Chapter
Ten
SASHA SPENT every night with me that week. The other dancers all knew now that we were seeing each other. It was impossible to hide when they headed up to their studios at the end of each night, while Sasha left with me. None of them said anything to me, but I noticed Tomáš teasing Sasha once or twice and my lover’s cheeks flushing at whatever was said.
A few days passed before we fucked again. Sasha begged me several times, but I knew he was sore and wanted to give him time to recover. The second time I guided him to ride me so he could control things. Watching his beautiful face as he writhed on my dick, his features slack with pleasure, increased the intense physical sensation I felt. When he collapsed onto my chest, smearing the streaks of come he’d left there, I held him tight as I slipped from his body. I’d wanted to tell him what I’d begun to feel since that first time, and now I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer.
“I love you, Sasha. I’m in love with you.”
He lifted his head and met my gaze with wide green eyes, the expression in them mirroring what I felt. “I love you too.”
I lifted my head from the pillow to kiss him, openmouthed but without tongues as my lips stretched wide into a happy smile. I’d never felt this strongly. It was clear to me now that what I’d had with Phillippe had been an infatuation. This was the real thing. At the grand old age of thirty-five, I was in love for the first time.
As it was Sunday, we didn’t have to go to the club, and we spent a leisurely morning in bed, only slipping from beneath the covers to make quick trips to the bathroom and to make coffee. Eventually, hunger drove us to shower and dress and go in search of food.
I put together a kind of brunch with eggs, bacon, tomatoes, frozen potato waffles, and toast, and as usual Sasha spread his toast with peanut butter and raspberry jam. When we’d finished eating, he insisted helping clean up the kitchen. The intercom buzzed a moment later.
“Are you expecting a visitor?” Sasha looked at me and I shrugged.
“No. No one ever comes to see me here.” I went to the apartment door and punched the button on the control panel. “Who is it?”
“Joel, it’s Karel. May I come up?”
I glanced at Sasha, eyes wide, before I responded. “What do you want?”
“I need to talk to you, please.” He sounded strangely meek after the last time we’d spoken. He was the last person I wanted to speak to, especially when he was interrupting my Sunday with Sasha, but curiosity got the better of me.
“Come up.” I pressed another button to open the outer door of the building, then opened my apartment door.
“Should I go in the bedroom? Keep out of the way?” Sasha asked.
“No. You’ve every right to be here.”
“Maybe he wants to talk to you privately.”
“Well, then, it’s too bad. You are part of my life, Sasha. If he’s that desperate to talk to me, he can do it in front of you.” I gestured to the living room, and Sasha went to sit down. I waited at the door until Karel stepped off the elevator, then hesitated before walking toward me.
“Hello, Joel.”
I nodded and moved aside to let him enter the apartment. I closed the door before I spoke. “What do you want?”
“I, um….” He sidled to the living room door and glanced into the room, eyebrows lifting when he set eyes on Sasha. He turned back to face me. “I want to speak to you in private.”
“This is about as private as you’re going to get. You can speak to me in front of Sasha or not at all.”
“Fine.” Karel sighed heavily and walked into the room. He hovered in front of an armchair and avoided looking at Sasha. I sat beside my lover on the couch, our knees touching.
“I’m listening.”
“You know what I told you before. I, um, I came to ask you for a favor. I know I don’t deserve one, and I’m sure you’ll probably tell me to fuck off, but I don’t have much choice. So….” He dragged a hand through his hair, then thrust both hands into his coat pockets.
“Go on.”
“I need to borrow some money.”
“You’re asking to borrow money from me. After everything?” I shouldn’t have been surprised. He had that same desperate look about him that he’d had when I saw him last. After what I’d learned, I imagined he’d gambled away the money he’d got from his share of the club and was now in debt again. I shook my head as I waited for his response.
“Look… I don’t want to do this in front of… him.”
“I, um, I could go.” Sasha shifted awkwardly in his seat, but I sprang to my feet and held up my hand to indicate he remain sitting.
“You stay where you are. Karel, after everything you’ve done, you come into my home and expect me to send my lover away so you can ask me for money? You practically destroyed the club, treated my boys like shit, and threatened the one I love. Not only that, but I had a call from Vincenc Jankovic recently.”
Realization dawned on Karel’s face and he flushed, taking a step back. “Oh.”
“Oh? How the fuck could you even think about selling my business out from under me, you bastard!”
“I’m sorry!” Karel shouted back. “I didn’t think I had any other choice. These people won’t just let me give them a… what do you call it? An IOU note? They’re not like you and me. They mean business.”
“They’re certainly not like me. And now you have the audacity to come crawling around, asking me for a loan? I’m not stupid, Karel. I’d never see that money again, nor would you. You need to get a reality check and sort this out. Whatever trouble you’re in is of your own making, and hell will freeze over before I give you one more fucking koruna.”
“Joel….” Karel shrugged his shoulders and sighed heavily. “Yeah. I get it. I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry. I just thought… we used to be friends. I don’t have anyone else I can ask.”
“Used to be friends. Yes. Until you showed me how little I could trust you. It’s time you left, Karel. I hope this will be the last time we speak. If you contact me again, you’ll be wasting your time.”
“I can see that.” His face went stiff and he eyed the door. “I’m sorry I bothered you.” He glanced at Sasha and gave him a brief nod, then left without another word to me, closing the door quietly behind him.
“Wow.” Sasha rose and took my hand. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m okay, babe.” I slid my arm around him and hugged him close. “That man is unbelievable.”
“He’s in trouble gambling again?”
“It sounds like it.”
“What do you think he’ll do now?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. After what I came back to a couple of weeks ago, I don’t give a shit what happens to him.”
I really didn’t care. I’d thought I knew Karel, and maybe I had once, but he’d turned into a person I didn’t like or want anything more to do with. I did my best to put him out of my mind and enjoy the rest of my day with Sasha. Whatever Karel did now was none of my concern.
I HEARD nothing more from Karel, and a couple of weeks later, Červenà hosted another of our famous bachelor parties. Although the club was always open to the public, special privileges were given to party guests who’d booked tickets in advance, and this particular group of thirty-six men had flown in from Paris on Friday for a long weekend. Sasha and Kris made up a brand-new cocktail recipe for the party, and the dancers were kept busy all night with requests for private dances. Milos was in his element, and for once I asked the security guy watching the monitors to turn a blind eye when the boy swung his uncovered junk around to please several of his lap dance customers.
I kept an eye on things in the main part of the club, introduced myself to the two grooms, and told them to come to me should they have any special requests. Everything went smoothly with the exception of one of the guests downing too many cocktails and throwing up in a corner close to the dance floor. I merely fetched a couple of cones and a rope from the storerooms and sectioned off the small area for the cleaners to deal with. When I went to my office to take a short break from the noise, I switched on my computer to check my e-mails and see the latest news. The day had been too busy so far for me to follow my usual routine.
The first thing that caught my eye when I connected to my preferred news site was a headline that made me pause and frown. Bold red letters across the screen spelled out a short sentence: “Local businessman murdered.”
I clicked on the article and scrolled down, wondering if I knew the victim. I knew a lot of people through the club and other establishments. Plenty of local businessmen spent an evening at Červenà now and then and had asked me to keep their presence quiet.
“What the fuck?” I gasped as I read the first paragraph of the news report. I read it again just to be sure I hadn’t imagined the name.
“Local businessman Karel Doubrava, once joint owner of popular nightclub Červenà, was found dead this morning in an unoccupied warehouse not far from District 9. Clearly the victim of an execution-style murder, Mr. Doubrava was found with a gunshot wound to the back of his head.”
“Jesus. Who the hell was he gambling with?” I shuddered as I read on, discovering that Karel had been identified by his fingerprints, as no wallet or other items carrying his identity were found on his person. When police visited his apartment they found the place to have been ransacked although no forcible entry had been made. Karel was known to have visited casinos over past months, and it was suspected that he’d been drawn into a more secret and dangerous gambling world, which had resulted in his getting into debt with the wrong people.
“Fuck. He didn’t deserve this.” I sighed and rubbed my temples. The poor bastard must have known he was in danger when he came to me asking for help. Would I have acted any differently if I’d known he was perhaps in fear for his life? He’d always said I was too soft.
“Joel?”
“Uh!” Sasha’s voice startled me so much I almost tipped my chair over backward. My heart raced, and I clutched the edge of the desk to steady myself.
“What happened?” He reached my side and laid a hand on my shoulder. I gestured at the computer screen.
“He’s dead. Karel’s dead. Someone shot him. It says ‘execution-style.’ What the fuck had he got himself into, Sasha? Huh?” I covered his hand with mine and squeezed his fingers until he let out a hiss of pain. I released him quickly.
“I’m sorry, Joel.” He moved closer and pressed his body against my side, sliding his arm around my neck. “I know he was a jerk, but he was your friend once.”
“I shouldn’t care after what he did. But I feel like I ought to have done something. He came to me asking for help. He looked pathetic, didn’t he? Like he had no other choice.”
“Joel….” Sasha dropped to his knees and rested his hands on my thighs. “You couldn’t have helped him. He must have owed a lot of money. The same as before. Maybe you could have saved him this time, but it seems like he couldn’t stop, or didn’t want to. It wasn’t your problem. You could have lost everything to him, and that’s wrong.”
“Yeah. I know.” I leaned down and kissed the top of his head. “You’re right. What would it have achieved if I gave him money? He had the sale money from his half of the club. That wasn’t peanuts. I mean, it was a lot. If he lost that and ran up more debts—”
“Do they know who did it? Who killed him?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t read any further.” I scrolled down and skimmed over the rest of the article, but the police apparently had no leads and were investigating Karel’s recent activities in an attempt to find clues. I expected I would hear from the police myself before long, but there wasn’t much I could tell them. I didn’t know who Karel had played cards with, or what he’d been doing.
The news made me nauseous, and ruined my mood for the rest of the night. I was relieved when the bachelors and the other clubbers left. I couldn’t wait to get home, and I needed some time alone. Sasha wanted to be there for me, but I had to have my own space for a while.
“Do you mind if I go home alone tonight?” I pulled Sasha into my arms and held him close. “I’m not very good company right now.”
“I don’t mind you not being good company,” Sasha murmured against my neck.
“I know. I just have a lot to think about. I need to be on my own for a little while.” I stroked his back and brushed my lips against his ear, hoping to show him it wasn’t that I was rejecting him.
“It’s all right. I understand.” He pulled back and met my eyes. “You do know I’m here for you, though. Right?”
“Yes, I know. I love you.” I pressed my lips to his, before I drew away with a smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow. I love you too.”
I left him reluctantly, my dark mood descending again as soon as I climbed into a taxi.
My phone rang at noon the next day and I wasn’t surprised the police wanted to talk to me on a Sunday, given the circumstances. The officers invited themselves to my apartment, and I greeted a policeman of around my age and a young female officer. I told them everything I could—my discovery that Karel was in trouble when I returned from England, my buying him out of his share of the club, his visit to me two weeks earlier, asking me for more money, and his attempt to sell the club behind my back. I included brief details about the changes to the running of the club, but obviously avoided mentioning the prostitutes. There seemed no point in bringing that up. No one had ever complained or reported the fact, and I’d only be hurting myself to admit to it now.
“And you didn’t give him any money?” the female officer asked.
“No, I didn’t. He’d hurt me personally and professionally. I didn’t trust him, and I didn’t feel I owed him anything. I suspected he’d only use the money to gamble again.”
“Have you any idea who he played with? Did he mention any names?”
“No.” I shook my head. “The first time we discussed it he said he’d been to a casino. He met some people who organized private card games and he got in trouble with them. That’s all. He didn’t say with whom, or where, or anything like that.”
There wasn’t much more to the meeting. The officers asked me to let them know should anything else come to mind, or if I heard anything, and the policeman gave me his card. When they left I called Sasha and asked him to come over. Suddenly I needed him and couldn’t wait to have him in my arms.
Sasha spent the rest of the day with me. We barely spoke when he arrived, but when I tugged him into my arms, he extricated himself without a word and led me into my bedroom. He seemed to know what I needed, and he did everything. He removed my clothes piece by piece, stripped himself, and used his hands and mouth to drive me almost to the point of orgasm. Just as I thought I’d lose control and shoot into his mouth, he moved away, grabbed the lube, and prepared himself for me. It was only when I was inside him with his arms and legs wrapped around me that I relaxed properly and told him how much I loved him.
Later we went to the club, and Sasha headed up to his studio while I spent some time in the small office Karel had used. I’d cleared it out when he’d gone, but now I went over it with a fine-tooth comb, turning out drawers and looking through files to see if I could find any clue as to whom he’d become involved with, but there was nothing. I hadn’t really expected to find anything, but I’d wanted to be sure.
What a waste of a life. Karel had thrown away everything for his gambling addiction. He had no one to arrange his funeral or sort out his personal belongings. He’d never settled down, much like me before I’d met Sasha, but had flitted from one young man to another in an effort to convince himself he was irresistible and admired. Shaking my head, I pushed myself up from the desk and left the room.
Other than a small article in the newspaper a few days later, repeating that Karel had been murdered and was now to be buried, I heard nothing more officially. The dancers and staff at the club gossiped constantly about Karel getting himself killed over a gambling debt. I kept out of it and let them talk until they grew bored and forgot about it. Karel was gone, and there was no point dwelling on it anymore. But the Saturday after his death I was forced to confront it all over again.
I spent part of the evening propping up the bar, sampling another new cocktail Sasha had created. He and two of the other bar staff spent most of their evening making this drink, as men ordered it as if it was the only chance they’d get. The combination of liquor and tropical fruit juices was delicious, and I drank three of them myself. It was unusual for me to indulge in cocktails, and I felt pleasantly fuzzy.
“Joel Jones?” The low almost guttural voice came directly in my left ear and I startled, making my stool wobble. I turned to look at the speaker and met the eyes of a tall slender man with dark hair, an angular face, and thick lips. Frowning, I tried to recall if I’d seen him before, but he wasn’t familiar to me.
“Yes?”
“Where can we talk?”
“Do you want to tell me who you are first?” I raised my eyebrows, wishing I’d stopped at two cocktails. My words slurred a little, and if this was a new client wanting to arrange something, I needed to be on top of my game. I gestured at Sasha and mouthed “water” to him. In a second a bottle of spring water appeared on the bar in front of me, cap removed. Sasha stayed close as I gulped some, and I didn’t miss the way the stranger’s eyes darted to Sasha and then back to me.
“Friend of yours?”
“What do you want?” I countered. I waved Sasha away as a sense of unease filled me. This didn’t seem like a client; someone who might want to arrange a party night, or even book up the whole club the way a few people had in the past.
“You might not want me to tell you in front of all these nice people.”
A prickle of alarm crawled up my spine as I slid off my stool. With everything that had happened lately, I couldn’t help wondering if this man was something to do with Karel.
“Follow me.” I moved away from the bar, considering going to my office. Maybe not such a good idea. I’d be better off where I could be seen. Instead I led the way up to the private rooms. The second door was open and I stepped through, waiting for the visitor to join me before I closed the door. Now I’d be visible on the monitor in the security office and one of the men would be up here in seconds if anything should happen. I relaxed marginally and faced the man, having to look up a couple of inches to meet his eyes.
“Your friend owes my boss a sum of money.”
“Which friend? Who are you?” I pretended confusion, wanting to make him confirm we were talking about Karel.
“It doesn’t matter who I am. Call me a messenger. I refer to your friend Doubrava. Your partner.”
“Karel’s no friend of mine and we ceased to be partners some time ago. Maybe you haven’t heard, but he died two weeks ago.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “As his partner, my boss suggested I have a little chat with you. Doubrava left a debt of almost fifteen million korunas, including interest. In our line of work, a debt does not die with the person owing. This debt falls to the family. As Doubrava apparently has no family, the next closest person must pay. This is you.”
“That’s ridiculous! I’ve had nothing to do with Karel for the past few weeks and I certainly have no responsibility for his debts.”
“I’m afraid you do. The boss says so.”
“I don’t have fifteen million.” My mouth had gone dry and I resisted the urge to lick my lips and reveal my fear. I doubted this messenger would do anything to me, but I worried if I didn’t comply I’d be the next body found with a bullet in the back of its head. I could call that police officer, the one whose business card was in my office. They probably dealt with situations like this all the time. The messenger smiled thinly and raised an eyebrow. His next words indicated he’d guessed where my thoughts were headed.
“I think you can find it.” He gestured around him, indicating the club. “I wouldn’t call the police either, if I were you. I have followed you a few times this week. You’re fucking the cute Russian bartender, I believe. You look at him like he means something to you. I’m sure he’s important enough for you to keep this business to yourself. You wouldn’t want to lose him.”
My stomach turned over and my knees wobbled, no longer anything to do with the alcohol I’d consumed. I clenched my fists in an effort to stop my hands shaking, and pressed my lips together to suppress their tremble. These people meant business. It had been obvious from the moment Karel was found, but I hadn’t really thought at the time they’d come after me. Threatening Sasha scared me more than if it were me in danger.
“We’ll be in touch with details. The payment will be made electronically to an untraceable account.”
“I t-told you, I don’t have that k-kind of money.” I cursed my trembling voice, but I couldn’t help it. The messenger smiled.
“This place must be worth, what? Thirty million? Maybe more as the business it has become. You have another source of income too. Apartments, one of which you live in, correct? Be happy this little settlement won’t leave you destitute.” He opened the door. “You will receive a phone call.” With that, he walked away.
“Fuck!” I moved a step to my left and collapsed onto the chair used by customers while receiving private dances. I gripped the arms of the chair so hard my knuckles turned white, and despite the noise from the club now booming in through the open door, the chatter of my teeth was audible. I hung my head, taking deep breaths as I tried to think of a way out of this. I couldn’t call the police. That man and his “boss” wouldn’t punish me for it, because I had the money and they knew it. They’d hurt Sasha.