by Dan Ames
Loreli had been reluctant, but then the girl had offered Loreli five hundred bucks to come to one of her jobs and watch. Apparently the guy liked to have a girl watch. Loreli did, and it was the easiest money she’d ever made. It was a little weird being there, and she was scared, but afterward, she knew she could do it. She had always been good at turning her mind off things. About categorizing, and blocking and filing emotions away when she needed to. There had been times at the dinner table growing up when she’d wanted to strangle her father but instead had smiled sweetly at him. It was a good tool to have.
She had financed her education that way, dancing and the occasional hooking job. She tried to keep the hooking to a minimum, once or twice a month. But it all depended on how good the dancing gigs were and how short of money she was.
It had turned out to be enough, though. She’d gotten her degree and taken some pre-law courses, hoping one day to be a lawyer. But law school had intimidated her. So she decided to take additional courses to get a job as a legal secretary, and then work her way into a paralegal job before going back to law school. Law school had been too intimidating back then. Holding down dancing jobs and raising a son.
Besides, she had become disgusted with herself for hooking. The dancing wasn’t bad. A bunch of desperate men who half the time didn’t even pay attention to the girl’s dancing. Most of them were torn between the pretty young thing grabbing her ankles on stage, and ESPN’s Sports Center on the television behind the bar.
So she’d graduated, gotten a job at Ryson, Butters & Mahoney, and become a helluva legal secretary. Enough so that she’d been able to get the little house in Warren.
Her taste in men, though, hadn’t improved. She went out with an attorney or two and found most of them were too busy checking themselves out in mirrors or trying to impress her with their Porsches. So many of them were blatantly insulting to her. The dimwit little secretary they expected to be so impressed with their money that she would immediately sleep with them.
The fact was, most of the men she’d turned tricks for had shown her more respect than the lawyers she dated.
NINETEEN
The Ann Arbor exit on Highway 14 came up suddenly and Loreli steered the Camry into the sharp curve. The little car’s wheels squealed slightly and the body shuddered at the forces running through it.
She made the curve and straightened the Camry out, then accelerated through the green light at the base of the small bluff overlooking the southern end of Ann Arbor.
Loreli had been here once before. She and Liam had needed a change of pace so they’d come here. Found a nice park with a good play structure. Loreli had chased Liam around the park and then they’d gone out for cheeseburgers and malts.
It had been almost a year ago, but that was recent enough for Loreli to remember how to get to the downtown area of Ann Arbor. She took Reynolds Boulevard until it ran into Division Street, then took that to State Street. There, she followed the signs that alerted drivers to the direction of the University of Michigan campus.
Loreli checked the address on the slip of paper and looked for Harper Street. She passed coffee shops and bookstores, antique shops and furniture stores. It was early on Friday morning. Most of the streets were empty, people at work, students in class.
She found Harper and three blocks later cruised slowly past the Prescott Hotel.
She parked a block away and shut off the Camry. The silence fell over her and she glanced into the rearview mirror. Loreli dreaded what she was about to do. Cursed her own stupidity for ever getting involved with deadbeat men. The only guys she ever dated, if she ever dated again period, would have to be goddamned Eagle Scouts, or priests. Or former Eagle Scouts turned priests.
Loreli looked at herself in the mirror again. Well, she thought, that wouldn’t do. The expression on her face was murderous. She’d scare the john so badly he wouldn’t want to touch her.
She forced herself to relax. To put on her game face. She had a job to do and by God she was going to do it right. She took out her lipstick and applied a fresh coat. She used her cream to make her skin look smooth and fresh. These guys liked the women to look young. Loreli appraised herself. At twenty-five, she could easily pass for nineteen. She was thin enough, her skin was smooth enough and she just had that look about her.
Loreli opened the Camry door and stepped out. She had on a short black mini-skirt, thigh highs with a black bra and black garters, and stiletto heels. She wore a white shirt and a black blazer. She looked more like a sharply dressed business woman than a part-time hooker.
She took a deep breath and put on her game face.
She went in, took the elevator to the 9th floor, then walked quietly down the plush carpet of the hallway.
It was a nice hotel, that was a good sign. Hopefully this guy had money to burn. Plenty of extra cash. Maybe if she gave him the ride of his life he’d give her more than the $1500 he’d negotiated with her pimp. Loreli figured that if she could take $2500 off him, that would be good - half of the remaining five grand.With the grim determination of a woman forced to endure sex she didn’t want, Loreli Karstens make her right hand into a fist, reached up, and knocked firmly on the door of the Prescott Hotel’s Room 914.
TWENTY
In the end, it was a company called High Speed Access that made Jack agree to kill Tommy Abrocci.
Ordinarily, even though he was a hired killer, he tried not to let money influence his thinking. Yes, he did it for the money. But he'd turned down lots of paying jobs before. Never one that offered this much, but there'd been a few fat paychecks that he'd passed on, and the thing was, he'd never regretted any of the ones he'd passed up.
The ones he'd passed up either involved women or children, a cop, an innocent, or the person doing the hiring couldn't be trusted, or there wasn't time to do the job right.
That's what was wrong with this one.
The ultimate rush job.
Jesus - get a call and whack a guy in an hour or two! It was nuts.
But Jack Cleveland was not only one of the most respected hit men known to the Detroit mafia family.
He was also a serious investor.
And his portfolio was solid. He was diversified, he was international as well as national, and he was a shrewd investor whose portfolio had beaten the S & P eight out of nine years.
But the one thing he wanted more than anything was to invest not in the Internet itself, but in the companies that supported the Internet. They were undervalued, not the high-profile darlings of Wall Street.
Jack Cleveland identified with companies that did a great job without a great deal of fuss.
Enter High Speed Cable. Based in Santa Clara, California, they were destined to become the preeminent source for the Internet via cable television. They were prepared to ink deals with major cable television providers throughout the world.
Jack knew this because he had a cousin who worked for the company and fed jack the information. She thought Jack was a photocopier repairman who dallied in investing.
But Jack knew he was onto something. He'd done the research, found the company's history, financials, and the personal histories of its officers. The stock was currently at $9 a share. Jack knew it would easily double, if not triple, in a matter of months.
And that's when Vincenzo Romano had called. Jack's ordinary fee was a hundred grand. But because of the rush job, he'd asked for two-fifty. Romano had agreed. Instantly.
Two hundred and fifty grand. Minus Betty's share of fifty thousand. That left two hundred grand, or nearly twenty-two thousand shares of High Speed Access. If the stock doubled, or even tripled, Jack might sell, retire, and play golf in some backwater course in Jamaica for the rest of his life.
•
Jack turned into the used bookstore two blocks away from the Prescott Hotel in Ann Arbor. It was a student's bookstore, replete with plenty of used textbooks and the faint aroma of marijuana. Jack's eyes roved the shelves as he walked, picking out his favorite
authors: Julian Barnes, Binnie Kirshenbaum and fellow Michigander, Steve Hamilton.
He walked through the fiction aisle, past history until he got to the biography section. There, he turned and walked to the middle of the aisle, where he found Betty perusing a thick tome on Eisenhower.
"I like Ike," Jack said.
"All you military types stick together."
Jack took Betty in: she was wearing a chic Armani business suit with a camel-hair overcoat. Black leather shoe boots. A sleek Coach briefcase was slung over her shoulder. Tasteful diamond earrings. The very picture of a successful businesswoman.
A dramatic difference from the scared sixteen year-old he'd found in the apartment of a man who'd dared to steal from Vincenzo Romano. Jack, of course, killed him, and then helped the young girl who the man had been holding hostage both physically and psychologically.
Betty slid the Eisenhower bio back on the shelf. "What's the game plan, Jack?"
Jack's eyes roamed the biographies. It had been awhile since he'd read a good biography. The last one was, what? Lee Iacocca? He couldn't remember.
He turned and faced Betty.
"Have you ever done improv?"
TWENTY-ONE
“Come in, come in.”
Loreli watched as the man’s eyes ran up and down her body.
“What’s your name?” he asked, shutting the door behind her.
“Loreli,” she said. "Did Rhonda tell you how this works?"
The man said to her. “Look, I’ve done this a few times before. I know how it works.” He reached into the inside pocket of his suit coat and pulled out a slim black wallet. From it, he counted out fifteen one hundred dollar bills.
Loreli took the money and put it in her purse. “Okay,” she said.
There was an art form to detaching. Sometimes Loreli used different images to accomplish the task. In the past, she pictured a big switch in her brain. It was an on/off switch. Usually, when the john was either undressing himself or undressing her, that was when she mentally reached up and turned the switch to off. In those cases, she didn't imagine a happy place. She didn't whisk herself away on the wings of her imagination. She just turned it off. Her mind, her being, her body, became the spiritual equivalent of beige. If there was an EKG machine hooked up, the needles would be flatlined. The graph would go from the normal spikes into just one long impulse-less being.
Loreli did that now. The big Italian was on top of her. She closed her mind, then opened her body.
It didn't take very long.
Loreli was so far away that she almost didn't notice when he finished. She had turned everything off, except for that small part of her that automatically made the right noises and the right body movements. But that was it. They were on auto-pilot and she almost forgot to shift gears to the next part of it. The Italian flopped onto the bed next to her and looked into her face.
"That was great," she said. She was gambling, too much flattery and some get suspicious. But her instinct told her that he wasn't the type. She was working for a tip.
The Italian stood up, crossed the room, and when he came out, he had on a bathrobe and was carrying the small ice bucket.
"When I come back, I want you to blow me, okay?"
"Okay," Loreli said. “But that will be extra.”
“No problem, babe,” he answered. “Today’s your lucky day.”
He left for a minute or two. He came back in, put the ice bucket in the bathroom, and returned, sans the bathrobe. His member was stiff, hanging out in front of him like a divining rid.
Loreli looked at it. Had he toweled himself off? It didn't look right.
He stood before her. She moved to the edge of the bed, sat in front of him.
She reached out and stroked him.
Loreli looked up at the big Italian's face.
He looked the same. Same hair. Same big lips. Same dumb eyes. No, the eyes were different. They were the same, yes. But now that little gleam was gone. That little verminous glint to them.
What had happened here?
She didn't know.
The Italian groaned.
And then the sounds in the next room started. Someone had started having sex. Loud, violent sex.
"Wha…?" the Italian said. There was a loud crashing sound from next door.
"Shut up!" the Italian yelled. His face was now flushed, frustrated.
The reply was muffled, but Loreli clearly heard a fair amount of anger in it.
A look of rage passed over the Italian's face. From next door, the sound of sex continued. Loreli watched as her john called the front desk. Moments later, she heard the phone ring next door. The sound stopped. Then, moments later, it started again.
"Goddamnit," the Italian said. He pounded on the wall. "Shut the goddamn hell up!" he yelled.
The reply had another "fuck" in it, but she also heard the word "mother." This time, the Italian's face became beet red. He went to the closet, cursing under his breath, and reached into his suit. Loreli sat up. Her breath went out of her.
There was a gun in his hand. He stalked from the room.
Loreli quickly got dressed, then went to the closet where her shirt was hanging. She slipped it on, was buttoning it up when she spied the suitcase at the bottom of the closet. This was a bad situation, she told herself, no point in making it any worse. The nutjob had a gun. No amount of money was going to make her stay in the room now. She was no good to Liam dead.
She buttoned the last button of the shirt and reached for her purse. But then, for reasons unbeknownst to even her, she ripped open the zipper of the suitcase.
For the second time, her breath went out of her.
TWENTY-TWO
The man threw the woman against the wall.
A few feet away above a stained wingchair, a painting of a pheasant taking flight crashed to the floor. The glass spiderwebbed. A few small shards dropped onto the spotted beige carpet.
The woman, momentarily stunned, stared blankly at the man. She had large almond eyes, full lips, and a narrow face with a sharp nose. Though her skin was chocolate brown, there were dark circles visible beneath her eyes. She raised a hand to her mouth. Began to smile. Her hand fell away as she bent forward. Her mouth hung open in a crazy, crooked grin.
And then she burst out laughing.
Her body shook as her laughter began to crescendo. It was a deep, throaty sound. She gasped for air. Her legs quivered. The veins in her neck jutted out. She pointed a finger at the man.
The man was tall and white. At least an inch or two over six feet. He had a strong face, with a heavy jaw and sandy brown hair. He was shirtless, with a patch of light hair in the middle of his stark white chest. He was thin, but with a kind of ropy musculature. He wore a pair of glasses with tinted lenses. In the harsh lights of the hotel room, they had a burgundy tint.
He watched the woman, a lopsided grin on his face. He reached out to the night table beside the bed where a bottle of Absolut vodka sat. He picked it up, held it to his mouth, took a long pull. As the woman's hysterical laughter continued, the smile left his face. He lowered the bottle, reared back, and threw it at the woman. She ducked, just as the bottle crashed into the wall over her head. Her mouth formed a silent "O" and then she was consumed with another wave of convulsive laughter. She put her hands on the edge of the small desk next to the wingchair.
From the room next door came a coarse shout and someone pounded on the wall. Neither the man nor the woman seemed to notice.
The man opened the drawer to the night table and took out a Bible. He threw it at the woman. It missed her by three feet, crashed into the wall. "I'm throwin' the book at you," he said. The woman sank to her knees with laughter.
From the other side of the wall came another pounding noise. A muffled voice shouted, "Shut up!” and then the phone rang.
The man answered the phone with a "Yes?" He listened patiently, nodded. "We certainly will," he said.
He hung the phone up and walked back to the w
oman. "Front desk," he said. The woman nodded as the man threw her against the wall. She crashed into it and a small dent appeared in the thin drywall.
"Shut the hell up!" the voice from the other room yelled.
The man with the burgundy glasses laughed. "I can't help it if your Mom's a screamer!" he yelled at the wall.
The sound of a door being thrown open echoed in the hallway. The man with the glasses looked at the door as a fist pounded.
"I'm kinda busy here!" he called out.
A voice responded. "Open the goddamned door!"
The woman looked back at the man and he gestured with his head and she moved quickly to the door. She grabbed the handle, looked back at the man. He stood in the middle of the room, facing the door squarely. He nodded to her.
She opened the door and stepped back. A heavyset man stood in the doorway. He had dark hair, olive skin and dark eyes. His face was thick and fleshy with big lips and a bulbous nose. His hair was slicked back, his wide mouth slightly agape.
He wore a bathrobe. It was open at the collar, revealing thick black hair.His right hand was down, pressed against his right leg. He slowly raised it. The gun in his hand was nickel-plated. He raised it and pressed the muzzle against the black woman's forehead.
"Move back," he said. His words came slow and thick, as if he wasn't used to talking, let alone being in charge of a room.
She walked backwards into the room. The man in the bathrobe stepped into the room, pulling the door shut behind him.
"Oh, shit," the man with the glasses said. His face had gone pale.
The man with the glasses tried unsuccessfully to stop his hands from shaking. "Look," he said. "I was just partying. I had a great day at the casinos and was...splurging. I didn't mean to-"
"Say that about my mother?" the dark-haired man said. "Did you think that was funny?"