“Nervous?” she asks.
“A little,” he concedes. “I don’t do this often. Or, at all.”
She comes up to him and embraces him, letting him breathe in her perfume, which is floral and light, so that it won’t linger on his skin. After a moment, he puts his arms around her, resting his hands against the naked skin on the small of her back.
“I’ve always believed that one should pay for experiences rather than things.”
“A good philosophy,” he whispers into her ear.
“What I give you is the girlfriend experience, old-fashioned and sweet. And you’ll remember this and relive it in your head as often as you want.”
“You’ll do whatever I want?”
“Within reason,” she says. Then she lifts her head to look up at him. “You have to wear a condom. Other than that, I won’t say no to most things. But like I told you on the phone, for some you’ll have to pay extra.”
“I’m pretty old-fashioned myself. Do you mind if I take charge?”
He’s made her relaxed enough that she doesn’t jump to the worst conclusion. “If you’re thinking of tying me down, that will cost you. And I won’t do that until I know you better.”
“Nothing like that. Maybe hold you down a little.”
“That’s fine.”
He comes up to her, and they kiss. His tongue lingers in her mouth, and she moans. He backs up, puts his hands on her waist, turning her away from him. “Would you lie down with your face in the pillows?”
“Of course.” She climbs onto the bed. “Legs up under me or spread out to the corners?”
“Spread out, please.” His voice is commanding. And he hasn’t stripped yet, not even taken off his Red Sox cap. She’s a little disappointed. Some clients enjoy the obedience more than the sex. There’s not much for her to do. She just hopes he won’t be too rough and leave marks.
He climbs onto the bed behind her and knee-walks up between her legs. He leans down and grabs a pillow from next to her head. “Very lovely,” he says. “I’m going to hold you down now.”
She sighs into the bed, the way she knows he’ll like.
He lays the pillow over the back of her head and pushes down firmly to hold her in place. He takes the gun out from where it’s hidden against the small of his back, and in one swift motion, sticks the barrel—thick and long with the silencer—into the back of the bustier and squeezes off two quick shots into her heart. She dies instantly.
He removes the pillow, stores the gun away. Then he takes a small steel surgical kit out of his jacket pocket, along with a pair of latex gloves. He works efficiently and quickly, cutting with precision and grace. He relaxes when he’s found what he’s looking for; sometimes he picks the wrong girl—not often, but it has happened. He’s careful to wipe off any sweat on his face with his sleeves as he works, and the hat helps to prevent any hair from falling on her. Soon, the task is done.
He climbs off the bed, takes off the bloody gloves, and leaves them and the surgical kit on the body. He puts on a fresh pair of gloves and moves through the apartment, methodically searching for places where she hid cash: inside the toilet tank, the back of the freezer, the nook above the door of the closet.
He goes into the kitchen and returns with a large plastic trash bag. He picks up the bloody gloves and the surgical kit and throws them into the bag. Picking up her phone, he presses the button for her voice mail. He deletes all the messages, including the one he had left when he first called her number. There’s not much he can do about the call logs at the phone company, but he can take advantage of that by leaving his prepaid phone somewhere for the police to find.
He looks at her again. He’s not sad, not exactly, but he does feel a sense of waste. The girl was pretty, and he would have liked to enjoy her first, but that would leave behind too many traces, even with a condom. And he can always pay for another, later. He likes paying for things. Power flows to him when he pays.
Reaching into the inner pocket of his jacket, he retrieves a sheet of paper, which he carefully unfolds and leaves by the girl’s head.
He stuffs the trash bag and the money into a small gym bag he found in one of the closets. He leaves quietly, picking up the envelope of cash next to the entrance on the way out.
? ? ?
Because she’s meticulous, Ruth Law runs through the numbers on the spreadsheet one last time, a summary culled from credit card and bank statements, and compares them against the numbers on the tax return. There’s no doubt. The client’s husband has been hiding money from the IRS, and more importantly, from the client.
Summers in Boston can be brutally hot. But Ruth keeps the air conditioner off in her tiny office above a butcher shop in Chinatown. She’s made a lot of people unhappy over the years, and there’s no reason to make it any easier for them to sneak up on her with the extra noise.
She takes out her cell phone and starts to dial from memory. She never stores any numbers in the phone. She tells people it’s for safety, but sometimes she wonders if it’s a gesture, however small, of asserting her independence from machines.
She stops at the sound of someone coming up the stairs. The footfalls are crisp and dainty, probably a woman, probably one with sensible heels. The scanner in the stairway hasn’t been set off by the presence of a weapon, but that doesn’t mean anything—she can kill without a gun or knife, and so can many others.
Ruth deposits her phone noiselessly on the desk and reaches into her drawer to wrap the fingers of her right hand around the reassuring grip of the Glock 19. Only then does she turn slightly to the side to glance at the monitor showing the feed from the security camera mounted over the door.
She feels very calm. The Regulator is doing its job. There’s no need to release any adrenaline yet.
The visitor, in her fifties, is in a blue short-sleeve cardigan and white pants. She’s looking around the door for a button for the doorbell. Her hair is so black that it must be dyed. She looks Chinese, holding her thin, petite body in a tight, nervous posture.
Ruth relaxes and lets go of the gun to push the button to open the door. She stands up and holds out her hand. “What can I do for you?”
“Are you Ruth Law, the private investigator?” In the woman’s accent, Ruth hears traces of Mandarin rather than Cantonese or Fukienese. Probably not well-connected in Chinatown, then.
“I am.”
The woman looks surprised, as if Ruth isn’t quite who she expected. “Sarah Ding. I thought you were Chinese.”
As they shake hands, Ruth looks Sarah level in the eyes: They’re about the same height, five foot four. Sarah looks well maintained, but her fingers feel cold and thin, like a bird’s claw.
“I’m half-Chinese,” Ruth says. “My father was Cantonese, second generation; my mother was white. My Cantonese is barely passable, and I never learned Mandarin.”
Sarah sits down in the armchair across from Ruth’s desk. “But you have an office here.”
She shrugs. “I’ve made my enemies. A lot of non-Chinese are uncomfortable moving around in Chinatown. They stick out. So it’s safer for me to have my office here. Besides, you can’t beat the rent.”
Sarah nods wearily. “I need your help with my daughter.” She slides a collapsible file across the desk toward her.
Ruth sits down but doesn’t reach for the file. “Tell me about her.”
“Mona was working as an escort. A month ago she was shot and killed in her apartment. The police think it’s a robbery, maybe gang related, and they have no leads.”
“It’s a dangerous profession,” Ruth says. “Did you know she was doing it?”