“No. This is your lucky day.”
He walked out.
Tariq Himsi was contemplating the power of money. And the vagaries of choice. Finding the Emir a companion, even for a fleeting assignation, was a delicate proposition. His tastes were specific; his security paramount. Fortunately, the whores here were plentiful, easy to find on the street, and, as it turned out, quite accustomed to unusual requests, such as being driven to an undisclosed location in a vehicle with blacked-out windows. His earlier surveillance had shown that while morally corrupt, these women were far from stupid: They patrolled their corners in twos and threes, and whenever one of their cohorts got into a car, one of the others would take down the license plate number. A quick trip to one of the local airport’s off-property park-and-ride lots had solved this problem. License plates were easy to install and even easier to dispose of. Almost as easy as disguising his appearance with thick black glasses and a baseball cap.
Tariq had initially considered engaging an escort service, but that brought its own complications-not insurmountable, certainly, but complicated nonetheless. Through their network here he had obtained the name of a service known for zealously protecting its clients’ privacy, so much so that it was used by many celebrities and politicians, including several U.S. senators. The irony of using such a service was tempting, Tariq had to admit.
For now he would satisfy himself with engaging one of the street whores he’d been observing for the last week. Though she generally dressed as did all the others-in obnoxiously revealing outfits-her taste seemed slightly less appalling, her manner slightly less shameless. In the short term, she would do as a receptacle.
He waited until well after the sun had set, then waited down the block, watching for a lull in traffic before pulling out and driving down to where the woman and her two companions stood. He pulled to a halt beside the curb and rolled down the passenger window. One of the women, a redhead with impossibly large breasts, strode toward the window.
“Not you,” Tariq said. “The other one. The tall blonde.”
“Suit yourself, mister. Hey, Trixie, he wants you.”
Trixie sashayed over. “Hey,” she said. “Looking for a date?”
“For a friend.”
“Where is this friend?”
“At his condominium.”
“Don’t do in-home dates.”
“Two thousand dollars,” Tariq replied, and immediately saw Trixie’s eyes change. “Your friends may take down my license plate, if they wish. My friend is… well known. He simply wants some anonymous companionship.”
“Straight sex?”
“Pardon me?”
“I don’t do rough trade. No water sports, nothing like that.”
“Of course.”
“Okay, hang on a sec, hon.” Trixie walked back to her friends, exchanged a few words, then returned to Tariq, who said, “You may ride in the back,” and clicked open the lock.
“Oh, hey, fancy,” Trixie said, and got in.
Please sit down,” the Emir said to her thirty minutes later, as Tariq brought her into the living room and made the introductions. “Would you like some wine?”
“Uh, sure, I guess,” Trixie said. “I like that zinfandel stuff. That’s how you say it, right?”
“Yes.” The Emir signaled to Tariq, who disappeared and returned a minute later with two glasses of wine. Trixie took hers, looked around anxiously, then dug in her purse and came up with a tissue, into which she spit the piece of gum she’d been chewing. She took a gulp of wine. “Pretty good stuff.”
“Yes, it is. Is Trixie your real name?”
“Yeah, actually. What’s yours?”
“Believe it or not, my name is John.”
Trixie barked out a laugh. “If you say so. So, what, you’re Arab or something?”
Standing in the doorway behind Trixie, Tariq’s brows furrowed. The Emir lifted his index finger from the arm of his chair. Tariq nodded and stepped back a few feet.
“I’m from Italy,” the Emir said. “Sicily.”
“Hey, like
“Pardon me?”
“You know, the movie. That’s where the Corleones were from: Sicily.”
“I suppose so, yes.”
“Your accent sounds kind of funny. You live here, or just on vacation?”
“Vacation.”
“It’s a really nice house. You must be loaded, huh?”
“The house belongs to a friend.”
Trixie smiled. “A friend, huh? Maybe your friend would like some company.”
“I’ll be sure to ask him,” the Emir said drily.
“Just so you know: I only do straight, okay? Nothing kinky.”
“Of course, Trixie.”
“And no kissing on the mouth. Your guy said two thousand?”
“Would you like your reimbursement now?”
Trixie took another gulp of wine. “My what?”
“Your money.”
“Sure, then we can get started.” At the Emir’s signal, Tariq came forward and handed Trixie a wad of $100 bills. “No offense,” she said, then counted the bills. “You wanna do it here, or what?”
An hour later the Emir emerged from the bedroom. Behind him, Trixie was slipping on her panties and humming to herself. At the dining room table, Tariq stood up to meet his boss. The Emir merely said, “Too many questions.”
Afew minutes later in the garage, Tariq walked around the car to the rear door and opened it for her. “That was fun,” she said. “If your guy wants to do it again, you know where to find me.”
“I’ll inform him.”
As Trixie ducked down to enter the car, Tariq toe-kicked her behind the knee and she dropped down. “Hey, what-” were the only words she managed to get out before Tariq’s garrote, a two-foot piece of half-inch smooth nylon rope, looped around her neck and cinched down on her windpipe.
As he’d planned, the rope’s twin knots, spaced five inches apart in the middle of the rope, immediately compressed the carotid arteries on either side of her trachea. Trixie began bucking, clawing at the rope, her back arching until Tariq could see her eyes-at first wide and bulging, and then slowly, as the blood flow to her brain dwindled, fluttering and rolling back into her head. After another ten seconds Trixie went limp. Tariq kept the pressure on the rope for another three minutes, standing perfectly still as the life slowly drained from her body. Strangulation was never the quick task one saw in Hollywood movies.
He took two steps backward, dragging her along and slowly laying her body flat on the garage’s concrete floor. Carefully he unwrapped the rope from around her neck, then examined the skin beneath. There was some slight bruising but no blood. Even so, the rope would later be burned in a steel pail. He felt for a pulse at her neck and found none. She was dead, of that he was certain, but given their circumstances, an extra measure of caution was required.
Placing one hand beneath her shoulders and the other beneath her buttocks, Tariq rolled Trixie onto her stomach, then straddled her at the waist. He placed his left hand beneath her chin, drew her head up toward him, then placed the flat of his right palm on the side of her head and levered his hands in opposite directions. The neck snapped. He reversed his hands and twisted the head back in the other direction, getting one more muffled pop. The body’s residual nerve impulses caused her legs to jerk once. He gently lowered the head back to the ground and stood up.
