by R. J. Jagger
THE IMAGE WAS SO REAL that when he looked to the woman at his side, he was surprised to see Jinka.
“Are you okay?” she said.
31
Day 2—August 14
Tuesday Night
THE DRIZZLE AT SOI COWBOY turned heavy and then, just like that, got downright mean. Wing’s instinct was to run for cover but Jamaica took him by the hand and led him down the middle of the street at normal speed. By the time they got out of the neon and into the next street, they were squishy wet.
Jamaica’s dress clung to her body.
Her hair was flat and soaked.
Water ran off it as fast as it hit.
Lightning flashed, almost directly overhead.
Thunder exploded and rolled into the distance.
A small park appeared ahead. Jamaica tugged on Wing’s hand, broke into a run and said, “Come on.” They ended up on a bench where the light hardly reached.
No one was around.
The moment was here.
Jamaica stood before him and lifted her dress to reveal a white thong. Wing ripped it off and let her straddle him.
She fit perfectly.
So, so perfectly.
She rocked.
Back and forth.
Up and down.
Gently at first, then giving in more and more to her animal instincts. Then she screamed, almost as if in pain.
“Yeah!” Wing said.
Suddenly she stopped moving.
Something was wrong.
SHE RAISED HER HAND to the side of her head. When she pulled it away, it was red with blood.
Blood.
Blood.
Blood.
Wing felt something next him on the bench, next to his head.
Something sharp.
He looked over to find a throwing star imbedded in the wood. It wasn’t there before, he would have noticed it. He threw Jamaica to the ground, shielded her body with his and then got her behind the bench.
Lightning flashed.
The silhouette of a man lit up, forty steps away.
Standing there.
Now pulling his arm back as if to throw something.
“Stay here!” Wing said.
Then he ran directly at the attacker.
Die!
Die!
Die!
“Wing, come back!” Jamaica shouted.
Wing heard the words.
A death star flew past his head, so close that he actually heard it spinning.
A primal war scream came out of his mouth.
He ran faster.
32
Day 2—August 14
Tuesday Night
WITH THE KNIFE IN HAND, Prarie slipped through the darkness from the tracks to the back of Petchpon’s house and looked in a half-opened window.
No interior lights were on.
No sounds came from inside.
She detected no vibrations.
Either the man was gone, or he was sleeping, or it was a trap. She crept along the side of the house to the front and confirmed that the car previously in the driveway was now gone. Still, it might have been a visitor’s rather than Petchpon’s. She saw no neighbors around, went to the front door and knocked.
No one answered.
She knocked louder.
Still, no one.
Good enough.
She headed to the back, pushed the window all the way up and climbed inside.
There.
She was in.
She stood there.
Motionless.
Listening for even the faintest sign of someone else.
She got the sound of her own breathing, nothing more.
Okay.
The house wasn’t big. If the safe was there, she should be able to find it in no time. She was in the kitchen and picked her way through the darkness to the bedroom. All the windows in that room were covered, leaving the space so dark that it might as well have been in a cave.
She had no choice but to flick on a light.
She felt the wall around the door where the switch should be but didn’t find one, forcing her to step into the blackness. She came to a bed and felt her way around to a nightstand. On it was a lamp. She turned the knob on and off, as fast as could. The room exploded in light for hardly any time at all, but long enough to get her bearings.
She saw no safe.
On the wall, however, above the dresser was something disturbing. She hesitated, then turned on the lamp and left it on. Tacked directly on the wall were a number of newspaper clippings, several of which had photographs of pretty woman. On closer examination, Prarie recognized two of the women as the victims in the cases that had never been solved.
To the right were photographs of two other woman, only these were actual photographs rather than a newspaper clippings.
The woman in the smaller photo looked familiar.
Prarie leaned in for a better look.
What she saw made her chest tighten.
The woman was Kanjana.
Suddenly a headlight splashed across the wall.
The sound of an engine came from the front of the house.
Then it turned off.
Prarie turned the lamp off.
Suddenly the front door opened.
Someone came inside.
The door closed.
Prarie got down on the floor as quietly as she could and slipped under the bed.
33
Day 2—August 14
Tuesday Night
JINKA TURNED OUT TO BE A TIRELESS investigator, stopping at one Soi Cowboy club after the next, flashing photographs of the victim, Tookta, and asking if anyone remembered seeing her last night.
No one had.
No.
No.
No.
Then something weird happened. Teffinger recognized the entrance of the club they were about to go in, a place called Serengeti. That’s where he and Tookta got drunk, one of the places, anyway, there might have been more. He remembered drinking beer while Tookta straddled him in a booth near the back where the lights hardly reached. He remembered the waitress, a young petite flower in a schoolgirl uniform, who waved at him every time she passed. He remembered Tookta saying, “You tip her good. You like her?”
“No, I like you.”
His heart raced.
What to do?
He yanked Jinka to a stop, put his arms around her waist and pulled her stomach to his. “I can’t wait any longer.”
He expected her to say, Wait for what?
But she didn’t.
She knew what he meant.
RAIN FELL, SOFT AT FIRST, then downright mean. The drive to Jinka’s house took forever and when they got there, Teffinger didn’t see much of it other than dark glimpses. He threw the woman over his shoulder, carried her into the bedroom and flung her on the bed.
His brain was fire.
Burning.
His whole existence seemed to come down to this moment. It was his. He ripped off the woman’s dress, every stitch of it, then her panties and bra.
Her chest heaved.
Her eyes flashed.
Her breath came in quick, short bursts.
Rain beat against the windows and pounded the roof. Lightning flashed, outlining her curves and stomach and thighs. Teffinger straddled her, pinned her arms above her head and stuck his tongue in her mouth.
She responded.
Out of control.
Wanting him more than anything.
Then she said something he didn’t expect.
“Tie me up.”
He froze.
“There’s rope under the bed,” she said. “Tie my hands to the headboard. Tie me up and stick your cock in my mouth.”
“No.”
“Do it!”
Teffinger kept her pinned and pictured her in that position, tied exactly as Tookta was almost twenty-four hours ago to the minute.
He pictured a knife in his hand.
He pictured raising it up.
“Do it!” Jinka said.
Teffinger sunk his weight down on her.
“You want me to do it?”
“Yes.”
He got off her and almost walked out of the room. Instead, he reached under the bed and grabbed the rope.
34
Day Three—August 15
Wednesday Morning
DECK THREW ON A PAIR OF SHORTS and headed outside shirtless for a wakeup jog through the weed-infested roads of the old steel mill.
He like the roughness of the buildings and the battered asphalt.
They’d been put there by men.
Back when men were men.
Not today’s shriveled wimps who spent all their time hunched over computers and staring at TVs.
He ran north for kilometers, until he got tired, then turned around and did what it took to maintain the same pace all the way back, slightly uphill. Outside on the asphalt parking lot, he muscled through a high-impact routine that he developed several years ago. After that he dropped to the ground and pumped out pushups until he didn’t have a single one left; then he took a three-minute rest and did it again.
He showered and ate breakfast while the coffee pot gurgled. By the time the models showed up he was wide-awake and ready to make magic.
THERE WERE EIGHT WOMEN all told, the best MODELLE had to offer. They all wore short, sexy sundresses as requested. Deck gave them a brief tour of the loft area and then packed them into the freight elevator for a trip down to the second floor.
Tang Markyongkee was building the spider’s web.
Thai pop spilled out of a boombox.
When Tang saw the women he couldn’t help but come over, introduce himself as the president of the whole freaking universe, and give each one a tit-squashing hug.
He was cute enough that they let him.
Deck watched with amusement.
And waited patiently.
“Okay,” he told the group. “Here’s the deal. I’m not sure how many of you I’m going to use yet, maybe half of you, maybe all of you, we’ll see. We’re doing a shoot to launch a new men’s fragrance called Snare. The client’s targeting men aged twenty to thirty. He’s looking for a seriously edgy image. Right now, here’s the concept. Mr. Hugger, who you just met, is building a giant spider’s web. When he’s done, which should be—?”
“—later this afternoon—”
“—later this afternoon, we’re going to hang it. You ladies are going to be caught in the web. The concept is that the web has been sprayed with Snare. Sexy women can’t help but get drawn into it and captured. The cologne is that powerful.”
“Cool.”
Deck bowed.
“Once you get stuck in the web, it’s going to be a windy day. Your skirts are going to blow. We’ll do some shots where they’re way up with your thongs showing as well as some not quite so explicit. We’ll also do some with your legs spread pretty wide and some where they’re more closed. That way the client will have a range of stuff to choose from. My guess is that he’s going to want to the whole spectrum so he can match a variety of magazines. What we’re going to do today is put you up on chairs, have you pretend you’re tangled up in the web, then blow your dresses up and take some pictures.”
AFTER THE SHOOT, Chayada came over wearing that incredible body of her. Deck beat his chest, flung her over his shoulder and carried her across the room.
They wrestled on the mattress.
Then headed into central Bangkok.
35
Day 3—August 15
Wednesday Morning
WEDNESDAY MORNING, Wing’s alarm clock dragged him out of a deader-than-dead sleep with all the subtleness of a freight train. He got it off before it woke Jamaica, studied the way her body pushed the covers up and staggered for the bathroom. Outside, the first rays of dawn started to punch into Bangkok. On the granite counter next to the sink was the death star Wing pulled out of the bench last night after the attacker outran him and disappeared into the storm.
A six pointer.
Razor sharp.
If it had come to the right, even just a touch, Jinka would be dead right now. Luckily it only got her ear, which bled with a waterfall vengeance but was a clean slice and easily treated at the emergency room.
Wing got the shower up to temperature and stepped inside.
Questions.
Questions.
Question.
He had more of them than his mind could get around. The big one, the pivotal one, was whether he was the target or whether Jamaica was.
The only dark issues Jamaica had in her life, at least that Wing knew about, related to the paintings she stole off the yacht in Hong Kong. If someone was trying to find them, though, they would want to interrogate her, not kill her. And while it was technically possible that someone tracked her here simply to kill her—say to avenge the man’s death—it didn’t feel right.
Neither theory fit.
As far as Wing being the target, admittedly he had some dark stuff going on, but nothing that would warrant a killer.
Weird.
Suddenly the shower door opened.
Jamaica stepped in.
SHE PUT HER ARMS AROUND HIM, pulled tight and said, “I’m still freaked out from last night.”
“It’ll be okay,” Wing said.
“It has to relate to those paintings,” she said. “How did they track me here? That’s what I can’t figure.”
Wing grunted.
“Nothing makes sense.”
“You’re lucky to be alive,” Jamaica said.
“Me? You’re the one who almost got it.”
“Yeah, but you were the target,” she said.
Wing tilted his head.
“What do you mean?”
“They were trying to kill you so they could take me,” she said.
As soon as she said the words, they made sense.
Perfect sense.
“Should I cancel things for this morning?”
She shook her head.
No.
“I want to get it done while I’m still alive.” A pause, then, “The only person in Hong Kong who knows I’m in Bangkok is Moon. We need to call her to be sure she’s okay. Maybe they got to her and made her talk.”
Wing considered it.
Moon represented half the music stars in Hong Kong.
She had a good life.
She didn’t need money.
She had a reputation to maintain.
She’d never rat out a client.
“Moon would never tell anyone anything,” Wing said.
“Call her anyway.”
Sure.
Fine.
TEN MINUTES LATER, with hair dripping wet and a towel around his waist, Wing called Moon who answered on the third ring.
She was fine.
No one had approached her.
She didn’t tell anyone that Jamaica was in Hong Kong.
She still had the paintings.
They were safe.
Bye.
“So how did they track me here?” Jamaica asked.
Good question.
“That’s what we have to figure out,” he said. “If the leak didn’t come from Hong Kong then it must have come from this end.”
“You’re the only person who knows I’m here,” Jamaica said. “You and Yingfan.”
Wing shook his head.
“Yesterday, we made lots of calls to get things set up for today,” he said. “Your name came up.”
She tilted her head.
“To who?”
Wing frowned.
“To everyone,” he said. “In hindsight, that probably wasn’t very smart.”
Jamaica wasn’t impressed.
“That’s too farfetched,” she said. “Someone would have to hear my name, know that I was involved in the missing paintings, and then know who to call in Hong Kong to turn me in. They would then have to send somebody here, or hire some
one here, to interrogate me.” A pause, then, “Even one of those steps would be unlikely. In combination, they’re impossible. No, this goes back to Moon. She’s the key. She’s dirty somehow, I don’t care what she says.”
Wing frowned.
“I’ve known Moon a long time,” he said. “She’s not the problem.”
“What then?”
He shrugged.
“I must be the target, I just can’t figure out why.” He studied her and added, “Unless you have something else going on in your life that I’m not aware of.”
Her eyes darted for a second, then she said, “No.”
36
Day 3—August 15
Wednesday Morning
PRARIE WOKE BEFORE DAWN Wednesday morning, exhausted from too little sleep but already wound up. Next to her, breathing heavily, Kanjana was curled in a ball. Prarie pulled the knife out from under her pillow, set it on the nightstand and headed for the shower.
She was alive.
She ought to be grateful for that.
That didn’t mean last night wasn’t a bitch.
Petchpon ended up doing something in the basement. Prarie got the hell out while she had the chance and headed straight to Kanjana’s. They paddled the boat across the canal and watched the house from the shadows, waiting for Petchpon to make a move.
An hour passed.
Then another.
A heavy, nonstop black rain fell out of a black sky.
They were just about to give up when it happened. Eerie headlights came down the road and slowed to a stop fifty meters from the house.
Then went out.
Prarie and Kanjana couldn’t see the car from their position but heard the door slam. Two minutes later they caught a glimpse of a dark figure hugging the shadows and making his way towards Kanjana’s front door. A flashlight appeared inside the structure.
Prarie and Kanjana untied the boat and paddled across.
Kanjana had her knife.
Prarie had hers.
Before they got across, the flashlight turned off and the house fell back to darkness. Three minutes later the headlights ignited, did a one-eighty and disappeared in the direction they came.
The intruder could have been Petchpon.
