Claudine (3 page)

She shut the bathroom door and sat on the rim of the tub, her back to the tiled wall. She took her nipple between her thumb and forefinger and caressed it. Her vagina responded, contracting, growing moist. She closed her eyes, imagined a naked man, his face indistinct but his arms, his shoulders and his hands muscular and well-defined. His cock was ready for her. She put the flat of her palm on her sex and rubbed gently, and then more emphatically, imagining it was the man’s hand there, not hers. Fantasized his tongue tasting her tang, his fingers pleasuring her. She could sense the buildup now, warm sensations at her core, and fondled her clit, coaxing her body to climax. Felt the softening, got ready for the rush. She cried out as she came, an exultant tremble running through her. It was over too soon, followed by a curious flat feeling, as if the world had suddenly lost its color.

Afterward, tucked into the big hotel bed, she fell into a dream-filled sleep. In her dream, she lay, cold and frightened, on a dirty cot in a pitch-black room, a cell. She tried to find the paler outline of the window, high up on the wall, but the darkness was
too deep. When her eyes adjusted to the light, she made out a giant blackbird on the sill, with a long black beak and hunched neck—the kind that stole the young from other birds’ nests.

The door creaked open and a vertical bar of light spread across the bare floor. A shadowy bulk in silhouette shuffled toward her. She heard raspy whispering, saw glittering blackbird eyes, felt the brush of wings on her bare stomach. She struggled against the pillow flattened against her mouth to stop her screams. The nightmare of her youth had come again.

CHAPTER
3

NEW YORK CITY

Two weeks later, Maria sipped a cup of coffee while she lazed in bed, the midmorning sun pouring through the open window. She heard a knock, then the sound of Lillian’s voice in the hallway. Something in her tone made Maria sit up, alert. It was the clipped cold edge of fear. She jumped out of bed, ran her fingers through her messy hair, belted a pretty floral silk robe around her body and ran out of her bedroom in bare feet.

“Who’s there, Lillian?”

She heard Lillian pronounce loudly, as if in warning, “Please come into the living room. I will bring Ms. Lantos.” Lillian’s quick steps were followed by louder, slower ones, the heavy tread of shoes on the hardwood floor. She snuck back into her bedroom. Lillian rushed in, her bright expressive face tinged with anxiety.

“What’s wrong, Lillian? Who is it?”

“The police,” she hissed. “They want to see you.”

Her eyes widened. “Me? What for?” She grew pale, and without waiting for an answer, slipped her feet into flats and hurried out the bedroom door. Lillian hovered behind her.

Two plainclothes officers rose from the sofa when she entered the living room. Both darted glances at her cleavage, blinking when they did so, as if to give the impression they were not really eyeing her bosom. The taller one, who had close-cut auburn hair graying at the temples, held out his hand in greeting.

“Detective Steve Trainor and Detective Julio da Silva, 110th Precinct, Queens.” Trainor wore a sharp suit that emphasized his muscles and height; da Silva looked small, rumpled and unkempt in contrast. “Your assistant, Lillian Flores, tells me you are Maria Lantos. Is that your legal name?”

Maria took his hand, gave it a quick shake and stepped back, gathering her robe tighter at the neck. “Yes. What’s the problem, Detective?” She gave him just enough of a smile to appear welcoming. Smiles came easily to her even if they bore no relation to her real mood.

“Can you show us some ID?”

“Of course.” She retrieved her vintage Louis Vuitton wallet from the marble-topped credenza where she’d tossed it last night, extracted her driver’s license and handed it to him.

He checked it and gave it back. “I’d like to see everything. Your birth certificate too, if you have it handy.”

“Okay, but can you tell me what this is all about?”

“We’re investigating a homicide. The victim, a young woman, was found with ID for Maria Lantos that listed her residence as this address. Including a birth certificate. Any idea how she got it?”

“No, of course not. You said she died?”

“We’re investigating a
murder
, Ms. Lantos.” Trainor spoke slowly, as if to a small child. “So you have no idea how someone got their hands on your ID? Your purse wasn’t recently lost or stolen?”

She shook her head. “No.”

Da Silva took a small spiral-bound notebook from his inside breast pocket and began jotting down notes.

“Well, fake IDs are a big business. Maybe someone with access to your things had it reproduced and sold it.” He gave Lillian a suggestive look.

Behind her, Lillian gasped. Maria turned around and said gently, “It’s okay, Lil. I’ll deal with this. Why don’t you let me discuss it with the detectives?”

White-faced, Lillian hurried out of the room.

Maria turned back to Trainor. “If you’re implying my assistant’s involved, I don’t think that’s the case here, Detective.”

“Can’t be too careful, Ms. Lantos.” Trainor thumbed through her credit cards while she took her birth certificate from the credenza drawer and handed it to him.

“You’re Romanian?” Trainor asked after he’d glanced at it and handed it to da Silva.

“Yes. Born in Romania and adopted by my American mother when I was six.”

“You were adopted but you kept your birth surname?”

“I went back to it later. When I turned eighteen.”

“Hmmm. The deceased was using a New York driver’s license with your name and address,” he said, handing the paper back to her, “and she looks a lot like you. Do you have a sister? A cousin, maybe?”

A current of fear ran through Maria’s body. For a few seconds
she was silent, trying to pull herself together. “I don’t have any blood relatives alive that I know of.”

Da Silva had small eyes with overlarge whites bulging out from underneath thick, fleshy lids. He swept his gaze around the room. Took in the chamois leather sectional sofa, the Chinese Ninghsia rug, the Frederick Cooper lamps, noted how costly they were. His gaze settled on her left hand.

“Are you married, Ms. Lantos?” da Silva said.

“No. It’s just Lillian and me here.”

“What do you do for a living?” he asked, eyebrows raised. She imagined answering him truthfully.
I fuck men for a living. Fathers, brothers, uncles, sons. Men who want to be sucked, groped, squeezed. Fat men whose stomachs have grown so pendulous they can no longer see their dicks when they stand up. Young men who think their cocks are gifts. High rollers, doctors, sports heroes, senators, actors. Lonely men who’ve lost their wives or sweethearts. Cheaters. Old men who’ve discovered the little blue pill and whose wives, thinking they’d been released from sex, turn away from them in dismay. Bachelors, husbands, men whose girlfriends say they want to watch but really don’t. Rich men. So many that they blur together in an infinitely repeating refrain you can never get out of your head.

“I’m a postgrad student at Yale.”

Da Silva looked up, alert. “Fancy place for a student. Mind telling me how you afford it?”

“My mother helps me out.” Maria mentioned her adoptive mother’s name, a well-known New York lawyer. Da Silva recognized it immediately. His jaw twitched and he glanced over at Trainor. “I’m sorry for the intrusion,” he said, “We have to ask, you know.”

“I understand.”

Trainor reached inside a breast pocket for a thin, fake alligator-skin case. He unzipped it and took out two pieces of paper enclosed in a cheap transparent plastic folder. He held them up. “Do you know this girl?” He handed her the photos. There were two shots, front and back of a thin blond woman. She lay on a stainless steel gurney under bright lights. Her body was rigid and naked. No sheet had been draped over her to protect her dignity.

She examined the frontal first. The murdered girl had the thin hips of a teenager just beginning to mature into womanly roundness; her parched blond hair splayed just below her shoulder was the same length as Maria’s. Her pouty childish lips were the only feature still recognizable in a battered face. Her overlarge breasts looked incongruous on the teenager’s body. Implants, clearly. But the worst sight of all was a jagged open wound on her pelvis, the skin and underlying tissue split apart all the way to her pubis.

She gagged and looked away. She felt a pain in her womb—a pang of sympathy. She looked at the other photo—the back shot. Nestled on the underside of the girl’s right wrist was a raised scar in the shape of a nightingale feather.

CHAPTER
4

“I’ve never seen her before in my life,” Maria whispered, handing the photos back to Trainor.

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

For an instant, his flinty gray eyes took in her curves, then his face became unreadable again. “Okay. Here, take my card. If you can think of anywhere you might have seen this girl, or someone who might have copied your ID, give me a call.”

“I will. Thank you, Detectives.”

They shook hands again, and Maria was just about to lock the dead bolt behind them, when she changed her mind and yanked the door back open.

Trainor and da Silva turned around when they heard the door open and she motioned for them to come back. “Do you have a suspect?”

Trainor eyed her. “No. Not yet.”

“He’s still out there, then,” she said, more to herself than to them.

“Yes, ma’am,” da Silva replied. He blinked like a reptile. “We don’t know if there’s any connection to you besides the ID, but you should be cautious. We’ll be in touch if there are any developments you need to know about.”

Maria smiled her thanks, closed the door again and sagged against it; her heart flipped around like a bird with a broken wing. She didn’t recognize the girl. That was true enough. But she couldn’t tell Trainor or da Silva about the identical scar; the thought of the police digging into her personal life momentarily paralyzed her. If they discovered her secret, she’d be thrown in prison. She wrapped herself tightly in her robe and called for Lillian. There was no answer.

She found Lillian huddled in her bedroom, her shoulders heaving with the effort to suppress her sobs. Maria put her arms around her, hugging her like a hurt child. “Lillian dear, it’s okay. I don’t believe for one second you took my ID.”

“
They
do.”

“When they ask questions like that, they’re . . . It’s probably just a kind of test. They’re judging your reactions. They’re likely narrowing things down trying to sift out the truth.”

“No, Maria. Because I’m Filipina they think I’m an illegal. It’s bullshit and I should be used to it. But that doesn’t matter now. How did the dead girl get your ID? Past the doorman, and into the apartment? This is a safe building. That kind of thing shouldn’t happen here.”

“I don’t know, Lil.” Only she, Lillian and Andrei had apartment keys. “No place is one hundred percent secure. I’m less worried about
how
; I want to know
why
and
who
.” Maria dried
Lillian’s tears with the edge of her robe. “Listen to me. While you were in the bedroom, the police told me the dead girl looked exactly like me. They showed me photos.”

“Oh my God!” Lillian cried, jumping to her feet. “What does this mean? Do they think you were the intended victim? We’ve got to do something.” She began to pace. The bulldog was back.

Maria got up. “No. They didn’t say that. I have to phone Andrei.”

Her stomach churned as she dialed his number. He answered after two rings. She gave him a detailed account of the police interview.

He listened without saying anything but sounded grim when he did speak. “I’m coming over, Maria. Right now. Don’t open your door for anyone.”

His order made her bristle. “Absolutely not, Andrei. I’m going to Yale today. I’ve got research to do and it can’t wait. I’ve been too busy with clients lately. I won’t end up being a prisoner in my own home.”

“For God’s sake, Maria. A girl who looks like you, carrying your ID, was killed. Doesn’t that suggest something to you? I’m coming over.”

“Fine. And when you get here, I’ll be gone. So do whatever you need to—install security cameras, extra locks, whatever. But I’m not going to wait for you.”

Andrei was silent for a moment. Maria could hear him breathing heavily and knew how upset he was. When he spoke it was with resignation. “I’ve got some contacts at the NYPD. I’ll keep tabs on the investigation. Give me the detectives’ names again.”

Maria took a deep breath. “Trainor and da Silva.” While Andrei jotted down the information, Maria promised she’d stay in touch by phone while she was on campus. She clicked off, reassured that she could count on him.

She washed down the toast and eggs Lillian made with another cup of coffee, then took a shower. Fear the police would discover her after-hours profession rattled her more deeply than her worries over the murdered girl. And though she chastised herself for it, self-preservation won out over empathy. She gave herself a shake and tried to calm down. She’d planned to spend the entire day at Yale and that was exactly what she was going to do. And later, she was meeting her old drama professor, who’d asked her to stop by.

Ironically, her scholarly ambitions—for it was her goal to become a professor—prompted her life as a courtesan. Like many teenagers, she’d once dreamed of becoming an actor. She possessed the fine bone structure and radiant skin the camera loved. That, and a few good connections, landed her a few small parts in movies. She also worked as an extra and took commercial assignments. But her dream of breaking into serious film roles eventually vanished along with her meager funds. She’d decided to switch majors from theater to literature in her sophomore year. Then she’d happened to pick up a copy of an Anaïs Nin novel. The world of the sexual professional caught her interest. She’d known other girls who’d ventured into the escort trade and made fabulous money at it. Why not her? She found the notion of a woman’s value declining as she grew sexually experienced hopelessly outdated and offensive, and resolved never to buy into the chauvinism that lay behind it.