by JJ Lamb
When he finally got to his locker, he shucked off his expensive sport coat and sharply-creased wool pants, and pulled down his underwear, leaving him stark naked.
The locker room was empty, not that it would have mattered, but he turned to a full-length mirror and studied his body as he flexed his muscles. His eyes traveled downward and he stared at his penis. It was long and very healthy.
And very active.
Yes, he was beautiful to look at. That’s what both women and men said about him.
When he lived on the streets, men would seek him out, beg him to suck them off, take it, or give it in the ass, and they always paid with very large bills if they wanted to see him again.
They always did want to see him again.
Those funds could have paid for a small apartment, but he continued to sleep in the alleys or gang members’ pads. He changed where he settled down from week to week and it served him well, especially after he became a hit man for a gang. He not only protected, he was well protected, too.
His father’s warning to stay low, blend in, never left his thoughts. Papa also warned that he would never escape from the Russian killers, no matter how smart, or how much he tried. But Vlad was now thirty two and knew his lessons in survival had served him well.
His father was wrong.
It had all been hard, but he’d escaped.
Vlad reached into his locker and grabbed workout shorts and sneakers. He put them on and walked out to the large exercise room where a large array of machines and weights were waiting.
Idle chatter drifted into silenced as he walked into the gym. He nodded to various people, mostly body trainers and clients.
He knew how beautiful he was and so did they.
Chapter 23
After Tallent waved goodbye on his way out to lunch, Robert Cantor was immediately up and down the hall. He walked in on Jon Brichett, who was on the phone and gave Cantor a wait-a-minute hand signal.
When Brichett hung up, he said, “Those post-op call-backs can be a bitch.” He shook his head. “Bring them in or nurse them along at home and worry about them the whole time.” He shook his head. “Don’t ask me why I became a doctor.”
His partner remained silent.
“So, Bob, what’s up? You’ve got that pissed-off look plastered all over your face.”
Cantor didn’t quite know how to structure his concern about Mort Tallent and the strange way he was behaving. He finally said, “Have you noticed anything unusual or different about Mort’s behavior lately?”
Jon Brichett was the youngest of the three partners, and generally had an upbeat personality. Cantor knew he was loved by everybody, especially his patients. His opinion would definitely help structure and solidify whatever Cantor was thinking.
“Now that you mention it, I have,” Brichett said. “What’s bothering the man?”
“What could it be?” Cantor said. “He makes twice as much money as we do, he’s single, foot-loose, and fancy-free. Hell, I’d give anything for that kind of life.”
“I’ll tell you, Bob, that bachelor life looks a lot better from the outside looking in—much more exciting than it really is.” He gave him a know-it-all smile, “Speaking theoretically, of course.”
Cantor laughed. “Hey, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t give up my life with Stacy for anything.” He collapsed into one of the chairs. “And being a bachelor certainly doesn’t seem to make Mort too happy.”
“I thought when that whole business with his ex quieted down he’d come out of that dark hole he’s fallen into. I mean having the police questioning him about Annie’s death really took its toll on him.”
Cantor looked hard at Brichett. “I think Annie sleeping around absolutely destroyed Mort’s whole world. He was crazy about her.” Cantor hesitated. “There’s more to Mort than you might think. Were you aware that his family, particularly his father, pushed him into medicine?”
“No, never heard anything about that.”
“Back in the day, Mort was a competitive surfer. Loved it. Traveled everywhere for that one perfect big wave.” Cantor shifted in his seat. “I saw a video of him competing once—he was awesome. But his family didn’t see it that way. Pushed, and I mean really pushed, him into medicine. I met his mom & dad once.”
“What were they like?”
Cantor chuckled. “Society-type snobs. Looked down on anyone not in their stratosphere—including me.”
“Can’t say that about Mort. He’d just as soon talk to the janitor as to me.”
“I didn’t really know anything about his background, just that he’s a respected practitioner,” Brichett said. “Actually, He’s always been a little standoffish to me from the first time I met him. I didn’t think he liked me, didn’t think he’d agree to bring me into the practice.”
“Naw, he liked you all right. It’s that sunny disposition of yours. It’s hard to take with a hangover.”
Brichett gave him an evil glare. “Very funny.”
“Besides, standoffish is one thing,” Cantor said. “But he’s just been plain off the wall since Annie died. That was over a year ago, and it’s getting worse.” He ran his fingers through what was left of his hair and realized he was doing that a lot, maybe to reassure himself that there was any left. “We probably should talk to him about taking some time off, getting his act together. Maybe that’s all he needs.”
Brichett sat up taller in his seat. “Are you kidding me? We can’t take care of our patient load with the three of us.”
“Well, let’s think about it. At least talk to him.” The pros and cons were lining up in Cantor’s head. “Sometime soon.”
* * *
Kat Parker was a nervous wreck all afternoon. All she could think about was Cal. She’d had so many fantasies about him, and yet, she barely knew him. Going home with him was slamming her with too much reality.
She was frightened. What if he looked at her, was turned off by her, by her body.
I should never have said yes to having dinner at his house. What a fool I am. I was secure out in public, secure in a restaurant with people all around us.
At four, she went into the rest room and reapplied her make-up and took a few minutes to try to meditate. Meditation was the only thing that had gotten her through her separation and divorce from her husband. For some unknowable, stupid reason she’d abruptly stopped the practice at home and tried to keep it up at work.
She’d sit on a toilet seat in the bathroom with the door securely locked. When she would drift into a meditative zone, someone would come into the room, start banging things around, generally making noise that would cut right into her concentration. She finally gave up. Starting again today wasn’t going to help her.
Kat tried to get her thoughts together, but when five finally arrived, she didn’t know what she’d done with the whole afternoon except worry and check herself every few minutes in the mirror.
At five-ten she was wasted and decided to leave. He must have changed his mind. She couldn’t just sit here. She had to get away.
She grabbed her purse from the desk drawer, gathered her jacket, ready to leave. Cal came flying through the door to her office. She could tell he must have run across the entire Golden Eye campus, and his office was at the opposite end of the huge corporate grounds. Perspiration was dripping off of his face and he was breathless.
“Kat, I’m sorry. I couldn’t get out of a last minute meeting.” He stopped short and looked closely at her. “Did you think I wasn’t coming?”
“I...I didn’t know.”
Without a word he gathered her up in his arms, murmured, “I would never do that. Especially to you.”
Her legs started to give way, but he held her up.
* * *
Cal made a wonderful pasta diner, but at first she thought she wouldn’t be able to eat. Then the combination of food and wine, and just talking about themselves, made her relax and really dig in.
He lived in a small apartment on Vale
ncia Street in a part of San Francisco that had recently become very trendy. Many in the tech industry, especially from their own company, had moved into the area, driving rentals sky high.
“Actually until I got the job at Golden Eye, I thought I was going to have to move out.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“About five years. They’ve raised the rent three times since then.”
Cal was playing an old time CD by Frank Sinatra. He stood, held out a hand to her—soon she was in his arms and they were dancing to “Witchcraft.” She was floating from the wine, and she felt at home.
“I knew from the moment I saw you we would be like this,” he said. “There was just something—”
“Don’t say anything else ... I just want to be into the moment, be here with you.”
Cal leaned into her and they melded together, kissing until she was breathless. She tugged at his shirt; his hands rode her hips, slid over her body until she couldn’t stop herself. She had to touch him all over.
“Stay with me tonight, please.”
“Oh, yes,” she murmured.
Chapter 24
After Tallent interrogated Lolly in his office, she’d been jumpy and sick with fear the rest of the day. Why hadn’t she thought about the security tapes? Today, everyone used them. And of course, they would pick up the two of them wandering through the penthouse after hours. How stupid could she be?
And we never even got the information we went after. Shit! What was it that Maria had seen?
Lolly was scared, but she was also stubborn. She couldn’t stop thinking about the other doctors’ computers. Maybe the same billing information would be available there and she could pick up on whatever it was the bookkeeper had seen.
Nosing around the other employees, she discovered that each doctor had his own bookkeeper, kept separate books, and they all paid into one expense fund for maintaining the office. It seemed they were actually three separate practices sort of semi-merged into one business.
One of the other nurses got suspicious about all of her questioning. “Why are you so interested in their finances? We don’t get into the financial part of their practice. What are you up to?”
“Just curious.”
It was obvious that answer wasn’t going to hold off her or anybody else. Lolly had to back off. She still wasn’t going to let Tallent get away with the deaths of Maria and her mother. She knew Tallent had to be involved. Lolly vowed she would find the answers and would stop dragging Gina into the whole mess.
After questioning her in his office, Tallent stayed away from her, requesting other nurses’ services throughout the day—she ended up working mostly with Bob Cantor and Jon Brichett in the OR.
Every time she saw Mort Tallent, she managed to find something else to do to stay out of his way. The last thing she wanted was any kind of face-to-face with him again—about anything.
She knew she wasn’t off the hook for breaking into his office. He wasn’t the forgive-and-forget kind of guy. He’d find a way to get back at her. It puzzled her that he didn’t out and out fire her. That’s what any other doctor would have done.
Lucky Gina—at least he held no power over her.
Power had occupied Lolly’s career-staging with every job she took. She learned early on that hospital hierarchies were simply not designed in the nurses’ favor. They had little clout in a doctor-hospital relationship that fed off of each other. Nurses were there as a service to the patients and doctors. Without unions they would have been powerless.
She was happy when the day was over; he was one of the last to leave the penthouse offices. When she stepped out of the elevator into the garage, she sensed something was off.
Gina talked about an eye-twitch being her antenna for trouble. For Lolly, it was her neck—like a dog, her muscles would bunch up as a warning. She took a careful look around, Saw nothing to feed her suspicions.
Nothing. Nothing here. You’re just jumpy because of Tallent.
She picked up her pace, hurried to her car, dragging the key out of her purse as she walked. She was focused on clicking the electronic door opener when someone grabbed her around the neck. She tried to scream, but she couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. She was suffocating, fading into darkness.
* * *
Lolly was in a black hole. She could hear music off someplace in the distance and she drifted in that direction.
Her eyes snapped open.
Memories of choking and suffocating became stronger, and with that, all her senses started kicking into gear. The fear of attack that every female in her old Bronx neighborhood knew well, struck her hard.
Someone had snatched her.
Her heart was clawing at her chest; she could hardly swallow with something wrapped tightly across her mouth. She turned her head and globs of drool dripped out from the corner of her mouth and ran down her naked chest and shoulder. She looked down.
She was completely stripped.
What was she doing naked in an empty room? Her breaths came in snorts and gasps. She wanted to scream, but all she could do was grunt.
She turned her head as far she could in every direction. The only furniture in the entire room appeared to be the bed she was lying on. Spread-eagled, arms and legs tied at the four corners of the bed. She twisted and tugged but there was no give in the bindings.
A voice startled her; floated out of nothingness. “I see you’re finally awake.”
A man came around from behind the headboard of the bed, walked up to her side, bent over, and licked her face.
He slowly ran a finger down from the top of her head, across her nose and mouth, through the space between her flattened breasts, onto her belly, and into to her bush. He plunged one finger deep inside of her.
Stopstopstopstopstopstop!
She wiggled furiously, jerked her hips up, tried to get away from him. But he was there no matter what she did.
His eyes, intense, never left hers. His gaze seemed to bore straight through her head.
“What were you and the other woman doing in the doctor’s office?”
She grunted.
He laughed and uncovered her mouth. “So, you’re still not going to say anything? He pulled the invading finger from her vagina, straightened to his full height, and moved out of sight behind the headboard.
Ohmygodohmygodohmygod. I’m going to die here. He’s going to kill me.
When he came back, he was nude. Now she could see the massive shoulders, bulging muscles, and engorged penis that had been hidden beneath his clothing.
He held a stiletto in one hand. “Look at me! Take a long look. I’m beautiful, right?” His eyelids narrowed to slits.
She nodded, saw his eyes almost close and his lips pull back to reveal his teeth. She quickly nodded again, and again.
Gonna killmekillme.
In a single motion, he leaped onto the bed, straddled her, and held her tight with his knees. He raised the stiletto high above her. She watched the needle-sharp point of the knife come down ever so slowly until the tip touched her skin. He lifted one breast, caressed it, and laced the blade through it again and again.
She screamed. Sounds of a desperate, trapped animal filled the room.
At the peak of her shrieks, he jammed himself inside her and rode her like a cowboy, never letting up. Her mind started slipping away. Every thought, every feeling became a wave of pain, repeating itself until she escaped into unconsciousness.
When she woke again, she was stretched out on the back seat of her car, the stiletto still impaled in her breast. There was a damp note resting on her bare belly. She lifted it with trembling hands and wiped away tears so she could read it:
GO AWAY AND DON’T COME BACK
NEXT TIME YOU DIE
Chapter 25
Gina paced back and forth in the living room, then stopped at the window and stared at the deluge of rain. “I don’t understand it, I’m really worried about Lolly. It’s not like her.”
/> “The message was on your phone?” Harry was flaked out on the sofa. He twisted around and sat up. “It does seem odd that she would leave a text message for that kind of thing. What did it say again?”
Gina reached for her cell and read: “I’m writing to you from the airport. Don’t try to reach me. I’m going back home. California was a big mistake.”
“Jeez. When did she leave you that message?”
“About eight.”
“You’ll never be able to reach her until tomorrow.”
“There’s more.” She held the phone so he could see.
He read it out loud: “Protect yourself. Stay away from Tallent.”
“Something must have happened to make her run like this.” Gina plopped down next to him. “Probably something to do with getting nailed on those security tapes.”
“I was afraid there’d be blow-back from that little adventure. “ He took her hand.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Cooking the books is bad enough, but do you think Mort Tallent would really do something vicious to scare Lolly off.”
“Well, hell, Gina, you and Lolly were accusing him of being involved in his bookkeeper’s death. If he did have a hand in it, why wouldn’t he do most anything to get clear?”
“It’s hard for me to think of doctors as killers—at least outside of their practice.” She gave him a cynical smile. “Imagine going through all that schooling and training to save lives and then turn around and murder someone. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
Harry stood, went into the kitchen, came back with a bottle of wine and two glasses. “People change. Life and circumstances change all of us.” He poured wine into each of the glasses.
“But murder?” Gina sipped at the wine. “What the hell can be in those books that’s so devastating?”
“Tax evasions. Something illegal.” Harry set his glass back on the coffee table after taking a sip, turned back to Gina, and took her hand. “Look, babe, he has you on tape breaking and entering—”