blurted

  ‘Have, may I have,’ said Hammerstein.

  ‘May I have a glass of water.’ Eloise began to gag.

  He just looked at her expectantly with his bushy eyebrows raised.

  ‘Please, sir.’

  Both men laughed, though a little less energetically this time, and Eloise could just make out that the man at the window had turned around and was looking at her.

  Hammerstein looked at him, the man looked at Hammerstein, bowed slightly and smiled. The man then walked across the room to a globe and opened it to reveal a drinks cabinet. He poured some water from a bottle into a glass and dumped a couple of ice cubes into it. He walked over to Eloise and handed it to her.

  Eloise sank the glass noisily; water poured from the corner of her mouth. When she’d finished Hammerstein was again looking at her expectantly. The other man was still next to her. She was unnerved by the fact that her face was level with his groin.

  ‘What do you say?’

  Well, she had her water.

  ‘Nothing!’ said Eloise, wiping the water away from her mouth.

  ‘Not the face,’ Hammerstein said.

  At that, the man standing next to her smashed his fist into her stomach in one savage movement. Eloise was aware of extraordinary pain and the feeling that her guts were dissolving. All her organs seemed to cease functioning and she slid from the chair onto the floor.

  Eloise rolled onto her back, desperate to get some air, and the man stepped up beside her and booted her just below her ribs. Pulling off his sunglasses and smiling, he kicked her again. The toe of his shoe was pointed and it felt like a spear was being run through her. Weakly, she curled into a ball but this time he kicked her in the base of her spine forcing, her legs to kick out.

  In agony, and so desperate for air, she made out the sole of his shoe above her and felt totally helpless.

  ‘Enough!’ said Hammerstein, walking around from behind his desk.

  Through the water in her eyes she could make out that he was a short, skinny man.

  Hammerstein kicked her legs apart and went down to kneel between them. With all the strength she could muster she fought to take a hold of herself, but it was too late. In one foul instant he smashed his bony knee into her crotch and brought his face close to hers. Through the pain she was overwhelmed by the rank stench of stale coffee.

  ‘We have a deal?’ he said.

  She could do nothing else but nod. Her eyes were clenched shut and nothing happened for a moment. Then somebody gripped her hair and pulled until she was on her feet. She opened her eyes and realised she was moving towards the door rapidly. She was weak and racked with pain, her legs buckled and she went to fall but was just dragged up by her hair and forced towards the door.

  ‘Tomorrow eight o’clock, Eloise,’ said Hammerstein. His voice was way behind her so it must have
been the man with the ponytail who was presently manhandling her. ‘Don’t be late.’

  With that she was hurled into the corridor with a kick to her arse and her bag smacked her in the head as it followed her out.

  8

  Eloise lay in the corridor for a few moments in the teeth of pain and humiliation. Her stomach felt like a huge knot, her ribs killed, making breathing in extremely painful, her back felt like it had been cracked, her hair felt like it had been pulled out of its roots and her crotch throbbed like nothing she had ever experienced before.

  She had quit smoking nearly a year ago but she wanted a cigarette more than anything now.

  The stuffy corridor was not helping and the walls felt like they were closing in on her.

  She could hear Hammerstein from inside his office.

  ‘She’s had enough; when she’s gone you leave too. I want to enjoy my orange and I must never be disturbed when I’m eating an orange.’

  Eloise had intended to take a quick peek in at least one of the doors but with the thought of the ponytailed-man’s impending approach she was in no mood for it.

  Getting up slowly, she felt stiff and the walk to where the stairs lead to the downstairs bar took twice as long as it should have.

  Each step downward caused her to wince and hold her sides and she was practically doubled over. As she descended the air became markedly cooler and she took a moment to draw in as much as she could.

  The bar was beginning to fill up with a few customers when she finally arrived in it. The people ordering drinks were mainly mean-looking men. Not mean in a hard way, mean in that way a man has when he strives everyday for more cash yet already has bought whatever he wants.

  Eloise was aware that everyone had stopped what they were doing to look at her. She would have been more bothered but, right now, what she needed was more water.

  The bar was manned by two staff; a man in his mid-twenties and a girl who looked younger. The girl was looking at her with disgust but the man appeared genuinely sympathetic to the wretched sight he was faced with.

  Eloise finally made it to the bar and sat down in an effort to rest and get some comfort. But no comfort was to be had; every movement across the seat seemed to inspire more pain.

  The girl, who was nearest, was just looking at her with hostility.

  ‘Water, please,’ asked Eloise.

  ‘There’s a tap on the seafront,’ said the girl.

  Eloise put her head on the bar in the grips of pain and despair but soon heard a tap running.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she heard the girl say spitefully.

  ‘Just leave it, will you.’ And then something like a glass being pushed towards her on the bar top.

  She looked up and saw a tall tumbler full of ice and water, condensation running in rivulets down its side.

  ‘Here you go,’ he smiled.

  Eloise was not seduced by looks alone, but there seemed to be a way about this man that she was not familiar with in strangers; sincerity.

  It was then that she caught sight of herself in the back bar mirror; she could have wept.

  Her eyes were red and puffy and mascara streaked her cheeks like grubby spiders’ legs.

  As if he was reading her mind, he held out a piece of tissue paper for her. She did the best she could to clean her face.

  The man passed her a red drink in a pint glass full of ice.

  ‘Thanks, what is it?’ Eloise thought about fleeing this place but the draw of a stiff-looking drink was too great.

  ‘It’s a Serbian Ice Tea; white rum, gin, vodka, lemonade and Kalulha.’

  ‘Cheers, it’s lovely,’ Eloise said, taking a sip. It was sweet, but not too sickly, and incredibly refreshing.

  ‘It should make you feel better,’ he said as he turned his back to get on with his tasks. The girl behind the bar tutted. She still had a sour look on her face.

  Eloise had been in many grim resorts in her time but the atmosphere in this luxurious drinking establishment was by far the darkest she had ever encountered. The place was beginning to really fill up but even though the clientele looked wealthy, none of them appeared to be having fun. Nobody smiled or even laughed, they just demanded their drinks and sat in the booths muttering angrily to the people they’d come in with.

  She was aware of one particular bunch because they kept looking at her and occasionally pointing. They seemed eerily familiar but she could not think for the life of her where from. It was at that point that she decided to leave.

  9

  The weather outside was the kind Eloise couldn’t abide; overcast and uncomfortably humid. Everyone in West Street was in a bad mood as if, somehow, the atmosphere from the bar had infected the general population.

  Taking a long detour, she popped into the Caroline of Brunswick as she knew that’s where Hunter went every night he wasn’t doing a gig. She needed a friend. He still had his aviators on and she realised that this must be his new “thing”.

  Hunter periodically adopted a new thing which would come in the form of a phrase, a group, an item of clothing (as in this case) or, back in the bad old days, a drug.

  ‘Pint a cider and a G&T on the side, judging by the looks of things,’ Hunter said to the barman as Eloise walked towards him.

  She wanted so badly to relate her experiences at the building on West Street but couldn’t. In the space of a weekend her world was coming apart but what could Hunter do about it, other than listen intently in that nervous, fidgety way of his and then tell her it was going to be all right?

  ‘Dildo trade not going too well is it?’

  ‘I’ve got some new gigs,’ she began, ignoring his question.

  ‘Oh, well done, mate,’ he said, suddenly bursting into movement, jumping from his stool and hugging her.

  ‘Yeah, at that big new club over on West Street where the cinema is.’

  He unclasped her and moved back with a bemused expression on his face. Eloise noticed that even the barman seemed to be paying concerned attention.

  ‘That’s one of them bloody lap dancing places, ain’t it?’

  ‘I heard it was a front for one of them posh knocking shops,’ the barman chipped in.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Eloise, grasping her pint and fantasising for a moment that it was Hammerstein’s throat, ‘all I know is I ain’t doing none of that.’

  ‘I don’t know Murphy,’ began Hunter, scratching his head, ‘they could get you doing your normal stuff and then, one day, they’ll come to you and say that one of the girls has got a sore bum or something and, before you know it, you’re writhing over some yacht-sail-shirted dickhead for twenty quid a time.’

  ‘He’s right, them places are a slippery slope,’ butted in the barman again.

  Eloise looked around the pub at all of the paintings of pin-ups on the wall as Hunter and the barman slandered the big club complex on the corner of West Street. All she could think about was getting Hammerstein and that pony-tailed bastard. Getting them, but good.

  ‘Murphy, you’re an artist,’ said Hunter, ‘you don’t need to go down them dodgy avenues. Leave it alone.’

  ‘They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.’

  The barman smiled slyly and got on with his duties but Hunter seemed to understand. He no longer looked nervous and stopped twitching.

  ‘Are you in trouble, Eloise?’

  Eloise shook her head. ‘Nothing I can’t handle.’

  ‘Listen, you need help; anything at…’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll call you,’ said Eloise, finishing her drinks and making her way to the door. It was going to be a long walk home.

  During the night she couldn’t sleep. It didn’t help that Sinatra kept jumping on her and demanding attention. Eloise barely believed it when she looked over at the clock; seven a.m, the time she usually got up for her run along the seafront before work. That was not going to happen this morning.

  Eloise lay in bed until she absolutely had to get up or she’d be late for work an
d although she always walked, this time she took the bus. Mobile disease carriers ferrying the idiot vox populi to their woeful destinations, Eloise thought, and had half a mind to get out her journal and write that down but just couldn’t be bothered.

  10

  Work was atrocious. The highlight of the day was when some morbidly obese woman tried to return a rabbit that had blatantly been used until its sorry death and then tried to squeeze herself into a corset that was three sizes too small.

  Eloise watched with detached amusement as the woman grimaced, huffed, puffed and undulated. Miraculously, she managed to get into the skimpy item and looked not unlike a liver sausage that had been squeezed in the middle. The woman turned to Eloise, her cheeks full of blood and sweat dripping from her small down-turned lips, and asked for assistance in tightening it up at the back.

  Turning from pink to red to purple to green, the woman eventually collapsed in a huge, sweaty, heaving ball of meat with Eloise, boot at the base of the woman’s spine, pulling for all she was worth.

  Eloise stopped only when it became apparent that, any more, and she would choke the life out of the beast.

  Leaving the three-hundred pound, patent leather-clad carcass she had just bagged on the floor, she realised that soon she would have to close the shop and face the fact that tonight she started work at Hammerstein’s place

  When she arrived, there was a great long queue for the cinema and Eloise wished to God that she was among them. There was nothing like a good film, in her eyes, a chance to escape from the reality of bills to pay and dealing with people who brought the same old stories over and over.

  Going through into the same bar as the previous night she was greeted by the barman, who handed her a Serbian Ice Tea.

  ‘You’re going to need this,’ he said almost apologetically.

  The atmosphere seemed a lot friendlier than the previous evening. Even the snotty barmaid smiled at her in a pleasant manner. A couple of business types sparked up conversation with her at the bar and, although these were not the usual kind of people she’d associate with, they seemed friendly and strangely familiar. As she had arrived early she took the time to have a couple of drinks with them.