Bad Client (Nick Teffinger Thriller)

by Jagger, R. J.

  A pause, then T-Von said, “I did hear something else though, but don’t know if it means anything or not.”

  Teffinger raised an eyebrow.

  “What’s that?”

  “Apparently, Paradise got out of the bondage scene a month or two ago, except for the regulars that she could really trust.”

  Teffinger thought about it and didn’t find the information particularly helpful. “Okay,” he said.

  “All right, then.”

  Teffinger’s eyes fell on the snake plant. For some reason it seemed even bigger than he remembered and had to be every inch of six feet now. He wasn’t sure if he could take it in a fair fight anymore.

  “So she got out of the business, huh?” he said.

  “Yep, apparently.”

  Teffinger was about to hang up, but asked, “Why?”

  “Some guy just about killed her, apparently.”

  “Really?”

  “Big time.”

  “How? What happened?”

  T-Von then told him a long story with such vivid imagery and so many details that Teffinger felt like he was right there.

  WITH THE RADIO OFF, THE MAN cruised up and down the darkest and seediest part of Colfax Avenue in the nondescript vehicle, on the hunt for one very special woman.

  On his third pass he spotted her, strutting her ass on the other side of the street. She had hot-pink shorts that barely covered her precious little crotch, a pierced belly button and firm tits with one nipple hanging halfway out. Up top she wore a cheap blond wig; and down below, cheap red heels. Midway between the two was a world-class ass.

  His cock tightened against his jeans.

  He drove past her for two blocks, scouting the territory, spotting no cops. Then he circled back and slowed down as he approached her. By the time he came to a stop she was already by the side of the car, leaning over, giving him a cleavage show.

  A taste.

  He powered down the passenger window. Her face and tits immediately leaned into the car, filling it up.

  “Are you a cop?” she questioned. Her teeth were brilliant white, or maybe the contrast against her dark skin just made it seem that way.

  The man rolled his eyes at the absurdity of the question.

  “Me? Not hardly.”

  “What are you doing out here all alone, sugar? You looking for a party?”

  “That depends,” the man said. “Are you Paradise?”

  She nodded, then pulled a tit out and played with the nipple. “Tickets to Paradise are a thousand bucks, sweetie. Regular is a lot cheaper.”

  The man fiddled with his wallet and then handed her ten hundred-dollar bills.

  “Hop in.”

  She slid in next to him. “What’s your name, honey?”

  “I got lots of names,” the man said.

  “Oh, mystery man.” She played with his cock, making the five-minute drive to her bungalow seem like thirty seconds. Inside, she poured them each a jigger of vodka, which they drank in unison, bottoms up.

  Then they went downstairs to the dungeon.

  It was fairly simple, a rack by one wall, an X-frame against another. In the middle of the room there were eyebolts in the ceiling with chains hanging down. Perfect. The man tied her feet together and then strung her up with her arms stretched tight overhead, completely naked.

  She had already explained the ground rules. The session would last one hour. If he started to hurt her too much she’d tell him, and he’d have to lighten up. If he didn’t, she had people who would hunt him down like the dog he was. If he made her bleed or welt up, that was an extra thousand, no questions asked, no excuses accepted.

  After he had his fun, she’d blow him for an extra fifty if he wanted, or screw him for a hundred. Or he could just lie down on the floor and jack off for free; she really didn’t care.

  He stood behind her, reached around and massaged her nipples, touching her nowhere else, only on her nipples. Within a minute he had them rock hard.

  “You comfortable, baby?” he questioned.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  The man reached down to her crotch.

  Her pubic hair was pitch-black and coarse.

  He tugged on it ever so slightly and she made a sound somewhere between pleasure and pain. Then he picked up the whip, a flexible two-foot cane with a leather tip.

  He circled around her, took off his shirt and studied her ass.

  It was the strongest part of her body, rippled with muscles, taut.

  He blindfolded her.

  Then walked over to the wall, slid down until he was sitting on the floor, and watched her, playing with the whip in his hand.

  For a while she didn’t say a thing.

  Then she got tired of waiting.

  “Come on baby,” she said. “Don’t be afraid. Make me hurt.”

  He shook his head. “I’m really not into that,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m more into watching.”

  “Whatever, man, it’s your money.”

  He sat there, studying her. In a few minutes she started to say something, and he cut her off: “No talking,” he said.

  He used most the hour to study her. Occasionally walking over and running a finger up and down her stomach, ever so lightly, barely perceptible, just to remind her that he was there.

  Then he took her blindfold off.

  He went over to his backpack and pulled out a black garbage bag and roll of duct tape. He draped the bag over her shoulder, then reached in his jean pockets and pulled out a pair of dice.

  “Hour’s up, sugar,” she said. “You did good. Now let me down.”

  The man smiled.

  “Actually we have five more minutes,” he said. “I’m going to roll a pair of dice and you’re gong to choose high or low. High means seven through twelve. Low means two through six. If you choose high and I roll a high number, then I let you go. If you choose low and it turns out to be low, I let you go. But if you choose high and it turns out low, or vice versa, then I put this bag over your head and duct tape it around your neck. If you don’t choose either, or if you scream, you automatically lose. So decide woman, what’s it going to be?”

  The man studied her as she pulled viciously at the chains.

  “Session’s up, chump! Get me down! Right now!”

  The man smiled. “Remember, not choosing is an automatic loss. You have five more seconds.”

  “Oh God . . . high . . .”

  He got down on one knee, shook the dice in his hands and rolled them on the floor.

  He grinned, then looked into her eyes.

  She stared at the dice, trying to read them.

  “Can you see what they say?” he asked.

  “No, get me down!”

  “Eight,” he told her. “I guess you chose right.”

  She pulled at the chains. “Get me out of here you asshole!”

  He walked to her, shaking his head with amusement. “Relax, sweetie,” he said. “I was just messing with you.” He started to release her. “Remember,” he said, “I paid a thousand bucks. I’m entitled to a little something.”

  “Yeah, well, that wasn’t funny—asshole.”

  She dripped with sweat.

  “Lighten up,” he said. “We both got what we wanted.”

  AFTER T-VON TOLD HIM THE STORY, Teffinger walked over to Sydney’s desk. “We got a new wrinkle,” he said. “A big new wrinkle. Get the team together ASAP so we can all go over it together.”

  He walked over to the coffee pot, found it was empty except for an eighth-inch of brown goop in the bottom that was starting to bake onto the glass, and made a fresh pot.

  Now he knew why Paradise ended up with a knife in her eye.

  Bodies were going to start showing up in Denver, dead by suffocation.

  Sooner or later Paradise would make the connection and tell the police about her little incident.

  She’d seen the man’s face.

  She’d be a witne
ss.

  So she had to be eliminated.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Day Seven - July 17

  Monday Morning

  _____________

  AS USUAL, THE LAW PRACTICE got in the way of Jackie’s life. She wanted more than anything to spend the entire day on Stephen’s case, and not just because he gave her an additional $25,000 retainer. But she had other files flapping in the wind so bad that they’d turn into malpractice suits if she wasn’t careful. So she got in the office before dawn and hammered out one thing after another.

  When Claudia came in, Jackie wanted to tell her about the meeting with Stephen yesterday. But she’d given Stephen her word, so she didn’t. Plus, she already knew what Claudia would say: “So, according to Stephen, it was all the idea of this mysterious client to kill Sarah. How do you know Stephen’s not lying about that? How do you know it wasn’t all his big fat idea to start with? I’m telling you, honey, he’s lying to you again and you’re falling for it again. Thank God you got me around to wake you up every now and then.”

  Jackie wouldn’t have an answer to that, not a good one anyway.

  All she would be able to say is, “It wasn’t Stephen’s idea. I could tell by his eyes.”

  At which point Claudia would say something like, “Stephen had the idea from the start and in fact probably paid the guy to do it. Now he’s afraid that the money’s going to be found in this guy’s safe, with his fingerprints all over it.”

  Anyway, that’s an argument she didn’t need and wouldn’t have.

  BY 10:00 SHE COULDN’T STAND HER DESK anymore and headed over to Broadway where the air smelled like bus diesel, French fries and bar carpet. She left a string of burned matches in her wake, more than usual.

  More than one person gave her a dirty look.

  She had one good piece of information today that she didn’t have before her meeting with Stephen, namely that Sarah’s body was buried in the “north forty,” no doubt meaning a farm.

  Although she really needed to get back to the office, instead she scrambled around until she was able to find a place to buy a map of Denver that included the surrounding communities.

  She carried it back to the office like a treasure.

  Then she put a red mark at the location of every phone that Northwest had used to call Stephen.

  She drew a line around the farm areas that had the greatest proximity to those phones. They turned out to be north of Denver outside the I-25 corridor, halfway to Loveland to be precise, where the population thinned and basically stayed that way all the way to Fort Collins.

  She smiled and realized that she still had her shoes on.

  She kicked them off, walked over to the coffee machine and poured a fresh cup.

  Then she walked back over to the map, looked at it, and said, “You live there somewhere.”

  AN HOUR LATER BROOKE SHOWED UP to get the employment policies that Jackie had managed to review so far. She looked at the map.

  “What’s that?”

  “Stephen’s mystery client lives somewhere in this area,” Jackie said.

  Brooke looked worried.

  “You need to get your ass back to lawyering and out of the sleuth business.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Day Seven - July 17

  Monday Morning

  _____________

  WICKERFIELD PULLED OFF A STRIP OF DUCT TAPE and reached down to wrap it around Ashley Conner’s neck when he noticed her T-shirt had ridden up and her belly button was showing.

  For some reason the sight caused him to pause and lean back. He reached down and gently poked a finger in it. Her stomach muscles were taut and firm and pushed back.

  Great stomach.

  Not as good as his but still pretty damn nice.

  He put his full hand on it.

  A warm feeling washed over him, a naughty feeling, the kind he got when he used to pull the legs off spiders, back when he was a little kid.

  He moved his hand around. Her skin was incredibly soft and smooth, almost like a baby’s. His fingers reached under her shirt and went up to her tits. He found a nipple and ran a finger around it in little circles.

  Her coma face didn’t change.

  There was no reaction at all.

  She wasn’t telling him to stop.

  HE GOT AN ERECTION, a full three inches worth. He reached down and rubbed himself, a reminder of how puny he was.

  For some reason his dick had never grown up. Everyone has at least one physical flaw and his particular unfortunate draw of bad luck was ending up with something more like a stub than a real cock. In a relaxed state it was two and a half inches; when excited it was slightly bigger. There was no problem with the width. It was certainly as wide as it should be. Nor was there any problem with performance. He could get hard and come with the best of them. The only problem was the length, nd what a problem that was.

  Normal sex was just about impossible.

  He discovered that early on, at the age of seventeen.

  The minute the woman started moving with any significance at all he’d pop out. There just wasn’t enough length to keep it in, even with a tight woman. If the woman was loose then totally forget it. Just go watch TV and don’t even try.

  By age nineteen he had pretty well gotten the message pounded into his thick horny skull that sex with women just wasn’t going to happen, not now, not ever.

  That’s when he stopped trying.

  HE MOVED ASHLEY CONNER’S ARMS over her head and pulled her T-shirt up and off. She looked so damn beautiful that he could hardly believe it.

  This was something new.

  An unconscious woman.

  Why had he never thought of this before?

  He took off his pants and straddled her stomach, rubbing his dick on her soft tight abdomen. God that felt good. Now he thrust his dick back and forth in a steady motion and felt his ass muscles grow increasingly tighter.

  He could actually come like this!

  He closed his eyes and kept up the pace.

  Her body was perfect, so warm and soft.

  He brought his head down to hers and kissed her on the lips. He thrust even faster now and the sound of his own breathing filled the room.

  He stuck his tongue in her mouth as deep as he could.

  Then he screamed and exploded on her stomach.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Day Seven - July 17

  Monday Morning

  _____________

  THE PLAN WAS TO AMP-UP THE SEARCH for the person who stuck the knife in Paradise’s eye, the theory being that he was the same person terrorizing Denver.

  Teffinger took the photos of the men from Paradise’s house, together with a cup of coffee, and went into one of the empty meeting rooms. He closed the door. Of the thirty or so photos of the men who had been recognized by the Colfax hookers on some level or another, he placed a piece of masking tape on the bottom right corner, just so he wouldn’t forget who they were. Then he arranged all eighty or so of the pictures in chronological order.

  According to the transvestite, T-Von, the incident that freaked Paradise out happened a month or two back. Working in that timeframe, Teffinger found someone who might be the man that sparked the big change in Paradise’s life.

  The man wore a small backpack; maybe with the duct tape and plastic bag inside.

  He also wore a baseball hat, and not just any baseball hat, one that shielded his entire face.

  Teffinger slapped the desk in frustration.

  Why doesn’t anything ever work right?

  Maybe he was wrong. Perhaps it was one of the other guys. He double-checked his analysis, but only became more convinced that the guy in the baseball cap was the one he was looking for. That’s because after him the visitors to the wonderful house of Paradise were much less frequent.

  He was the catalyst, the one who scared her.

  Unfortunately, his picture absolutely sucked.

  Not only did the baseball hat n
ot have any writing or distinguishing marks, being a uniform dark blue in color, but Paradise wasn’t in the photo either, unlike most of the other ones. Thus there was no good way to figure out the man’s height, no good reference point to compare it to.

  Teffinger was sick with the thought that they almost stumbled upon a perfectly good picture of the guy but he happened to escape by nothing other than blind luck.

  “You better thank someone, you little asshole.”

  SUDDENLY THE DOOR OPENED and Sydney walked in. “You’re not a very good hider,” she said.

  Teffinger handed her the picture.

  “This is our guy.”

  “He is?”

  “Yep.”

  “You got a better picture than this?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Ouch.”

  “This guy is such a lucky son-of-a-bitch that I can’t even believe it,” Teffinger said. “If he just had his head cocked a little different, we’d have his ass in custody by nightfall.”

  “And maybe have Ashley Conner back,” Sydney added.

  He nodded.

  Right.

  “It’s encouraging that her body hasn’t shown up,” Sydney said. “If he’s playing the dice game with her, like he did with Paradise, then she must be winning.”

  “Yeah, well I’ve been to Vegas and can tell you firsthand that that won’t last long,” Teffinger said. Then, picking up his coffee cup: “I’ll be right back.”

  She fell in step.

  “Me too.”

  He stopped and looked at her.

  “We’re both going to the men’s room?”

  TEFFINGER PICKED UP RAIN FOR LUNCH and they ended up in a booth at Wong’s on Court Street, with plates of rice, vegetables and chicken. Clanging plates and Chinese banter filled the air. He ate there as often as he could because Wong was a good guy and nobody ever rushed him.

  One of the younger waitresses came by the booth, a pretty little flower of a thing. She looked at him and Rain, and said, “You want threesome?” She had almond eyes and straight black hair. Teffinger looked at Rain, then back at the woman, shrugged, and said, “Yes, I think threesome would be nice.”