by Chris Carter
To the left of the dance floor they saw a small, cordoned-off flight of steps that led to a separate upper level.
‘Over there,’ Hunter said, pointing to the stairs. ‘That’s gotta be the VIP area.’
Garcia nodded and frowned as he noticed the two pro-wrestler look-alike bouncers standing guard at the bottom of the stairs. Hunter’s eyes searched the upper level for D-King. The file they’d picked up from the District Attorney’s office had everything they needed to know about the famous dealer, including several photographs. It didn’t take long for Hunter to spot him seated comfortably accompanied by four women.
‘I got him, last table on the right,’ Hunter said, pointing to the VIP area.
They negotiated their way through the dancing crowd fighting off bumps and pushes from the mobbed floor. An attractive brunette placed both of her arms around Hunter’s neck as he walked past her.
‘Umm, I love a man with muscles,’ she said, pulling him closer. ‘And you’ve got beautiful blue eyes. Dance with me, gorgeous.’ Her lips found his and she kissed him passionately, spinning him around in a half-moon twist.
It took Hunter a few seconds to pull his lips free from hers. Even through the flashing lights Hunter noticed her dilated pupils.
‘I’ll dance with you in a sec, babe. I have to go find the bathroom.’ He gave her the first excuse he could think of.
‘Bathroom? Would you like some company?’ Her eyes had moved down to his groin.
Hunter gave the brunette a confident smile. ‘Not this time, babe.’
‘Faggot,’ she hissed as he walked away leaving her to look for her next prey.
‘She looks nice . . . classy,’ Garcia commented. ‘Maybe you could come back later and share a Slow Comfortable Screw Up Against the Wall with her.’
Hunter ignored his partner’s sarcasm as they approached the steps that led to the exclusive upper level and the two bouncers standing guard.
‘Sorry, gentlemen, this is for VIPs only, out of bounds,’ one of them said, looking down at the two detectives.
‘It’s OK, we’re VIPs,’ Garcia said producing his badge and waiting for Hunter to do the same.
‘Gentlemen, you can’t just use your badges to push your way into places,’ the taller of the two musclemen said, keeping his eyes fixed on Garcia.
‘Do we look like we’re here for our own entertainment?’ Hunter cut in. Both bouncers shifted their stare in his direction. ‘We’re here to see someone,’ he continued.
‘And who would that be?’
‘We’re here to see Mister NoneOfYourDamnBusiness. Now step aside or I’ll have you for obstruction of justice.’ Hunter’s voice was threatening and firm. Without waiting for the bouncers to move out of his way, Hunter stepped in-between them and muscled his way through, Garcia following his lead.
Jerome had been watching the whole scene from the table closest to the top of the stairs. As the two detectives stepped onto the VIP upper level Jerome got up to obstruct their path.
‘Can I help you?’
‘What the fuck? This guy has more security than the President of the United States,’ Hunter said, turning to face Garcia before locking eyes with Jerome. ‘No, you can’t help me, gigantore, I need to talk to your boss,’ Hunter said, pointing to D-King’s table.
Without moving, Jerome studied both men in front of him.
‘OK, we can do this here in the cosiness of this VIP lounge or we can take this damn circus all the way back to the station and have a real party. Your call, big man.’
Jerome kept his eyes on both men for a few more seconds before turning to face D-King who was beginning to show interest. He gave Jerome a quick nod.
‘Excuse me, girls, it looks like I have some business to attend to – why don’t you go dance for a little bit?’ D-King said to the four stunning girls that shared his table. They got up, each one giving Hunter and Garcia a sexy wink followed by an inviting smile as they walked past them. Garcia’s face seemed to light up with each smile, his eyes following the girls.
‘If you like any of them, maybe I can put in a good word for you,’ D-King said with a broad smile, showing gleaming white teeth. Hunter noticed he had a small diamond inserted into his top left incisor.
‘What? Oh no, no. It’s not like that,’ Garcia said, looking uncomfortable.
‘Of course not. Please have a seat. Champagne?’ D-King offered, pointing to the bottle resting inside the ice bucket.
‘Not for us, thank you.’
‘OK, how may I help you then?’
D-King was a very handsome African American man. Only thirty-one years of age, five foot nine with a carefully shaved head. His hazel eyes were striking and his face was formed by strong, but well-defined lines. He was wearing a dark-colored viscose suit with a white silk shirt, its two top buttons undone, revealing a couple of thick gold chains.
‘I’m Detective Hunter and this is Detective Garcia,’ Hunter said with his badge in hand.
D-King didn’t get up and made no attempt to shake their hands. Jerome had moved to his boss’s side.
Hunter and Garcia sat facing D-King with their backs to the dance floor. There was no need for small talk. Hunter retrieved the computer portrait from his pocket and placed it on the table in front of them.
‘Do you know who this woman is?’
D-King lowered his eyes to the picture and studied it for a few seconds without picking it up. ‘Not a man for preliminaries are you, Detective Hunter? I like that.’
Hunter’s steady expression remained unchanged.
‘This is a computer image,’ D-King said a little surprised.
‘Yeah!’
‘And why is that?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t disclose that information.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t help you.’ The reply came almost immediately.
The two detectives exchanged a quick look. ‘Look Mr Preston, this is extremely important . . .’
‘Sister Joan used to call me Mr Preston in lower school’ – D-King raised his right hand interrupting Hunter before he had a chance to finish his sentence – ‘you can call me D-King.’
Hunter didn’t like being interrupted. ‘As I was saying, this is a very important matter.’
‘I’m sure it is, but let me tell you how this works. If you want me to help you, you’ve gotta give me something, baby. I’m a businessman, I have no time for bullshit and you won’t get no freebies here.’
Hunter didn’t like negotiating, especially not with people like D-King, but he knew he didn’t have much of a choice. He’d observed D-King and Jerome’s reaction while their eyes analyzed the picture on the table. He knew they’d recognized her. If he wanted them to help him, he needed to play ball.
‘She’s dead. She’s been killed in a very horrific way and her face . . .’ Hunter searched for the appropriate word. ‘Is unrecognizable. We had to use a special program to hypothesize what she looked like.’
D-King kept his stare on Hunter for a while longer before reaching for the picture. He considered it for a few more seconds. Hunter had no doubt D-King had recognized the woman in the picture, but there was something else. Some hidden emotion.
‘What makes you think I’d know this woman?’
Hunter knew what he was trying to do. ‘Listen, P-Diddy . . .’
‘D-King . . .’
‘Whatever. I’m not interested in you or in what you do. Whatever illegal business you conduct, I’m sure the law will catch up with you soon enough, but today is not that day. You might not believe this, but you aren’t a suspect in this investigation. The person who killed her killed again yesterday, and he’ll keep on killing until we stop him. Her identity could give us a clue as to who this monster is. If she is one of your girls . . .’
‘One of my girls?’ D-King interrupted Hunter once again. He wasn’t about to admit to being a sex merchant.
‘You wanna play dumb, go right ahead, but at this point in time I couldn’t give a shit if yo
u were the biggest pimp in the world, I’m not after you. We’re Homicide, not Narc.’
D-King placed the picture back on the table. ‘Nice speech, Detective.’
Hunter took a deep breath. His stare was still fixed on the man sitting in front of him.
D-King quickly saw an opportunity opening its doors. ‘If you need my help, maybe we can get into some sort of agreement.’
‘Agreement?’ Hunter knew what was coming.
‘Every once in a while I need some help from the boys in black and white. I help you, you help me and everyone’s happy. It can be a very profitable partnership for both sides.’
Only then Garcia realized what D-King meant. Unlike Hunter he was unable to contain himself.
‘Fuck you! Someone has tortured and killed one of your girls and you couldn’t give a damn? I thought you were supposed to protect them, to be their guardian. Isn’t that what pimps do?’ Garcia’s face flared red. His voice angry and loud, causing the occupants of most of the neighboring tables to turn their way. ‘Now you’re using her death to try and get us into your dirty-cop pay list? Some kinda king you are. Maybe you should think about changing your name to D-Loser.’ Garcia got up and waited for Hunter to do the same. He didn’t follow.
Garcia’s antics made D-King laugh. ‘Oh c’mon now, you’re not gonna play the old “good cop, bad cop” crap on me, are you? Do you take me for a fool? That shit only works in movies, and this ain’t fucking it?’
‘We’re not playing games here,’ Hunter said calmly, ‘but the killer is. Detective Garcia is right. This killer took one of your girls from you and left you a big “fuck you” as a souvenir.’ Hunter leaned forward placing both of his elbows on the table. ‘We don’t think you’re a fool but the killer certainly does. He’s laughing at you and I’m not surprised. He waltzed into your turf, snatched one of your girls and you didn’t even know. Did you think she was on vacation? What’ll happen if he decides to take another one of your girls? Maybe one of the girls who were sitting with you just a few minutes ago.’
D-King kept his steady eyes on Hunter.
‘So,’ Hunter continued, ‘you just gonna sit there and pretend you’re still cool, you’re still in command, you’re still the King? We’re only asking you for her name, if only to let her family know what’s happened to her.’
Hunter waited for a reaction but it never came. He knew D-King had recognized the girl on the computer-generated portrait and that had been a huge step in the right direction. He could easily find out who she was now that he knew where to look. D-King’s cooperation wasn’t that important anymore. Hunter got up and joined Garcia.
‘Detective,’ D-King called as both men reached the staircase. Hunter turned and faced him once again. D-King made a hand gesture towards Jerome who quickly produced a picture from his jacket pocket and placed it on the table next to the computer-generated one. Both detectives sat back down and compared the pictures. The resemblance was uncanny.
‘Her name is Jenny Farnborough. I’ve been looking for her since last Friday.’
Hunter felt his blood warming. ‘Was that the last time you saw her?’
‘That’s correct. Last Friday, in here.’
‘Here?’ Garcia asked excitedly.
‘Yeah, we were sitting at this same table. She excused herself and said she needed to go to the ladies’ room to retouch her make-up or something. She never came back.’
‘What time was that?’
D-King raised his eyebrows at Jerome.
‘Late, around two or a quarter past two in the morning,’ Jerome said.
‘So you think she was abducted from this club?’ Hunter asked calmly.
‘It looks that way.’
‘Maybe she knew her abductor, someone that she’d been with before.’
D-King shook his head. ‘Even if she had bumped into someone she knew, she wouldn’t have just walked out of the club, she would’ve come back here to talk to me first. Jenny was a good girl.’
Hunter paused for a second, measuring how much he wanted to reveal about the victim. ‘She was drugged. GHB, have you ever heard of it?’
D-King gave Hunter a car-salesman smile. He knew Hunter couldn’t be that naive. ‘Yes, I know of it. Is that what was used?’
‘Yes.’
‘You said she was tortured?’ Jerome asked.
‘Yes.’
‘What exactly does that mean?’
Hunter’s gaze dropped to the pictures on the table. The image of her naked, mutilated body tied to the wooden posts flashed in his mind.
‘Whoever killed her wanted her to suffer as much as possible. There was no mercy kill, no shot to the head, no knife through the heart. The killer wanted her to die slowly.’ Hunter saw no point in hiding the truth. ‘She was skinned alive and left to die.’
‘She what?’ Jerome’s voice went up half an octave.
There was no response from either detective.
D-King tried to conceal his rage, but his eyes burned with it. His mind immediately created a grotesque picture of Jenny, alone, tortured, pleading for mercy, crying for help. He tried in vain to shake the image from his head. When he spoke, there was inimitable anger in his voice. ‘Are you a religious man, Detective?’
The question surprised both Hunter and Garcia. ‘Why?’
‘Because if you are, you better pray to God you find whoever killed Jenny before I do.’
Hunter understood D-King’s anger. While Hunter had to do things by the book and follow protocol, D-King didn’t. The idea of D-King getting to the killer before him was somehow appealing.
‘We’ll need to see a list of all her . . . clients, all the people she’d been with in the past six months. The killer could be someone she knew.’
D-King gave Hunter another cheesy smile. ‘I like you, Detective Hunter, you amuse me,’ he paused. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. Clients . . .?’
There was no way Hunter would be able to force a list of Jenny’s clients out of D-King and he knew it.
‘You said you needed her name, you’ve got it now. I’m afraid there is nothing more I can do for you,’ D-King said gesturing towards the stairs. Both detectives got up without saying a word. Hunter grabbed both pictures from the table. ‘One more thing,’ Hunter said, retrieving a piece of paper from his pocket.
D-King looked up at him with a ‘what now’ expression.
‘Have you ever seen this symbol before?’
D-King and Jerome both stared at the strange-looking drawing. Jerome shook his head.
‘No, never,’ D-King confirmed. ‘What does it have to do with Jenny’s death?’
‘It was found close to her body,’ Hunter lied.
‘Just one more thing . . .’ Garcia this time. ‘Do you know where Jenny came from? We’ll need to contact her parents.’
D-King looked at Jerome who shrugged. ‘I don’t really do background checks, but I think she said she came from somewhere like Idaho or Utah or something like that.’
Garcia nodded and followed Hunter. As they reached the stairs, Hunter turned and faced D-King once again. ‘If you get to him before we do . . .’
D-King locked eyes with Hunter.
‘Make him suffer.’
D-King uttered no reply and watched as both men left the VIP area and disappeared into the dancing crowd.
Thirty-One
‘What did that idiot Culhane tell you over the phone about Jenny?’ D-King asked, turning his attention to Jerome as soon as both detectives were out of sight.
‘He said he’d checked the morgue, the hospitals and the missing persons’ files and didn’t find a thing.’
‘What a useless piece of shit he is. And we paid him for that?’
Jerome agreed with a nod.
‘Tell the girls we’ll be leaving soon, but before that get me that barman, the one Jenny used to talk to every once in a while, the long-haired one.’
‘Sure.’ Jerome watched D-King finish half a bottle of cha
mpagne in one swig. ‘Are you OK, boss?’
He threw the empty champagne bottle onto the table knocking over several glasses and attracting unwanted attention. ‘What the fuck are you looking at?’ he yelled at the table closest to his. Its four occupants quickly turned away to mind their own business.
‘No, I’m not OK,’ D-King said, turning to face Jerome. ‘As a matter of fact I’m pretty damn far from OK, Jerome. Someone snatched one of my girls right from under my nose. If what the detectives said is true she was tortured and killed.’ He looked disgusted. ‘Skinned alive, Jerome. Now you tell me, what sort of stupid motherfucker would be crazy enough to do that to one of my girls?’
Jerome could offer no answer but a shrug of his shoulders.
‘I’ll tell you who . . . a fucking dead one. I want this guy, do you feel me? I want him alive so I can show him what torture really is.’ He put his right arm around Jerome’s neck and pulled his face within an inch of his own. ‘Whatever it takes, nigga, do you understand me? Whatever it fucking takes.’
Thirty-Two
The realization that the killer had been in the Vanguard Club only a few days ago made Hunter’s blood boil. He decided they should stick around for a while longer. The killer had been here, he had touched things, allowed other people to look at him, maybe even talk to him. Somehow he’d managed to drug Jenny between the VIP area and the ladies’ room and then drag her out of the club without looking suspicious – or did he?
Hunter touched Garcia’s arm to get his attention and pointed to the low ceiling. ‘Do you see what I see?’
Garcia looked up, following Hunter’s extended index finger. ‘CCTV!’
‘Bingo.’
‘Excuse me!’ Hunter said, approaching the bouncer standing next to the fire exit. ‘Where is your CCTV control room?’ he asked, showing the muscle man his badge.
