The Kristina Melina Omnibus: First Kill, Second Cut, Third Victim

by Laurent Boulanger

  ‘What kind of money?’

  Paulina looked at me suspiciously. ‘You’re not a cop, are you?’

  ‘No, I’m not. I couldn’t care less whether you’ve paid your taxes or not. I’m just trying to figure out what happened to Evelyn.’

  ‘Okay, then.’ She paused for a few seconds as if she was adding figures up in her head. ‘On a good week, I can make up to $10,000 easy.’

  I nearly fell backwards. ‘Jesus! What do you charge by the hour?’

  ‘I’m going for top clientele. They can afford it. It depends on what they’re after, but you’re looking at $500 to $1000 per hour.’

  ‘Why would anyone want to pay that kind of money?’

  ‘There’s really three main reasons why men come and see us. Their wives won’t give them a head job, they went to try something different, and they simply like the idea of paying someone to fuck them. That’s really all there is. There no great mystery. You lose faith in men after you’ve being doing this for too long. I mean, at the end of the day, they’re all pigs. And I’m not scared of saying that.’

  I was completely astounded. I never heard of anyone making so much money in real life. Sure, I heard of Forbes top five hundred rich list, but to me that was just fiction. They were just numbers and names in a magazine. But no one I knew made that kind of money. No wonders some of these women couldn’t kick off the habit.

  Paulina must have sensed my shock from the expression on my face.

  ‘It’s great having all the money,’ she said. ‘You never have to worry about buying anything. I mean, I just go down Chapel Street, and see all these dresses, and I don’t have to compromise between one or the other. I just take the lot. And it’s such a good feeling, you know having all this money. Money is power, there is no doubt. If you have enough money, you can buy yourself just about anything. But fucking for a living is a bitch of a way to make your money. I wish I made the same type of money some other way, but I started when I was sixteen, so I guess I never got the chance. Sure, with my looks, I could have found a rich man and marry him. But that wouldn’t have given me the freedom to do what I want. I couldn’t live with someone who’d tell me what to do all day long, who’d expect a cooked dinner every night, and who’d want his shirts pressed every morning by six. I’ve seen what family life does to women. It’s degrading. No matter how advanced we think we are, women are still slave to men and to society.’

  I didn’t totally agree with her viewpoint, but I was in mood to have a moralistic debate on women’s place in the world.

  ‘Was Evelyn making as much money as you are?’ I asked.

  ‘I never asked her for exact figures, but I did help her to get herself started on her own. I don’t see why she wouldn’t have. She drove a SAAB, that I knew. She bought it cash straight from the dealer. I was with her when she did, and you should have seen the face of the car dealer when she gave him $70,000 cash. I thought his eyes were going come out of his sockets. He almost jerked himself off when she told him what she did for a living, like just because she bought a car from him, he thought he was entitled to a freebie. I mean, really, this bastard had a picture of his wife and kids on his desk.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, and you know what really make me sick?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘When one of them tells you this story on how his wife went into labour the previous day, and she’s still in hospital. And I ask him, well, shouldn’t you be with your wife, and he says that she hasn’t fucked him during the all time she was pregnant. I mean, what was he thinking when he got married? There’s more to life than getting fucked all the time. You meet someone like that, and I swear, you just want to throw up all over him.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ I said and emptied my cup of coffee. ‘Do you know if Evelyn was seeing anyone?’

  ‘As in boyfriend-girlfriend?’

  ‘Boyfriend, yes.’

  ‘There was this one guy she mentioned a few times. It seemed quite serious, but she didn’t really want to talk about it.’

  ‘What did she say about him? Did she tell you his name?’

  ‘No, she was quite secretive about the whole thing. She’d only been going out with him for a couple of months, so in a way I can’t blame her. Until you’re certain something is going to work, you don’t want to start bragging on about it to everyone. That’s one way to fall flat on your face, if you know what I mean.’

  I certainly did. I done that enough time in my life, and I never seemed to learn my lesson.

  ‘So, there’s absolutely nothing you can tell me about her boyfriend?’

  She puzzled for a few seconds.

  ‘Now that you asking, she did mention something about him wanting her to stop working as a call girl. He was getting a little possessive apparently. Not that she minded too much. The only men she met in her life to date were those who’d been paying her. She felt it was nice to have someone caring about her because of who she was rather than what sexual services she provided. You know, this guy was concerned that something bad might be happening to her, which, unfortunately, it did.’

  ‘So, she was in love with this guy?’

  ‘I don’t know about love. When you’ve been in the escort business for as long as she and I have, I don’t know if you can still believe in love. It’s seems that there is only lust out there. You know what I mean?’

  I nodded but didn’t pass on any comments. Maybe she was right. Maybe love was nothing more than an acceptable explanation as to why people lusted have one another so relentlessly. To date I hadn’t experienced my understanding of true love in my life, and passing judgement on what lovers felt towards one another was not in my field of expertise.

  ‘That’s all you can tell me about this guy?’ I asked.

  ‘He made enough money to support himself, and obviously felt that he made enough money to support her as well, otherwise he would have never asked her to give up her job. He must have been in upper management, maybe a company director or someone who owned a successful business.’

  ‘So, there’s a possibility that he killed her because she refused to give up her job?’

  Paulina stared at me as if I’d just called her a four-letter word.

  ‘Now, that’s not something I’m going to comment on,’ she said. ‘I don’t know the guy, and I have no idea what he’s capable of. I wouldn’t go as far as to confirm that her boyfriend killed her. How did you come to that conclusion?’

  ‘I was only trying to get an opinion based on what Evelyn said about him. Did she mention anything about him being violent?’

  ‘Nope. Not that she would have told me anyway. We were not best friends. We just worked together for a while, and after that, our relationship remained strictly business. You know, whenever she had problems with on of her clients or with her taxes, she rang me and asked me for advise. Really, that’s all I can tell you. I wish I knew who did that to her, because right now I want to kill the bastard as much as you do. Fuckin’ men. They’re all the same. Pigs. I’m telling you, there is no love in this world. It’s all bullshit. One day I’m going to buy this huge scissors and cut all their dicks off.’

  Her tone was filled with bitterness, and her vocabulary had dropped by a couple of notches on the scale of social graciousness.

  I checked my watch. It was just on 4.20 p.m., and I had promised David to join him at the bookshop so that we could spend the night together.

  ‘Well, you’ve been really helpful,’ I said. ‘It’s a shame that nothing’s come out of this.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ She touched up her left eyebrow with one finger and glanced around her, as if someone might have been spying on us.

  I went on, ‘But if you do remember something, please do hesitate to contact me.’

  I handed her a business card with my contact details.

  ‘Sure thing,’ she said and threw the card in her handbag.

  I was just about to leave my seat when she added, ‘Hey, you know, you’
re pretty good looking, you’d do really well in this business. I bet you don’t make a thousand buck an hour doing what you’re doing now.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  David was in the bookshop when I parked my car alongside the front of his shop window, hitting the front left wheel a little too hard against the kerbside.

  There was a man in his mid-fifties with an overhanging belly talking to him over the counter. He wore a blue jumper and had a walking stick by his side. A pile of paperback and hard cover books stood between them. David was patiently transferring the books to white plastic carry bags, the kind which were given freely at my local supermarket when purchasing groceries. The overweight man was obviously a ferocious reader, maybe a retiree with nothing better to do with his time.

  David wore his tortoise shell glasses halfway down on the bridge of his nose. He looked like an academic with his tweet jacket and concentrated frown. A shiver ran up and down my spine. Every time I saw him again, I was always surprised at how attractive he was. As I stepped out of the car, I wondered why David bothered with someone like me. Hidden behind my so-called good looks, I was a neurotic mess on the edge of a nervous breakdown. To desire to be in a relationship with me bordered on sheer lunacy. But who was I to criticise the opposite sex’s blind appetite for intimacy?

  It wasn’t raining, but the side walk was wet as if someone had just doused it with buckets of water. The sky was painted white, and I could smell waste decay from sewerage below the city level. The Yarra river was often overflowing at that time of the year, creating an over-abundance of water, and losing itself into rainwater drains. A downpour followed by hot weather caused the putrid odour to rise above ground level and into the city business district.

  I pushed the wooden door of the shop open. The little silver bell announced my presence throughout the shop. The comforting odour of old paper and ink filled my nostrils. David had turned the heater on. The inside of the shop was warm and inviting, and at that very moment I understood why he resolved to spend a good deal of his life in this room. He had created a sanctuary for himself, a comfortable place where no one told him how to behave or to charter his daily routine. A tinge of jealousy unexpectedly crept inside my heart. His life seemed so simple and mine so complicated. I had once read that we found ourselves at a specific point in our lives because we had chosen to be there, not by incident, but as a result of all the decisions we had made over the years. Had I known that earlier on in my career, maybe I would have steered my malleable destiny towards a path of greener pastures.

  David was still talking to his customer when he glanced in my direction. He made eye contact to acknowledge my presence and raised one finger, indicating he would be with me in a minute or so.

  I vanished between two rows of books, while David and the customer hastily resumed their whispered conversation.

  To my right was a hard cover collection of Agatha Christie novels, all in reasonably good condition, given that they must have been printed over twenty years ago according to the font type used on the spine. Pink on white was also a uncommon combination of letters and background found on crime books dust jackets nowadays. As much as I was an avid fan of crime fiction, I shamefully realised that I’d never read an Agatha Christie novel.

  I was flicking through an Aaron Marc Stein’s paperback when I heard the silver bell from the front door.

  Someone leaving or coming.

  I listened for voices.

  ‘He’s gone,’ David shouted from the other side of the shop.

  I returned the Stein’s paperback to its shelf and emerged from my hiding. There was no one else in the shop but David and me.

  ‘Oh, David, you don’t know how good it is to see you.’

  We seemed both surprised by my emotional, verbal out pour. I felt a tear rolling down my right cheek. Even though I’d been hibernating for three days in my room, I was still highly strung. And that conversation I had with Paulina, the high-class prostitute, got me even more depressed. I was losing faith in humanity, and I hadn’t figured out how to get it back. But unlike Paulina, I didn’t hate men, and I never could. Life with them seemed impractical, but life without them was impossible. Their self-assurance and carefree confidence, their assertiveness on other people’s lives, and the way they were shamelessly driven by an endless hunger for lust and power-control was as much admirable as repugnant. I couldn’t figure out which of the two sexes was the master and the other the servant.

  David circled the counter and paced towards me.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked. Before I had time to reply, he gave me a bear hug.

  I kissed him passionately in return.

  We looked into each other eyes for a few seconds.

  ‘It’s been a difficult week,’ I said, ‘everything seems to be going against me. But, I know, I should be used to it by now. Been there, done that. I just have to be strong and move on.’

  He stepped back a little and held my head between the palm of his hands.

  ‘Hey, you don’t have to be strong all the time, it’s okay to be attuned to your inner-self.’

  The New-Age guru inside David was alive and preaching.

  ‘I know, David, but sometimes you just want to let go of everything, and it’s usually exactly when you need to detach yourself from life’s commitments that you find yourself chained up to them by the neck.’

  He puzzled on my comment and said, ‘Well, maybe you should break the chain before you break your neck.’

  Ah, ha, very funny, I thought. But at least he had a sense of humour.

  He went on, ‘You don’t have to do this any more if you don’t enjoy it. Sure, I understand why you want to find the killer of your friend, but look what it’s doing to you.’

  ‘I’ll be okay.’ I straightened up, trying hard to get a grip on myself. ‘Why don’t you make me a coffee, get some energy pumping back in my veins? I loath self-pity. It makes me think of all these people who keep blaming others for their misfortunes. Really, it’s not all that bad.’

  He tilted his head slightly, his blue eyes digging into mine. ‘You should really give up if it’s bringing you down.’

  ‘Like I said, it’s not that bad, nothing a caffeine injection won’t cure.’

  I followed him to the kitchenette. I didn’t want to give my game away. If I told him that I’d been hibernating in my room for three days, he might have felt that he was right. And I hated the idea of someone knowing me too well, digging into every corner of my mind, pulling out every secrets from every cupboards, dragging every ghosts from the past. The only thing I still had full control of was my dignity, and I intended to hold on to it for as long as I possibly could. I functioned with the fear that everyone one I knew would eventually let me down. Maybe I hung on too much on past experiences and gave little room for new friendships to develop. Either way, no matter how much control I wanted to have over my life, fate had a way of pulling people back to reality.

  David put some water on the boil in a white electric jug and filled two mugs with instead coffee.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘if it’s a money problem, I can help you. The bookshop is doing quite well, and I don’t have a family to support.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Well, you’re obviously struggling with your job, and I’m wondering, maybe you’re just keeping up with it because of the money. If that’s the case, just quit. I make enough money for two.’

  His generosity took me by surprise. I didn’t think the depth of our relationship was strong enough for him to make me such an offer. In fact, I never considered that we were really in a relationship. We only slept together a couple of times, and that was hardly a reason for him to offer me access to his private funds.

  ‘I don’t think so, David, I’m pretty independent. Even if I did force myself to work just to make a living, I would never expect you or anyone else to bail me out. And it’s not the case, anyway, so there’s no point trying to convince me. You have to unders
tand that no matter how difficult my job is at times, it’s my vocation. I’m sorry if I complain about it too much, but deep down I love what I’m doing, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.’

  The water in the electric jug began to rumble.

  ‘I know you’re just saying that,’ he said. ‘I know you’re proud of who you are and how far you’ve come, but don’t let you pride be your downfall. It’s okay to get help from someone else now and then. I’m not talking about a permanent thing here. All I’m saying is that if you’re job is bringing you, and you can’t do without the income, I’m here for you.’

  The electric jug clicked off, and the rumbling sound of the boiling water settled.

  I watched him pour the water into the mugs.

  David’s proposition was an attractive one, but one I would never consider.

  ‘I really appreciate your concern,’ I said, ‘but everything is fine.’

  He handed me over my mug of coffee.

  ‘Okay, okay, sure, you know best, but like I said, don’t get swallowed by your own pride.’

  I sipped from my mug and snapped unexpectedly, ‘For God’s sake, I’m hardly what you call a proud person. I’m just living my life the best way I can. And for you to stand there and tell me I need to be rescued, well, that’s almost an insult. I know you mean well, really, but listen to yourself, it’s almost as if you’re trying to take control of me. I’m not for sale, David, forget it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m only trying to help,’

  ‘I know you are, but I don’t need a rescue package. All I need is to be loved like everyone else. Can’t you understand that? I’m not some homeless puppy you found on the street. I can take care of myself.’

  He stepped back to the curtain which separated the bookshop from the kitchenette. As he sipped from his mug, a frown appeared on his face.

  Fifteen seconds went by without a word. I felt redness on my face as I realised I might have gone overboard.