The Council of Ten (3 page)

“Let her in,” came the voice of a man from the hallway, and the policeman permitted her to pass.

Doris charged forward only to be cut off by a tall man wearing a too-warm tweed sport coat.

“I’m Lieutenant Melrose,” he said, holding her back. “You said you’re—you were a friend of Mrs. Karp?”

Doris struggled to see beyond his shoulder. “Yes. What … what happened?”

“As near as we can tell, early this morning she must have surprised a burglar in the act and he panicked.”

Melrose moved to the side enough for Doris to see clearly into the living room. The dreaded pounding returned to her chest with a vengeance. The room was a shambles. Nothing was where it should have been. Pieces of furniture were scattered everywhere, the chairs overturned, bookcases spilled over. Shattered porcelain from Fannie’s prized collection lay randomly on the rug and a stiff wind poured in through a gaping hole in the bay window. The mess alone would have been enough to kill Fannie, a woman who once vowed to stay up all night long to stake out her lawn in vain pursuit of the pooch who’d been leaving piles everywhere. Doris remembered that Fannie had ended up falling asleep in the flower bed.

“This is just the way we found the room,” Melrose was saying.

A pair of detectives brushed by Doris holding clear plastic bags packed with evidence. Evidence of what? Something was wrong here. Yes, Fannie would have used every last inch of her bulk to defend herself if necessary. But why would she have come downstairs to face the burglar instead of calling the police? Even given that she had chosen not to, Doris knew Fannie well enough to be sure she could never have mustered the kind of strength required for such a violent, prolonged struggle. It made no sense… . that is, unless the real damage had been done after Fannie was already dead, to create the
illusion
that a struggle had occurred. In which case there had been no burglar, just a murderer.

And there was no water glass at Sophie’s bedside.

“They killed them,” Doris muttered, her words almost swallowed by the trembling that seized her.

The next thing she knew she was being led from the house by a patrolman, who helped her into the backseat of his car. Doris wanted to ask him what they were going to do about her beloved Mercedes, wanted to tell him not to bother calling Dr. Morris Kornbloom because today was Wednesday and God only knew what golf course he could be found on. But the words lagged hopelessly behind her thoughts to a point where Doris wondered if she would ever be able to speak again.

Much to Doris’s surprise, Morris Kornbloom arrived twenty minutes after the police located him at his health club.

“My God, what a day you’ve had,” he said with a sigh. “All this shock. It’s a wonder you’ve held up this well, my girl.”

He always called her that and she hated it, she admitted, because more than once she had wondered hopefully if Kornbloom, a fifty-seven-year-old widower, might not have considered asking her out. The difference in their ages was offset by the fact that his sunken face and thin white hair made him appear older than he was.

Now Kornbloom the doctor went about checking her blood pressure and pulse, then probed his stethoscope all around her chest.

“Everything seems fine,” he reported. “But I’m going to leave you these pills to be on the safe side. Take one every four hours and two before bed.” And he set down a small bottle of white pills on her night table next to her red life ones.

“What about Sylvia?” Doris asked hesitantly.

Kornbloom returned his instruments to his black bag. “She’s been hospitalized just as a precaution. The shock of finding her friend—your friend—was very hard on her. She’s under observation. Just overnight, you understand. Give it a few hours and you can visit her. Late this afternoon would be my suggestion.” He paused. “I’m not leaving until I see you take one of those pills. They’ll help you relax.”

Morris Kornbloom gazed at her with honest feeling, and in that moment Doris longed to tell him about the missing glass of water and the struggle at Fannie’s that hadn’t been a struggle at all. But to draw a link between these apparently random occurrences would mean having to tell him about the Business, because that was the only possible connection, and to accept that was to accept responsibility for the death of her friends, thanks to a conscience that after five years had decided to make itself heard. Help for her might have been a phone call away, but it hurt too much to admit that the circumstances indicated she should place it.

“Well, Morris,” she began, fighting to hide her fear, “get me a glass of water so I can swallow all the pills you want me to.”

Doris took a cab to the hospital, arriving at four o’clock. She had called ahead at three, so Sylvia would be expecting her. Nothing would be mentioned about Fannie until tomorrow; nothing, either, about the possible connection to the Business.

Sylvie had a private room on the third floor of Good Samaritan Hospital, which was located in West Palm. The menu featured an international fare and the luxurious private rooms overlooked the ocean. If you had to get sick, it was probably the best place of any to come to, but Doris hated it, as she hated all hospitals. Hated the smell of them, the feel—everything. Other than the tests she’d taken, which resulted in a prescription for her red life pills, she had never spent a night in one and wasn’t about to start now. Unless Sylvie wanted her to. Sylvie came first, and if she didn’t want to be alone, Doris would have a cot wheeled in, would even pay the daily rate if necessary.

The elevator opened directly before the third floor nurse’s station and Doris was surprised to see Morris Kornbloom standing there next to a man she recognized as Sylvia’s doctor.

“Morris, what are you—”

His face was a mask of stone, providing her answer before the question was even completed.

“No, Morris, no!” she wailed above her own faintness.

“Respiratory failure, Doris,” he said, exchanging a glance with Sylvie’s doctor. “It happened very suddenly. There was nothing—”

“Oh, God,” Doris heard herself break in. “They killed her, too.
Right here in the hospital and they still found a way!
”

“Doris—”

But it was too late. She was already sliding down the wall her shoulders had found, never feeling the floor when she struck it.

Chapter 3

SABRINA COULDN’T REALLY
remember when she had first considered killing the courier. It probably went all the way back to the first time she had noticed him undressing her with his eyes while hers were locked just as seductively on the briefcase gripped in his right hand. She thought of the stacks of crisp bills hidden inside. She was just a courier as well, passing on nothing but an envelope containing his drop point instructions. The pay was fine, but nothing compared to the contents of the briefcase during a single run. Kill him and it was hers.

She had killed before. The first time had been ten years ago, when she was barely halfway through her teens. Her victim had purchased her from a white slavery ring when she was twelve and brought her to America to make money for him. Sabrina hadn’t found it hard to live with that. What was impossible to live with was his own vile body being forced on her every night, big and smelly. He would thrust himself into her until she ached, sometimes bled, and one night Sabrina jabbed a steak knife into his belly just when he was ready to come. His blood drenched her and his foul-smelling frame pinned her to the bed as he wretched and spasmed. By the time Sabrina pulled herself free, he was dead.

There had been others since, always set up over a long period of time and always judiciously. Men were weak creatures, her huge breasts and sultry features a greater weapon than even the Ring. She’d had a jeweler fashion it for her personally—a knuckle-size imitation emerald tapered into razor sharpness along its raised center. A simple swipe across the throat was all it took. Sabrina would look at the eyes then: always the same, bulging first with confusion followed swiftly by terror. It was her favorite moment, even better than the instant with the swipe of the Ring itself.

Tonight, though, the best moment of all would come when she opened the briefcase.

The bell rang at the front door of her Sansucci Boulevard home in North Miami. Right on time. Sabrina excitedly threw the door open without checking the peephole, saw the briefcase first.

Then the stranger who was holding it.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he apologized.

“You’re not the usual …”

“A change. I have the proper papers.”

Sabrina fought down her disappointment and eyed the man. Much younger than the other courier and big. She could feel him looking at her as well. The hope in her rekindled just as quickly as it had been snuffed out. She had planned this night for too long to pull back now. The man’s youth would work to her advantage, her beauty the means that would free her to use the Ring against him.

“Come in,” she told the courier.

He stepped forward clutching the briefcase with rigid unease. She closed the door behind him.

“I need my instructions,” he told her, eyes running all over her frame.

“Upstairs,” came her practiced response. “It’s the way this is always done,” she added softly as she slid against him on her way to the circular stairwell. “This way,” she beckoned.

Sabrina waited until they were near the bedroom on the second floor before draping her arms around the man’s back. His muscles arched and she could feel his power, certain now of his strength and aware she would have to choose the perfect moment to strike with the Ring. She eased him toward the bed. The briefcase fell to the rug.

He was over her instantly, fighting with her zipper. She worked his pants free, feeling him harden in her hands as she stroked him, matching his moans with her own.

The man had gotten her tight black jeans past her hips and was hovering into position. Just like the first victim had done all those years ago… . Sabrina drew the courier close and nibbled at his ear. Only after he entered her did she pull the hand wearing the Ring away to prepare her swipe. She maneuvered so she was over him, taking the lead, joining the rhythmic thrusting of his hips.

Her hands raised toward his throat, the Ring ready, wrist arching for the slice. Then she was in motion, just a flick of the hand was all it would take.

In her mind it was over. Only when the spurt of blood didn’t come did she realize that something was very wrong. By that time she had already felt her hand forced up and back in a queer motion by the man who had suddenly become a snake beneath her. His action made no sense.

Until she saw the blood. She realized it was hers at the same time her fingers clutched for the narrow slit across her neck. She felt her eyes bulge and thought at the last how strange it felt not to be able to close them as the world beneath her changed from red to black and then to nothing.

When Doris awoke, Morris Kornbloom was seated by her bed.

“You gave me quite a scare there, my girl,” he said, feeling for her pulse.

Doris’s eyes gazed around her. “Where am I?”

“The hospital.”

“
Sylvie’s
hospital? Good Samaritan?” She started to sit up and had almost made it when Kornbloom’s hands restrained her.

“Easy. You’re not going anywhere.”

Doris looked toward the window. Night had obviously fallen some time ago.

“You’ve been with me the whole time?”

Kornbloom nodded. “You made me promise. Don’t you remember?”

“Has anyone … tried to come in?”

“No one who shouldn’t have. Say, what’s gotten into you, my girl?”

Her eyes dug into his. “Do you trust me, Morris?”

His face squeezed together in puzzlement. “What kind of question is that?”

“Just answer it.”

“Of course I trust you!”

“Then get me out of here. Take me home. Tomorrow I’ll check in somewhere else. Tomorrow I’ll explain everything,” Doris promised, wondering how she might go about keeping it. “You said that you trusted me. Then believe me when I say I’m not safe. Not here. Not now. Say you’ll do it, Morris,
please
!”

Morris Kornbloom nodded slowly.

Selinas sat at the Miami Airport bar watching a college football game. He had forgotten who the teams were, but he didn’t care because he was a fan of neither. It was the airport that was the key, preferred by him for its anonymity, bars within airports in particular. Of course, the problem was that weary travelers, cursed by missed connections or delays, often crowded into them for refuge and bartenders were thus firm with any patron looking for just a chair and a game to watch instead of a drink. Since Selinas never drank, this could have been a problem for him. So he had devised a simple system whereby he would slip the bartender a ten upon arriving in return for a bar seat, a single glass of club soda with a twist, and no questions.

Selinas enjoyed drinking, but it simply wasn’t feasible in his profession. Booze slowed you down, made you sluggish. Even a single drink with lots of water and ice could steal a half second away from you, and too often that was all you had.

His latest assignments had certainly illustrated that.

On the television screen, the defense was bringing in its special third-down-and-long personnel. Selinas watched, amazed by the degree of specialization in sports and life in general. It was thought to be the same in his profession, but that was due largely to myth. One man might be great with his hands, another with a knife, a third with a gun, or so went the popular teaching. All bullshit. You could have a favorite, that was natural. But for tenure you had to be almost an expert with any weapon placed in your hand—as well as with the hand itself. Assignments often called for specific means of elimination to be employed, and even then you didn’t know what kind of weapon might be around if an opponent appeared unannounced, even if his footsteps did give him away.

Selinas heard a familiar gait now and felt his neck muscles tense. The steps turned into the bar and approached him.

The third-and-long pass fell incomplete.