The wholesomeness of Anna’s earlier smile was replaced with a mouthy pout of pure seduction. Her hands traced slow circles around her barely covered breasts. “You like to watch?”
Gordon pulled the sheet back. “Take a look at this,” he said. “What do you think?”
Anna tossed her head back and smiled. “I think I feel naughty tonight. Can handle me?”
Gordon thought if his luck got any better he’d start pissing solid gold. He wrapped a hand around the shaft of his penis. “Baby, I think the question is can you handle
this
? Now come here.”
Anna gave a little giggle. “Not just yet.” She crossed to the bureau and pulled four long strips of red silk from her overnight case. “Watch me, Alex,” she whispered. “Watch what I can do.”
Anna glided toward him and used the silk strips as partners in her dance. Gordon was mesmerized. His erotic ballerina teased the ribbons across her body as she floated closer to the bed. She bent one perfect leg and leaned next to him. He reached for her but she turned just outside his grasp. With a smile part promise, part dare, she tied a ribbon around his left wrist, ran it through her fingers, and secured the opposite end to the wooden slat of the headboard.
“So it’s going to be like this, is it?” Gordon scooted to a full sitting position. “I’m to be your slave?”
Anna strolled around to his right side, never taking her glorious green eyes off him. “You’ll be totally at my mercy,” she teased as she secured his right arm to the headboard.
“Mmm, I like the sound of that. Will you be gentle with me?” Gordon watched as Anna tickled his feet with the remaining two ribbons before tying his ankles to the bedstead. She stepped back to examine her handiwork.
“You like to be the boss, huh?” Gordon whispered. “Remember, fair’s fair. My turn next.”
Anna stopped her carnal dance. She stood at the foot of the bed appraising her captive. The sexy tease that glowed from her eyes hardened into a calculated stare.
“Hey, just play, right? I’m not into that S and M stuff.”
Anna stood silent. Gordon tugged with his right arm, then his left. Realizing his effort was rewarded by a tightening of the silk, he felt a small quake of fear and flexed his legs. The knots pulled tight around his ankles. Anna reached forward and snapped the sheet off the bed with one powerful stroke.
“Okay, baby. Game’s over. Untie me now.” Gordon’s attempt at authority fell as flat as his disappearing erection. He jerked and pulled, flailed and kicked, cursed and spat. Anna stood mute, watching Gordon exhaust himself. In less than five minutes he was spent. A gasping naked specimen mounted to her display board. She slowly shook her head.
“I would have expected more fight from you, Gordon.”
His throat tightened. “What did you call me?”
Anna crossed to the suite’s window. She drank in the moonlight glistening across the water before she turned to sit in the rattan rocker. “Everyone knows you, Gordon. The Wizard of Wall Street.” She huffed out a small laugh. “You’ve been in all the papers.”
Gordon moved to wipe the bead of sweat rolling down his cheek only to be reminded of his vulnerable position. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I’m someone people hire when they need something fixed.” Her posture and tone lent an authority more appropriate to a power suit than a negligee.
“Hired? You a hooker? Is that what this is? Setting me up with pictures for tomorrow’s front page?” Gordon craned his head around the room, looking for a photographer. He wished he had the sheet back. Or his erection. If he was going to be plastered across the web at least he could cast a long shadow.
Anna shook her head. A weary teacher impatient with her witless pupil. “I need you to listen to me, Gordon. Listen very carefully.”
“No. You listen to me, you cunt. Cut me loose, tell me who hired you, and maybe I won’t call the cops. How’s that?”
“You’re going to die tonight, Gordon.” Anna’s voice held as much emotion as telling him the time.
“Untie me now, Anna. Or whoever the fuck you are.”
“I said you’re going to die tonight, Gordon. And you have a choice. You can listen so you understand the particulars of your death sentence, or you can go to your grave as ignorant as you are arrogant.”
Gordon stopped protesting. He felt his tongue swell. It was hard to breathe. Everything about the beautiful Anna: her tone, her words, the way she held her body, convinced him she meant what she said. He tasted the bitter metallic undertones of terror.
He shivered, wishing he could free his arms and legs enough to curl up for warmth. “I have money. More than anyone knows. Name your price.”
“I have my price, Gordon. Your wife made the deposit yesterday.” Anna rose, crossed back to her overnight case, and pulled out another long ribbon. This one black. She sat on the bed’s edge, weaving the black silk dreamily through perfectly manicured hands.
Gordon was sweating now, chills replaced by hot flashes of fear. “Celeste sent you? Why?”
The Fixer responded with a satisfied smile. “Now, Gordon. You really don’t see how this is necessary? How dying is the only way to fix things?”
“But I am fixing things, damn it.” Gordon struggled to stay in a sitting position. His arms ached and his back muscles screamed. “That’s why I came down here, to think things through. Come up with a plan. I know she’s pissed at me. But I’m on it. There’s no reason for this.”
“Ah, but there’s every reason, Gordon. Celeste knows how clever you are. She’s had years of experience watching you spin your deceit and wiggle out of responsibility every time. You even convinced her the women you screwed so often and so openly were because she wasn’t woman enough for you.” The Fixer tossed her strawberry blonde hair behind her shoulders. “She doesn’t think that any more, Gordon.”
“Please,” he whispered. “Please don’t do this.”
“Seven are dead, Gordon. Five suicides from people who lost everything when they trusted you. One man shot his wife and twenty-three year old Down Syndrome daughter before turning the gun on himself. He invested the money that was supposed to take care of his little girl after they died with you. And you put it straight into your own pocket.”
“I can’t be held accountable for their weakness.” Gordon still hoped someone would believe that. “Investments come with risks. Everybody knows that.”
“But you never had investments, Gordon. You had schemes. Clever complicated schemes with no other purpose than to make you rich.”
“Take my money! Give it to the lawyers and the tax man. Hell, give it to the fucking suicide prevention folks if that’ll make Celeste happy. Just untie me and let me go home.” Gordon tried another futile tug on the silk that imprisoned him.
“Celeste knows your plans, Gordon.”
He stopped struggling. “What are you talking about? What plans?”
“Celeste knows about your secret accounts. Nearly twenty million dollars offshore waiting for you.” The Fixer twirled a hand in the air. “And this place? Well, I’m here, aren’t I? Celeste knows you planned to sneak away if it looked like you were headed for jail. She knows about the new identity you’ve been working so hard to establish this past year. She knows your plan to leave her humiliated and all your investors denied the satisfaction of seeing you come to justice. She asked me to fix things.”
Gordon’s breathing was shallow and he heard his blood throbbing in his head. “What’s your plan?”
“Simple.” The Fixer stared off into space, unfazed by the naked sweating man struggling less than ten inches away. “Celeste emptied your buried accounts while you were feeding me lobster off your fork. She’ll meet with prosecutors after your body’s found. The grieving widow will cooperate fully. Nearly three billion dollars of the money you stole will be returned to try to make whole what you’ve broken. Of course, the seven who died can’t be fixed. She’ll have to live with that.” She turned her cold stare back to Gordon. “You’ll be found by the maid tomorrow. The desk clerk will remember the woman you picked up tonight. The police will see this scarf tied so lovingly around your neck and come to the only conclusion that makes any sense. You died in the middle of a dangerous sex game that got tragically out of hand.”
She opened a drawer in the nightstand and pulled out a pencil. Gordon watched her fashion a noose of black silk, wrapping the ends around the short piece of wood. “Please,” he whispered. His bladder let loose as she turned toward him. His bowels followed as The Fixer pulled the noose over the Wizard of Wall Street’s head. She was so focused on turning the pencil tighter and tighter she never noticed the stench.
“We got a job.” Jim De Villa last used that tone when he responded to a call on Seattle’s south side. A twenty-three-year-old meth head was high enough to believe the voices in his rotted-out mind telling him My Little Red Caboose Pre-School was actually a front for Al Queida and it was his patriotic duty to burn the place to the ground. Six kids were put in the burn unit. One didn’t make it past the emergency room. Mort remembered how the mother of the dead little boy pounded Jim’s chest over and over as she screamed out her grief. Jim stood there and took it. Yes, sir. Mort knew to pay attention to Jim when he used that tone. “Officer on scene says it’s a white female, tall, thin, brown hair. Team’s out and I’m heading over.”
Mort’s stomach clenched. “You got an i.d.?”
Jim stepped into Mort’s office and closed the door. “Couple of skateboarders found her behind a dumpster at Seattle Center. Drug rigs next to the body. No identification. Officer puts her age in the ballpark.”
Mort grabbed his keys and pushed away from his desk. Jim stepped back and blocked the door.
“Why not let me go down and see what’s what?” Jim’s tone softened. “I’m Chief of Forensics. Let me earn my keep.”
Mort pushed Jim aside with a silent glare.
“At least let me drive, will ya?” Jim called to his friend’s receding back. “Bruiser’s already loaded.”
Mort slammed the car door and the cluster of investigators divided, forming a human hallway to the dead body sprawled on the asphalt. His eyes tracked left then right, surveying the scene. He focused on the litter of rubber tubing, bottle caps, and syringes; deliberately diverting his eyes from the corpse until he knelt beside her. He brushed back the dead woman’s shoulder length hair and exhaled. He looked up and locked eyes with Jim DeVilla who stood ten feet back, an oversized German Shepherd at his side. Mort’s subtle head shake was enough for his friend to know the dead woman wasn’t Allie. Jim ordered Bruiser to stay and joined the team.
“What do we have?” Mort asked the uniformed officer closest to him.
Mort and Jim were brought up to speed. Two fifteen-year-olds trying new jumps spotted the dead woman’s legs behind the dumpster. Jim’s forensic team had bagged and labeled a blanket, seven beer cans, and assorted drug paraphernalia.
“Looks like they had a party down here.” Jim scanned the area. “We got enough litter for at least three or four fun-lovers.” He walked over to the body and knelt. “North Face jacket, leather shoes.” Jim reached his gloved finger into the front pocket of the woman’s coat and pulled out several slips of paper. “Bookstore receipt from Seattle University.” He rifled through the stack. “Looks like she bought herself a latte’ at 10:37 yesterday morning.” Jim flipped through two more. “Bingo. She has a massage and facial scheduled for nine o’clock tomorrow at the Olympic Spa.” Jim grinned up at his team. “And that, children, is what we call getting lucky.”
An hour later a frightened set of parents confirmed the identity of the dumpster corpse. Meaghan Hane. Twenty-nine years old. Fourth year graduate student. Her tearful mother described her daughter as a virtuoso cellist who’d twice toured Europe playing with local symphonies.
By 1:00 Jim and Mort sat across an interview table with two of Meghan’s terrified classmates. Richard Kimberly was an aspiring portrait painter who told Mort he had an aristocratic chin. Mike Suster was finishing his dissertation on the role of ritual drumming in sixteenth century China. Both of them looked like they’d rather call their mommies than their lawyers, and both of them bolted for the bathroom when shown photos of Meaghan’s lifeless body.
Mike didn’t make it.
“I told you we should have stayed.” Mike moaned to Richard before he sipped from the paper cup in his shaking hands. “We shouldn’t have left her with him.”
Richard stared straight ahead and said nothing. Mort thought the look on his face was the perfect model for a portrait in self-loathing.
“Tell me what happened,” Mort said.
“And there’s something you ought to know before you speak.” Jim nodded toward Bruiser who sat beside him on high alert. “He’s specially trained. He can smell the filokenes in sweat when you’re telling a lie.”
Mort rolled his eyes, always surprised at how many people bought Jim’s bull.“Start at the beginning.” He clicked on the recorder.
“Meaghan’s been our buddy since we started grad school.” Mike wiped his upper lip and glanced over to Bruiser. “She’s so brilliant. She can make you cry within eight bars of any piece.” He looked over to Richard who kept his gaze on something no one else could see. “But she had a wild side.”
Mike went on to describe how Meaghan returned from Europe extolling the wonders of heroin. Said she’d tried it in Amsterdam and been flooded with creative awareness unlike any she’d ever experienced. Mike said she’d been after them for months to try it with her. Assured them that if they did it correctly there was no chance for addiction.
“So you two artistic geniuses decided to pass a boring evening by shooting up a little horse?” DeVilla asked.
“It wasn’t like that.” Mike went on to explain the three had been out celebrating Meaghan’s invitation to audition for the Seattle Symphony. Dinner in Pioneer Square. They had a few drinks. Walked to Seattle Center. Drank some beers and smoked a little weed. “We were all feeling pretty good.” Mike looked over to the disconnected Richard. “Meaghan pulled out her phone and made a call. Next thing we know some guy’s there. Meaghan slipped him some money and he pulls out three hits of ecstacy.” The frightened musician wiped his hands on his jeans and watched Bruiser’s reaction. The dog held his vigilant poise. “We took them.”