The Dragons of Styx

by John E. Siers

  “No credit to me on that one,” Sparkling insisted, “she was ready to sign even before we went over the details. She wants out, would have done it herself, but she wants her estate to go to somebody. Did you read the Northstar report?”

  “No, I didn’t,” he admitted. “Lisa was supposed to be your backup on this one, and…”

  “I read it.” Lisa nodded. “It’s complicated, and I’ll let Sparkle tell you about it, but first let’s clear the dinner trash and pour some wine.”

  Ten minutes later they had gotten everything cleaned up and opened a bottle of cream sherry—Sparkling’s favorite dessert wine, though she insisted the best came from upstate New York vineyards, not California. Glasses in hand, they settled back, and she started the tale.

  “The whole thing started with a tontine, of all things.”

  “A what?” Mark looked puzzled.

  “A tontine—it’s an agreement among a group of people by which they all dump money into a sort of private mutual fund. The fund can be managed by an investment firm, or just put into a bank, and it can be set up to distribute a certain percentage to the investors over time, like an annuity, but usually it’s mostly intended for growth.

  “What makes a tontine so different is the agreement, by which none of the investors can cash in or sell their shares, nor can they leave it to their heirs as part of their estate. None of them can touch the fund without unanimous agreement by all.

  “When an investor dies, his or her shares just get plowed back into the fund. In other words, every time somebody croaks, the surviving investors see their shares increase in value. In theory, the last one standing gets it all—though usually when there are only a few left, they get together and agree to split the proceeds.

  “The concept started in France about 500 years ago, and apparently was quite popular among the wealthy elite, right up through the 18th and 19th century. It’s still legal—and regulated—in Europe at least. Don’t know about the U.S., but it must be legal here as well, because Kristie Whitfield was a member of one, and that’s why she was here today.”

  “I wondered about the legal issues as well,” Lisa said. “Have to ask Nydia next time I see her. Assuming she’s ever willing to speak to me again.”

  “Legal or not, it sounds to me like a really bad idea,” Mark insisted, “especially if it involves greedy rich people with access to LifeEnders.”

  “Yeah, well, you got that one right.” Sparkling gave him a crooked grin. “It looks like LEI made a pile of money off this particular tontine.

  “This one involved two generations—the parents and adult children—of five very wealthy, socially prominent families. The smallest family had three children, the largest six—a total of 30 people altogether. The parents never figured they would be around to reap the benefits, but the children ranged in age from 18 to 47 when they first formed the tontine, and the total investment was around $300 million dollars.”

  “Wow! That’s $10 million per head.” Mark looked stunned.

  “The parents put in half the money to start—$30 million per family—but the kids still had to put up between seven and eight million apiece. Anyway, nothing much happened for about seven years. The money grew, of course—to almost half a billion in fact. But in those seven years, only three people died, including both parents from one family and one parent from another.

  “Then, like you just said, somebody decided to speed the process up. Nobody knows who paid for the contracts—LifeEnders never tells—but over a two-year period, 11 members died from LifeEnders hits. That included all but one of the remaining parents. The last parent died during the same period, but that was from a long illness. But five of the kids got hit—most of them from the youngest of the group. The hits covered all five families, so they had no clue who was doing it, or even if it was just one person calling the shots. Needless to say, the five families—who had been mostly friends, living in the same social circle—became mortal enemies…with one exception.

  “Kristie Whitfield is a lesbian, and for years she’d been partners with a woman named Ariana Farrel, a daughter of one of the other families, and also a member of the tontine. Two years ago they got married, moved up north to San Jose, and tried to get away from the mess. They pretty much went into hiding, but apparently they didn’t hide well enough.

  “Three months ago, a Shooter took out Ariana as the two of them were leaving a restaurant. This time there was no doubt about who hired the hit. Since they’d moved north, two more members had died from natural causes, and 10 more from LEI contracts. With Ariana gone, the only other surviving member was Kristie’s younger brother—Willie Whitfield.”

  “When she confronted him, he admitted it—and to having hired LEI for at least a dozen of the other hits. He wasn’t the only one paying for contracts, but he was certainly the most active one. He even admitted to putting the contract on their older sister—said she’d discovered what he was doing and was going to go public with it.

  “But it was over now, he told her. They just needed to call the fund administrator and close the tontine—a 50/50 split for the two of them—and they could live happily ever after with a few hundred million each.

  “She said OK and agreed to meet him at the fund administrator’s office the following week. Instead, she went to the San Francisco LEI office, and when Willie showed up for the meeting in Los Angeles, a Shooter posing as a building security guard put one right between his eyes. While that was happening, Kristie was home preparing her Charon’s Ferry application.”

  They sat in silence for a moment when Sparkling finished the tale, then Mark got to his feet.

  “After that story, I need another drink,” he declared, “preferably something stronger than cream sherry.”

  “Cuervo Gold on the sideboard,” Sparkling told him. “Salt on the counter, and lime in the fridge, if you need it.”

  “I’ll settle for more sherry,” Lisa said. “Honestly, Sparkle—that’s an incredible story. It’s like a Shakespearean tragedy.”

  “I thought of that, too,” Sparkling said. “Like Romeo and Juliet—only with lesbian lovers. So now we have Kristie, who’s lost the love of her life—and to make matters worse, she’s murdered her own brother.

  “And there’s one more complication. Willie had a wife and two kids who knew nothing of what he was up to. Kristie loved those kids, and now she’s deprived them of their father. They’re also penniless, because Willie spent every dime he had on LifeEnders contracts in his quest for the big pot of gold.

  “So…Kristie’s here to end it all. The fact that she’s the sole beneficiary of a half-billion-dollar tontine means nothing to her. She’s leaving a big chunk of that money to her niece and nephew and their mom. The rest is going to be distributed among the surviving heirs of the other tontine members—she’s including all of them because she doesn’t know which ones Willie had whacked and which ones might have been contracted by somebody else.

  “Anyway, three days from now, she’s going to walk in here and take a short drop and a sudden stop on the end of a rope.

  “For which she’s paying us half a million bucks,” Mark noted.

  “I didn’t name the price,” Sparkling insisted. “She did—just came out and said, ‘I want it quick and painless, and I’ll pay you $500,000 to do it.’ But there’s one more complication. She wants an hour of romantic sex—glass of wine, soft music, and a comfortable bed—before she drops.”

  “Yeah…I noticed that,” Mark said. “As soon as I saw the dollar figure on the contract, I jumped to the Pre-Termination Services section. Nobody pays that much for a simple hanging.”

  “I suggested she might want to go with Lisa,” Sparkling said. “You’re more experienced with women and…well, I would have checked with you before signing, but she said no, she wanted me. Said I reminded her of a younger version of Ariana. At that point I couldn’t say no, so I guess I’ll be the one on Saturday. I have absolutely no doubt she’ll show up—would have gon
e right upstairs today if we didn’t have the mandatory three-day wait.

  “Problem is, I don’t have a lot of experience. There was a ‘mother’ back at the commune who was into teenage girls, and when I was working the street in San Fran there were a couple of Janes among the Johns, but that was mostly just them on me, letting them do whatever.

  “I just want to make sure she gets her money’s worth,” she told Lisa. “I was hoping you could give me some…oh, I don’t know…pointers…”

  “And with that,” Mark said, getting quickly to his feet and picking up his glass, “Daddy Dragon is going to take his buddy Jose here out into the garden. It’s a nice night, and I think I’ll just have a smoke and enjoy the view of the stars—as much as can be seen in the light-polluted skies of the Los Angeles basin.”

  “I’ll see you later,” Lisa told him with a chuckle. “We’re doing your bedroom tonight, right?”

  “Well, yeah…” he gave her a grin, “unless of course you think Spark needs a practical lab course to go along with the lecture you’re about to give her.”

  “No,” she said emphatically. “Momma don’t play that. We’re just going to have a little chat. I’ll see you upstairs in an hour.”

  As Sparkling had predicted, Kristie Whitfield showed up right on time three days later. A slim, fair-skinned woman in her mid-30s, she came in the door with a spring in her step and a smile on her face. It was a sad smile, not exuberant, but a smile all the same.

  Mark was at the lobby desk playing receptionist, and he got a good look at her as he escorted her to Sparkling’s office. Her brown hair almost exactly matched her eyes, and he found her quite attractive in spite of her close-cropped hairdo, absence of makeup, and male-styled clothing that tried but failed to conceal a nicely shaped feminine figure.

  I would, he decided. Assuming, of course, she had any interest in doing it with a man.

  He returned to the front desk, and less than ten minutes later, the office door opened. Kristie emerged, followed by Sparkling, who directed her toward the elevators—headed, no doubt, for one of the bedrooms on the second floor, near the entrance to the X-room balcony.

  Like every room in the Ferry’s commercial space, the bedrooms were covered by hidden cameras, but Mark resisted the temptation to pull up the view on his screen. He almost never watched when Lisa had sex with clients, and he wasn’t about to start watching Sparkling. Lisa, on the other hand, was a voyeur by nature. He was sure she would be enjoying the show on the screen in her own office.

  “That was wonderful,” Kristie said an hour later as she gave Sparkling a tender, loving kiss. “But I guess it’s time for me to join Ariana. We’ve been apart too long.”

  Until now, Sparkling had never experienced anything she would have called mixed emotions. On the one hand, she was happy she’d apparently pleased the client, but she knew she’d be sad to see Kristie go. She should be up north, living a quiet, happy life, but she’s convinced she’ll never find love again, and she’s blaming herself, not just for her brother’s death, but for all the people he killed—including Ariana.

  She’d carry out the termination without hesitation. No client she’d seen at the Ferry wanted to die more than this one. She’d carry out Kristie’s wishes, but she knew she’d feel sad when it was over.

  She checked the clock next to the bed—no excuse there, she’d given Kristie the full hour she’d paid for and then some. Sparkling had been nervous at first, mostly concerned with giving the client a good last fling, but she’d followed Lisa’s advice: “Just smile, step up, and start taking the client’s clothes off. If she starts helping you take yours off, you’ll know you’re getting it right.” She’d done that, and then poured a glass of wine for each of them. Before long they were entangled on the bed, and Lisa’s coaching was no longer needed. They’d surfaced once or twice for a few more sips of wine and a couple of bites from the snack tray, but mostly they just enjoyed each other.

  And once past her initial nervousness, Sparkling had enjoyed it—much more than any of her previous girl-on-girl encounters. She was sorry to see it come to an end, but…

  She couldn’t think of anything to say in response, so she just slid out of bed, stood up, smiled, and extended her hand to the older woman. Kristie took it and got up with a smile of her own.

  “We don’t need to get dressed,” Sparkling said. “It’s only a short walk, and there’s nobody to see us.” She led the way out the door, then slipped her arm around Kristie’s waist as they walked down the hallway.

  Out on the balcony, she retrieved the handcuffs from the shelf under the control pedestal.

  “Have to do this…sorry…hands behind your back, please.”

  “Lock me up, officer,” Kristie complied with a smile. “I’m guilty.”

  “No, you’re not,” Sparkling told her. “But I guess it’s too late to convince you of that.”

  She almost hoped the woman would respond, would give some sign of wanting to change her mind, but Kristie just shook her head and allowed herself to be led out into the red square. Sparkling bent down, retrieved the noose from the floor, and slipped it over Kristie’s neck. She spent a moment getting it arranged, then stepped back and checked to make sure the rope was hanging properly.

  “Goodbye, Kristie…” On impulse, she stepped forward again and gave the woman a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek. “Give my regards to Ariana.”

  Kristie just smiled in response—that same sad smile she’d been wearing all day. Sparkling felt tears in her eyes as she stepped back, armed the console, and pressed the red button. Kristie was still smiling as she dropped out of sight.

  Sparkling Waters had felt the kill thrill before, but this time as the rope snapped tight, it hit her with intensity that almost buckled her knees. As the feeling faded, she drew a deep breath and walked slowly to the brass fireman’s pole at the corner of the balcony. Still naked, she slid down the pole and found Lisa waiting in the drop zone below.

  “Well done, Sparkle…very well done.”

  “You were watching? I mean…before?”

  “Yeah…can’t help it. I always watch, right up to the end. For what it’s worth, you gave her a really good sendoff.”

  “I wanted to. Life screwed her over so badly, least I could do is make the end as pleasant as I could. But…I still can’t see why she couldn’t push through. I mean, if something like that happened to you, if you lost the person you loved—Mark, for example—would you be ready to kill yourself?”

  “Don’t know. I’ve never had to face something like that. I know one thing. I’d sure go after the one who killed my love—like she did.”

  “Yes, but for her, that was just another heartbreak. It was her own brother, the father of a niece and nephew she also loved. Poor Kristie…she couldn’t catch a break.”

  She turned to the dead woman dangling on the end of the rope and surveyed the results of her handiwork. By now, the post-mortem muscular reactions had ceased, and Kristie’s body had relaxed and emptied itself, producing the usual mess on the tiled floor below her feet. Her head was tilted to the side, her neck obviously broken, but she still wore the same sad smile.

  “Rest in peace, Kristie,” Sparkling said. “Let’s get you down from there.”

  “Want coveralls?” Lisa inquired, motioning toward the closet. She was already wearing hers and had positioned a gurney nearby.

  “No…I’ll want to take a shower anyway. I’ll probably use the one in Styx when I go up to get my clothes.”

  River Styx was the name they had given to the well-equipped spa on the second floor near the balcony—just across the hall from the bedroom where Kristie had spent her last hour with Sparkling. It was mostly used to provide pre-termination services to clients willing to pay for them, but Mark and Lisa—and now Sparkling—occasionally relaxed in its sauna or hot tub themselves. Lisa had also been using it to teach Sparkling the fine art of massage.

  Sparkling took the push broom from the wall and swept
most of the mess to the floor drain while Lisa took a key from the wall shelf and removed the handcuffs. Sparkling lifted Kristie’s legs so Lisa could position the gurney, and they lowered the corpse onto it.

  A few minutes later, Sparkling bent and gave Kristie a last kiss, then slid her into the disposal chute and sent her on her way to the holding tank.

  “You go and get cleaned up…take your time,” Lisa told her. “I’ll send the notice to DHS and close the file. Then we can break for lunch—I was thinking we might go out to Carlo’s for pizza today.”

  Chapter Nineteen: Ghost Hunt

  Two days later, Sparkling found herself packed and ready to leave the Ferry on a job for SAD.

  “You sure you want to do this, Spark?” Mark asked. “You’re a contractor now, not an LEI employee—you don’t have to take the assignment.”

  “Yeah…I do,” she said. “Tony’s helped me a lot in the past. He was a good boss to work for, and now I need to help him out.”

  “Maybe, but I’m still remembering the last mission you did for them.”

  “Relax.” She gave him a grin. “It’s just an annoying poltergeist, not a chupacabra. Besides, this time I’ve got a badge—and my little girlfriend here.” She patted her hip, where the 9mm subcompact Glock 26 rode in a holster under her loose, flower-print top.

  “I’m told bullets don’t work on ghosts.”

  “Maybe not, but I’ve got a couple of dragons on call if I need them,” she reminded him. “From what I’ve seen here, even ghosts don’t want to mess with dragons.”

  “Yeah, I suppose, but don’t get too cocky,” he said. “Be careful, watch your six, and don’t let those SAD Shooters push you around.”