“How about a drink, Roddy?” Her breath smelled of peppermint toothpaste. Her short hair was fragrant with shampoo and he could also detect a subtle perfume. Rodrigo was an aficionado of odours of every kind. The girl was very clean, he decided. He signalled the waitress. What’s your fancy?”
“Champagne of course, I wouldn’t insult you by drinking anything else.” She laughed. A nice sound, rather naive and childish.
The waitress was wearing nothing but a miniscule red tartan kilt. She stepped nearer and Rodrigo ordered another Chivas, his third that evening, adding, “Bring a bottle of champagne for the young lady.” He knew that Cindy would get a twenty per cent commission on the bottle, but he figured it would be a good investment.
“The barman said you’re a gentleman.” She kissed his ear and stroked his inner thigh.
“So you’re Cindy, of Cinderellas. Which part of the States are you from? Do I detect a southern twang there?”
“I’m a country girl from Florence, South Carolina, just arrived from the farm.” She laughed again. “And you, Roddy, where’re you from? I’m figuring you for a European.”
“A bit complicated, you know, but basically Portuguese.” Rodrigo licked his lips in a greedy, almost predatory manner then pulled on his cigar, inhaling deeply, his eyes half closed.
“Does this bother you?” He blew the cigar smoke away from the girl, who smiled and shook her head.
“There are worse things in life than Cuban cigars. Is that your only vice?”
Before he could answer, the waitress brought his whisky, added a little water and, with a flourish, opened the champagne and poured a glass.
“Here’s to us.”
“Cheers, my dear. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Since arriving in New York, the Portuguese had taken to affecting the expressions of the English upper classes. It seemed to get him special service wherever he went.
They clinked their glasses and took a drink just as the music started to blare out again. This time it was a tall black girl and a small white man, both dressed in bowler hats and Y-fronts. They began an intimate samba, involving more and more lewd, crude movements which brought louder and louder bouts of laughter from the now very rowdy, inebriated crowd. The unmistakeable odour of marijuana overcame even the smell of Rodrigo’s cigar smoke and the atmosphere began to change, to move to another level.
“Have you ever been to South Carolina?” Her hand caressed his thigh, moving higher.
“Too puritanical for me I think.”
“Maybe I can prove different.” She moved closer to Rodrigo and pulled his head down to her breast. He nuzzled the nipple, it tasted of vanilla. He was enjoying this. Her hand moved insistently up his thigh until she was stroking his crotch.
He was not alone. Looking round he saw several couples sliding lower in their settees and chairs, trying to preserve some semblance of anonymity in the noisy, smoky room. He covered Cindy’s hand with his own and leaned over to whisper in her ear, “Quite a few well known people here, you know.” He licked his lips again and drew on the cigar, this time blowing the smoke towards the girl, who blew it back at him.
“Is that so? Well, I’m not surprised, we have just the same phenomenon in the south. Sexual tastes respect no boundaries.”
Her probing fingers had found his aroused penis through the cloth of his trousers. She started gently rubbing it along its length, until he felt he might lose control.
He stopped the movement of her hand and asked, “Do you have a place?”
“I have a small apartment, just around the corner.” She took his hand and placed it between her warm thighs.
“OK, let’s go,” he whispered, quaffing the remainder of his drink. “We’ll get our coats.”
He signalled to the waitress for the bill, added a generous tip and signed it, reclaimed his overcoat from a tough looking bouncer at the door and slipped him a twenty dollar note. Cindy put on a woollen jacket over her naked breasts and then a furry coat and suede boots. She pushed her purse and high heel shoes into a canvas bag and took out a folding umbrella. They exited into the cold, rainy night and she put up the umbrella, which gave virtually no protection. Walking a matter of two or three hundred yards, they reached a shabby, five story building with an Irish pub on the ground floor. The pub lights were on and the place was still fairly full. Music could be heard and a couple of people were smoking outside, huddled up in overcoats under the entrance porch.
Cindy entered a code and pushed open a door at the side of the pub. In the small, stale-smelling lift, she pushed herself against the Portuguese, kissing him artfully and pushing her hand down inside his coat to caress his crotch. He clasped his hands around her backside. At her touch and the sensation of her thrusting tongue in his mouth he felt a return of his arousal.
He said, “How much for the whole night, Cindy?”
“Let’s don’t talk about sordid things like money. Anyway, I’m worth it. You’ll see.”
They stepped out of the lift on the third floor, and she took some keys from her purse and opened a door on the left into a darkened hallway. They left their outdoor things in the hallway and she led him through a second door into a studio flat of about thirty square metres.
The cheap fitted carpet was partly covered by a colourful rug and there was a patterned quilt on the oversized bed. A large flat screen TV and a few pieces of battered furniture completed the furnishing and several coloured prints decorated the off-white painted walls. There were no personal possessions to be seen. Doors leading to what looked like a small bathroom and kitchenette stood ajar at the back of the room. The flat was warm and smelled quite clean to his nostrils.
“Nice place.” He gestured in a deprecating gesture, “You’re lucky to find it.”
The girl shrugged out of the woollen jacket, revealing her amazing breasts again. “Girl friend of mine was leaving town, I’m sub-renting it. I got a good deal. It’s just for friends.”
The Portuguese looked at her and nodded. He licked his lips again, “That qualifies me as a friend I guess.” He gave a short, rather mirthless laugh. “What do we have to drink?” He looked around and spotted a bottle of Chivas and some glasses on a cabinet against the wall. “Good taste, Cindy. Make one for me, will you? I have to hit the john.” Rodrigo squeezed her breasts playfully as he went to the bathroom at the back of the flat.
“Same again? I’ll have one as well. That champagne tastes like cat’s piss.” Cindy went to the cabinet and fixed two glasses of whisky, adding a dash of water from a jug.
When Rodrigo came back into the room, he was wearing his shirt loose over his trousers. He pulled down the quilt, sat on the bed sheets and removed his shoes and socks.
Cindy came over to him with a tumbler in each hand. “Here you go. To new friends.”
She proffered one of the drinks and knocked back her own in one long gulp. He saw this and did the same. She took the empty glasses and placed them carefully on the cabinet. “Now, lie back and get comfortable. I’ll show you what we learn in school in puritanical South Carolina.”
The Portuguese lay back on the bed, his head on the pillow. The girl kissed him wetly, her tongue thrusting into his mouth. He pushed his hands inside the back of her skirt and massaged her buttocks. She unbuttoned his shirt, kissing down his chest and stomach until she reached his waist, teasing the curly body hair with her teeth. He pulled his shirt off and threw it onto one of the chairs. She noticed that he looked to be in pretty good condition, not fat at all. She undid his belt then slid the zipper down on his fly. Rodrigo breathed deeply. This girl was good, probably expensive, but worth it.
Cindy stroked his crotch through his shorts then slid her hand inside the leg, rubbing his penis until it pulsed into its full length. Pulling the organ free she licked all round the inflamed head. She looked up at him, “I like big men, Roddy.”
“Wait!” He kicked off his trousers and shorts and she threw them on a chair. She smiled at him, then took his member dee
p in her mouth, sliding it faster and faster between her slick lips until he could no longer control himself.
SIX
Friday, April 11th, 2008
New York, USA
“That was just a starter. Let me get something to clean up with. Then we can enjoy the main course.” Cindy got off the bed and went to the bathroom.
Rodrigo lay back against the pillow, staring at a stain on the ceiling. His eyes were clouding over. There was the sound of the toilet flushing. When Cindy returned, he was wiping his forehead. There was a sheen of sweat on his brow.
“Are you feeling OK? You look kinda pale.”
The dark complexion accentuated the pallor which had suddenly appeared on his face.
“God, I feel terrible. I must have caught a bug, I’m sweating like a ….” He sat up again, looked at the girl standing over him. “Não compreendo. What the hell’s happening?”
The last thing he saw was the face of the girl looking down on him before he slipped into unconsciousness and fell back onto the pillow.
Cindy went to her bag in the hall and pulled out a cell phone. “You can come now.”
By the time she had cleaned off the bed sheets, the door opened and a man came in. He was wearing a fedora and a navy blue raincoat, with a scarf around his neck and a pair of leather gloves against the cold. He didn’t appear to be very wet, he must have been waiting in the downstairs hall and come straight up.
The man removed his hat and placed it on a chair. He looked with distaste at the unconscious Portuguese lying naked on the bed. “Did you have to go all the way like that?”
“No, but it’s good practise. Besides, I never did a Portuguese before.”
He laughed and took out a handful of notes from his wallet. “Another two thousand dollars, as agreed.” He counted out the hundred dollar bills onto the cabinet.
Once again she noted his slight accent and wondered where it originated from. She asked, “What you want me to do now?”
“I told you. Just a few photos. It’s a divorce scam, I’ve got a camera.”
“OK. Wait ‘til I put this away.” She turned to take the cash to her bag in the hall.
Before she could do so, he said. “What time’s your bus?”
“Not ‘til six am. I’ve got plenty of time to do this then pick up my things and get to the bus depot. Why, you lookin’ for a freebie?” She laughed at him, shaking her breasts.
“I’ve got a little bonus for you.”
She followed him to the bathroom, where he took a packet from his raincoat pocket and spilled some white powder onto the marble surface of the wash basin. He rolled another hundred dollar bill into a tube. Cutting the powder into a couple of lines, he said to Cindy. “Best stuff in town. Treat yourself.”
“Well, I guess it’s my lucky day.” Cindy placed her two thousand dollars onto the wash basin, took the tube and bent over to snort the powder into each nostril. The man put his hand into the side pocket of his coat and pulled out a long rubber band, the kind you use for physio exercises. As she came up, she sneezed and rubbed each nostril then shook her head, her eyes closed. He threw the band over her head and around her neck, crossed his hands over and pulled it tight from behind.
Cindy’s eyes opened wide with shock and she saw the reflection of the scene in the small mirror over the wash basin. She tried to scream, but no sound emerged from her mouth. She struggled to pull away, but the band just got tighter. She tried to force her fingers beneath the rubber, but it was biting into the flesh of her neck. In the mirror, she could see the man pulling the band tighter, a savage, arrogant sneer on his face. She flailed about with her arms and legs, trying to escape from the suffocating stranglehold. Her breasts swung from side to side as she struggled, like a macabre sexual ritual, and her kicking legs revealed her flimsy underwear. Cindy’s eyes bulged and her face became suffused and crimson. Her tongue protruded from her gasping mouth then her movements ceased and she hung limply from the rubber band in the stranger’s hands.
The man carried Cindy’s body over and laid it on the bed alongside the naked Portuguese. After replacing his leather gloves with a pair of thin rubber gloves he took the empty sachet the girl had used for Rodrigo’s drink from the cabinet. He sniffed both glasses then flushed the dregs from the drugged glass down the toilet with the sachet, washed the glass and dried it off with some kitchen roll. He poured some whisky and water into the glass then threw the liquid into the toilet and flushed it away. Going back to the bed, he put the glass into the unconscious man’s hand, clamped the limp fingers around it, pressed it against Rodrigo’s lips then replaced it on the cabinet.
From the inside pocket of his coat he took out a rubber band and a small leather box, containing a disposable syringe in a plastic sleeve and a small phial. He filled the syringe from the phial and tied the band around Rodrigo’s left bicep. Pressing carefully, he found the vein, and using the other man’s right hand, he injected the contents of the syringe into his arm. He withdrew the syringe and the band and dropped them on the floor by the bed.
After closing the fingers of Rodrigo’s left hand around it, he put the phial onto the wash-basin. Next, he poured a small amount of the powder from the packet into the banknote tube. Kneeling at the side of the unconscious man, he carefully blew a little of the powder from the tube into each nostril, ensuring that it didn’t touch his lips and that it touched the inside of the nostrils. He pressed the limp fingers several times onto the tube and the paper packet then replaced them on the wash basin.
Finally, the man went over to the bed again and removed Cindy’s skirt and knickers. He threw them onto the floor, then taking the ends of the rubber band, still around her neck, he pressed Rodrigo’s hands onto the band and dropped it back onto the bed. He looked down at the girl. She was lying on her stomach, her head turned towards the Portuguese, as if she was sleeping. Her legs were slightly akimbo and the cheeks of her backside were invitingly open. Reluctantly, he tore his eyes away, went to the door and looked carefully around the studio for any slip-ups. Suppressing a laugh, he went back to take the two thousand dollars from the wash basin. He had another thought and took the wallet from the trousers on the chair. In it there were eighteen hundred dollar bills. He took out ten and replaced the wallet in the trousers.
The man went out to the hall and closed the apartment door, took Cindy’s purse and cell phone from the bag on the floor, dropped the keys into the bag and picked up the umbrella. Closing the outside door, he went down the stairs and exited to the street without seeing anyone. As he walked back to the Grailton Hotel he removed the twelve hundred dollars and the few papers that were in Cindy’s purse. He extracted the SIM card from the phone and threw them with the rubber gloves and the purse into a skip at the side of the road. The papers from the purse he dropped into a trash can outside a restaurant.
He was back in his room by two in the morning and got five hours sleep. After showering and shaving, he paid his bill with cash then took a cab to Kennedy. He was in time to have breakfast before his flight and he got a few more hours sleep after take-off.
The bodies were not discovered until Sunday, when the neighbours in the apartment opposite called the rental agent about a noxious smell. When she opened the living room door, the smell was so appalling that she screamed even before seeing the bodies on the bed. Panicked, she went down to the pub, where the manager took charge of the matter until the police arrived.
The rental agency confirmed that the apartment had been rented by Cindy, two weeks previously, under the name of Mary-Lou Graham. She had paid one month’s rent in advance plus a month’s deposit, in cash.
Rodrigo’s membership card for Cinderella’s led to an investigation which revealed that he had left with a girl at some time before one in the morning. The girl, whom they had never seen before, had arrived just after midnight and asked for him by name. Her canvas bag, which was still in the hall, contained a pair of high heel shoes and a pack of multi-coloured condoms, but no
identification.
There were no fingerprints other than Rodrigo’s and the girl’s to be found on the glasses, syringe and other items. Semen from the Portuguese was traced on the bed sheets, on the girl and on a hand towel.
The pathologist identified a large quantity of heroin in his body and traces of cocaine in both his and the girl’s nostrils. The Rohypnol had already been metabolized and eliminated by his system and was untraceable. The condition of the internal organs showed that neither Rodrigo nor Cindy was a habitual drug user. Subsequent analysis of the remaining contents of the syringe showed it to be heroin of a high purity and strength.
The girl was a natural brunette, her hair was dyed red.
The police developed the theory that Rodrigo had strangled the girl, perhaps during a sex act. Then, being unused to drugs, he had succumbed to a fatal mixture of cocaine and heroin. Whether or not this had been accidental or deliberate was impossible to determine.
When the police entered Rodrigo’s apartment on Central Park West, using the keys they had found in his overcoat, they discovered large quantities of pornographic material of a very depraved nature, involving children. Inspection of his laptop and mobile phone revealed thousands of images and many email addresses. The machine was sent to the Child Exploitation and Obscenity section of the Justice Department in Washington.
In his office safe they found even more revolting pornographic material, twenty thousand dollars in cash, and several keys. The keys were unlabelled and there was no way of identifying them. Amongst the few pieces of documentation was a file containing bank statements, an address book and a computer printed first class return ticket to Geneva, via London, for the last week of April.
The police finally picked up Cindy’s trail. Her name was actually Dolores Jean Lane. Her mother, who lived in a trailer park in Dallas, Texas, was distraught when she sobered up enough to be told of her death, three months after the event.
The African Diamond Trilogy Box Set Page 5