by J. M. LeDuc
“Thank you, Dominic,” she cooed. She loved to use a sultry voice when she spoke to him.
“Once a tease, always a tease,” Joseph, her old boss, used to say.
She walked past him to the elevator. Dominic’s eyes never left her. Mmmm, I could watch her walk past me all day, he thought. He too, like all men, had a very hard time resisting Maddie’s charms, especially when she wore that fragrance.
Inside the elevator, Maddie removed the key card from her purse and placed it in the slot under the light on the panel that had PH on it. The card allowed the elevator to go to the top floor—the penthouse suite.
The elevator door opened into the foyer of her apartment. She placed her purse and keys on the side table and walked past the kitchen, through the large living room overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, and into her expansive boudoir. The bedroom, like the rest of the home, was very contemporary. The furnishings and design were a modern version of art deco. Maddie checked the clock—plenty of time to get ready for her rendezvous with Mr. Venturi. She looked at herself in the three-sided, floor-length mirror strategically placed just outside her large walk-in closet. She checked her hair, makeup and dress and decided she needed to tone down her appearance for this meeting.
Joseph used to tell her that her beauty and sexuality were much more effective a weapon when used in small doses. It had taken Maddie a long time and a few close calls on assignment to understand what he meant. Considering her past, it was difficult for her to dress modestly or “toned down” as Joseph had put it. She couldn’t believe she had known and worked with him for nearly thirty years.
When they first met in the early eighties, Maddie lived in the Midwest after earning her master’s in chemistry from a prestigious ivy league university. She’d had a very hard time keeping jobs after graduation. The problem wasn’t getting hired. The trouble followed within weeks, and sometimes sooner, when her bosses came onto her with innuendoes and improper statements. She’d just smile, say nothing and try to shrug the comments off. But the men always pushed it and eventually tried to touch her in inappropriate ways. When they did, she’d respond not like an ivy leaguer, but in the way she had been raised.
Grabbing them between the legs, she’d tell them in no uncertain terms, “Touch me again, you SOB, and you’ll never have kids.”
She’d soon find herself unemployed. After two years of that and being flat broke, Maddie decided if that’s when men wanted, why not make them pay for it. She moved to Atlanta, due to the large amount of business travel, and became a high-priced call girl. If she couldn’t make a living from her first passion—chemistry—she knew she could make a living from her second—sex. Maddie’s college friends jokingly said that, while she majored in chemistry, she minored in one-night stands.
She’d reply, “There was nothing minor about last night.”
They’d all laugh until they cried. During her years in Atlanta, Maddie’s style became very overt. There was nothing subtle in the way she dressed and moved and certainly not in the way she conducted business. She never called what she did “making love,” not since she was a teenager, and she had sworn she never would. She soon realized that she could control her johns much more than the other girls in her profession. She found that her customers loved to smell her and when they did, they became extremely aroused and compromised.
Maddie thought, If I could bottle this, I could sell it and make millions.
She did just that. Using her chemistry background, she broke down her pheromones into their smallest chemical elements. She then reproduced them synthetically and mixed them in perfumes in different strengths. She was surprised to find that men responded most to the more refined, ethereal mixture; less sex, more foreplay, she thought. To experiment, Maddie would put the mixture on and walk into a busy office building. She would get in the elevator at the start of the workday when she knew the elevators would be crowded and then she’d watch and study men’s reactions. She noticed that, as they squeezed closer to her, their eyes dilated and their nostrils flared as if to breathe in more of the aroma. They’d fidget and look uncomfortable, not knowing where their feelings were coming from. Maddie added something to the compound that calmed their feelings down a bit to prevent her victims from causing a scene in public. Lavender seemed to do the trick. Research done, she was ready to market her product, along with a perfect design for the bottle, to major fragrance companies.
That’s when she met Joseph Conklin, or Jonathan Swain, as she first knew him. At that time, Maddie still worked as a call girl; she liked the money. She was scheduled to meet a new client at a high-priced hotel near the airport. They’d agreed upon a price and a time. The punctual Maddie knocked on the door to the suite at the agreed-upon time.
“Door’s open,” said the voice inside, “come on in.”
Great, probably some drunk lying naked on the bed with all the lights on. What a joy, she’d thought sarcastically.
Walking into the room, she saw a distinguished gentleman, probably in his mid-forties, wearing a very expensive suit instead of what she visualized. He sat behind the desk at the far side of the room. Before Maddie could utter a word, the man told her to sit in the overstuffed Victorian armchair he’d placed strategically in mid-room and facing him.
“Look, I’m not into anything kinky,” Maddie said, “I’m just here to help you relax, if you know what I mean.” Jonathan continued to sit behind the desk, not moving and not saying anything. The tension that Maddie felt in the room continued to build until she had to say something. Practically stumbling over her words, she said, “That relaxation will cost you one thousand dollars, up front.”
“Ms. Smith,” Jonathan said with a more forceful voice. “I’m not here to relax, as you put it. I’m here for two reasons. One, I need information from a regular client of yours who goes by the name of Chauncey, and…”
“Wait. First of all, who do you think you are?” Maddie demanded. “I don’t give out names clients or any other information. That’s strictly confidential. And my name isn’t Smith.”
“Let’s start over, Maddie. My name is Jonathan Swain, and I’m an operative for a very covert government agency that makes the CIA and the FBI look like a daycare. Your ‘client,’ as you like to call him, is a notorious nuclear arms dealer who only likes killing more than he likes money. The fact that you are alive tells me that you are very good at what you do—a great lay, to put it in language you might understand.”
Maddie opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. Joseph stood up and came toward her. He stood directly in front of her, grabbed her wrists, pushed her down into the chair and pinned her hands against the arms of the chair.
He continued, “Where was I? Oh yes, your real name is Maddie Smith, not Constance, as you now call yourself. You were born in the backwoods of the Midwest to an alcoholic mother and an abusive father. He used to beat you and your mother whenever he came home drunk, blaming the two of you for his failures. Your mom died when you were thirteen, and you ran away from home one night after fighting your daddy off when he tried to rape you at the ripe old age of sixteen. How am I doing so far?”
Maddie sat there, trembling. Tears ran down her face.
He continued, “You went to live just outside of Pittsburgh with your Aunt Susan, your mother’s sister. You finished high school, received your bachelor’s degree from a small college in Pennsylvania and your master’s degree in chemistry from Yale. Let’s speed things up to the present because I don’t feel like paying for a second hour. You, Maddie Smith, despite being brilliant and beautiful, have decided to throw your life away and work as a common whore; an expensive one, but still a whore. Did I miss anything?”
Finally, Maddie spoke. “How do you—how could you know those things?”
He let go of her wrists and backed away, smiling. “Here’s my offer, Ms. Smith. I know you see him every Wednesday. Tomorrow, you’ll meet him
as usual, but before you help him relax, as you put it, he will fall asleep.”
“He never falls asleep,” Maddie cut in.
“He will tomorrow,” Jonathan stated emphatically. He pulled a small vial out of his coat pocket. “You will mix this in with the ‘perfume’ that you have concocted. It will knock him out for one hour.”
Maddie was stunned. “How did you know about the fragrance?”
“I know everything about you, Maddie—what you eat, when you sleep and about your little perfume scheme. Now, if you will be so kind not to butt in again, I will finish. Once he’s sleeping, you will take his briefcase off the nightstand where he always keeps it and bring it to me. Do you understand?”
“And if I refuse?” she asked in her last gasp of defiance.
“If you refuse, I will kill you,” he said. “If you take it and try to run and hold the item for ransom, I will find you and kill you, if you are lucky. If you are not lucky, he will find you and kill you slowly and sadistically. That, Ms. Smith, I can promise you.”
“Wait!” she shrieked. By now, she was crying uncontrollably. “Even if I do as you say, he will find me and kill me.”
Calmly, Jonathan continued. “Once you are back here, we will leave together and you will start a new life working under me for the same agency I work for. That’s the only scenario that keeps you living past tomorrow evening.”
That next evening, Maddie did as she was instructed. When she arrived at the hotel, Jonathan was waiting for her and the life she had known was over. Her new life, a better life in which she finally had the father figure she had longed for, began.
Maddie again focused on her appearance. As she did, a tear came to her eye. I loved that man like no other and that secret should have been passed down to me. But no, he had to go and give it to someone else. Maybe that librarian, maybe not, but he’s the best lead I have right now and I will find out if he has it, one way or another. Maddie wiped the tear away and went to the closet to change. As she continued to get ready for her lunch meeting, Maddie couldn’t help but think back to her relationship with Joseph. During the thirty odd years he had become the father she never had. He cared for her and nurtured her, helping her to grow into a confident woman. Because of him, for the first time in her life, she felt like she was more than just what people saw on the outside.
It took a long time, but Maddie finally began to see her beauty within as well as her outer beauty. For unforeseen reasons, the only thing that Joseph could not help her understand was the love and forgiveness of Christ.
Standing in front of the mirror, Maddie cleared her head of the past and concentrated on the present. Slipping into an alluring, yet demure sundress, she freshened her makeup, dabbed on perfume and left the penthouse ready for her meeting with Brent.
CHAPTER 8
Brent walked out of the library only to be hit with a wall of humidity. I hope this isn’t an omen of things to come. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, he thought, half jokingly to himself.
As he walked to The Emporium, he couldn’t get Lucille’s words out of his mind. How did she know this woman? By her serious tone of voice, he figured she must know Maddie pretty well. Then he thought about the perfume and his mind drifted off to Delta Force training.
“You must always be aware of the sounds and smells of your environment. If you concentrate on what your senses are telling you and which way the wind is blowing, they will help lead you to safety.”
Seven may have had his faults, but he did know a great deal about survival. There was no one Brent would rather be stranded with in the middle of nowhere than Seve. “If you read your topical maps correctly and study the plant life on this mountain range, you’re gonna probably save yourself a whole lotta pain, boys,” he said with an almost maniacal laugh. “For you candy asses, I’m going to give you a little…no, I’m gonna give you a big hint. Listen up ’cause I ain’t repeatin myself. About halfway down the first ridge, just as you pass the river, you’ll come to a clearing. You’re gonna want to cross through that field, but the smell will keep you out. It’s a skunk grass field. The smell is so bad that you’ll probably start throwing up about a half mile before you even lay eyes on it. If you’re thinking that you’ll save time if you cross it, you’re right. But goin’ through it will cause vomiting, dehydration and such severe muscle cramping that you’ll reach for your flair gun. The only question will be, do you shoot it in the air and hope we come get you, or do you stick the barrel in your mouth just to end the suffering that much faster?”
Brent listened closely to Seven, trying to decipher any clues he may have given on how to navigate that field. He kept his eyes on his instructor at all times, looking for some sort of a tell. He watched closely when it came time to pack their supplies into their backpacks.
“Hey, Seven. Why are you packing? I thought we were on our own once we make the drop?”
“I ain’t dropping with you, professor, so you just mind your own business and keep packin’,” he responded.
Brent went back to doing just that, but he never took his eyes off Seven.
Hmm, that’s odd, Brent thought. Every book on survival tells you to always have an ear to the ground. You need to hear what nature is trying to tell you. Even Seven just told us to listen to what’s around us, so why is he packing earplugs? Brent couldn’t stop thinking about the earplugs. Did it have something to do with crossing the skunk field? Continuing to pack and watch, a sly smile molded its way onto Brent’s face.
Recalling that incident, Brent realized that he was better off safe than sorry. He stopped at a drugstore to buy a pair of clear soft plastic earplugs. While he stood at the counter to pay for them, he opened the package and took one out. He tore it in half and promptly shoved each piece inside each nostril, as far up as he could so as not to be seen.
The cashier looked at him and said, “You’re one strange white boy.”
Brent walked the last two blocks with a little more confidence, knowing that her perfume was now harmless.
CHAPTER 9
As he opened the door to The Emporium, Brent looked around for a pretty redhead sitting by herself. How hard can that be, he thought? As it turned out, it wasn’t hard at all.
Maddie sat at the table in the corner. She’d purposely chosen it. The air-conditioning vent was to her back, directed to where Brent would soon sit. That would make it easier for him to soak up her fragrance. He headed for the table.
She watched him out of the corner of her eye. She’d never seen him from the front before, only from the back the time she watched him from the coffee shop. She was surprised, pleasantly surprised, to see how rugged and good-looking he was. He didn’t look at all like a librarian. As he walked closer, she recognized a look in his eyes that was eerily familiar. Where or when, she didn’t know, but she had seen him before.
When Brent arrived at the table, she pretended to be reading a book. Her hair was pulled back in a hairclip and her olive-green dress stopped at the knee, though it was slit up the side to mid-thigh just in case she needed back up. She wore a fashionable pair of glasses for effect only since she had better than 20/20 vision. She was dressed as demurely as she could and still be comfortable.
“Miss Smith?” he asked.
She stood up and extended her hand. “I am,” she replied in a southern drawl so smooth and warm that it could melt anybody’s hesitance or resistance. “You must be Brent,” she continued. She made sure to use his first name, knowing it would help put him at ease. “Brent, you look very familiar. Have we met before?”
“I don’t think we have,” he said.
“Well, thank you for coming to meet me. I greatly appreciate it. Please have a seat,” she said, invitingly.
“To be honest, Miss Smith, I normally wouldn’t have come, but your note didn’t seem to leave me a choice.”
“I apologize if I came on a bit too st
rong. It’s just that there is information that I have and that you need to know…and please call me Maddie,” she said.
“Miss Smith, before you waste your time, I only knew Joe in passing, and to be honest, his death is of no concern to me.” Brent continued to call her by her surname and managed a detached, formal tone.
Maddie surmised that before she asked questions about what Lucille had brought him the day before, he needed to be more compliant, more distracted, and the perfume didn’t seem to be doing its job. She fanned herself with the menu, and took off her glasses. In a heavy drawl, she said, “Whew, it sure is hot in here. Do you mind if I take off my jacket?”
“Whatever makes you comfortable,” he replied.
“Thank you…and please call me Maddie. That would make me more comfortable.” She slid her jacket off her shoulders and let it fall onto the back of the chair. Brent saw that her sleeveless blouse was revealing her arms and shoulders. It was shear enough to make out the lace pattern of her bra. Maddie had left the top three buttons undone, revealing just enough cleavage to be a distraction.
“Now, that’s better,” she said and smiled seductively. “I know this is your lunch hour, so let’s order something and then we can talk. Is that all right with you, Brent?”
“Sounds good,” he said. He looked down at the menu to avoid eye contact. They looked over the selections in silence. After ordering, Brent said, “I don’t mean to be rude, Maddie, but I don’t have much time. What was it you wanted to tell me?”
Maddie realized that he was all business, so she changed her demeanor and spoke more authoritatively. She shifted in her seat and then leaned forward so she could speak quietly. “Then let’s get right to the point,” she said. “Yesterday, you were given a gift, a package left to you by Joseph Conklin. I don’t care about the books, but in one of the boxes, you also received something else. That something else got Mr. Conklin killed and it will get you killed, too, if it remains in your possession. I’m here to make sure no one else gets hurt.”
