Corsican Death (13 page)

God, Christian was glad he didn’t work for Remy. The Count was tough, but if you did your job, there wasn’t any problem. Hell, coming to Paris wasn’t so bad. It was time off, because at least Christian wasn’t working in that stinking laboratory.

That would come soon enough. Plenty of talk here the past day and a half, just Christian, the Count, and a few top lieutenants; but the Count had other business, which gave Christian some free time. Like now.

It was two o’clock in the afternoon, and Christian had three hours before meeting the Count. Three hours and two teen-age whores.

The three of them were naked on the bed, their combined weight making the springs creak loudly. Arms, legs intertwined. Low moans and quick whispered phrases. The word “yes” repeatedly, over and over. …

Christian moaned, mouth open and breathing loudly, his brain in flames with sexual excitement. He was on his back, clutching the dark-haired Monique to his fat, hairy chest, lips frantically searching for hers, his hands, stained yellow with chemicals, racing up and down her naked back.

Her delicious little ass. God it was delicious. He grabbed it with both hands, fingers digging painfully into her flesh, his mouth on hers now, his tongue jammed deep into her mouth. Rolling on top of the young girl, he buried her body beneath his. Damn, he wanted her! Now!

Monique couldn’t breathe. You fat bastard! He was crushing her, his beard scraping her face raw, and he smelled funny. Jesus, his yellow hands! Ugly as hell.

Uncomfortable and bordering on panic, she pushed at him, cringing at the sour, wet taste of his mouth on hers, her eyes wide with hot anger and disgust as she tried to cry out. But his mouth was clamped on hers, keeping the sound inside, and all that came out was a tense whimper.

Suzanne, long white-blond hair hanging down and hiding her face, was at the other end of the brass bed, her thin, hairless body contrasting with Christian’s. She licked his ass, her small teeth nipping at his thick, hairy flesh, sending electrical charges racing through his body. For a brief second she pulled back, frowning and wrinkling her small nose at the funny smell of the chemist’s flesh. God, this was an ugly one!

Funny hands—almost dyed yellow with thick, broken nails tipped by black dirt.

And his beard … shit! She hated beards on men—they scratched. But hell, she and Monique were getting paid a lot of money today, more than they could make in a week. Maybe they should have charged this hairy one more. Two hundred francs wasn’t enough to put up with this smell. Oh God, the fat man must be crushing Monique. Suzanne couldn’t see her. Just legs, arms moving, pushing, trying to get out from under.

Maybe the fat man will come quick, get it over with. The old ones do. Christ, she hoped this one was fast. The sooner she and Monique got some fresh air, the better.

Monique tore her mouth loose, taking a loud, deep breath and crying out, “You’re crushing me, you fat bastard! Goddamnit, you’re crushing me. Oh God, oh Jesus!”

He was in her, jamming himself in hard, fast, deep, driving pain into her and up into her stomach, and she screamed, an ear-piercing sound of agony and fear.

Suzanne froze, frowning, staring at Monique. What the hell …?

The door burst open wide, slamming hard against the wall, and three men ran in fast, faces grim, eyes hard and unfeeling, and in an instant Suzanne had a very bad feeling about this “joke.” One of the men pulled her off the bed, his hands rough on her bare skin, knocking her to the floor.

“O.K., out! Quick, quick, out!” Another had grabbed a pile of clothes, Suzanne’s or Monique’s, tossing them through the open door and out into the hall.

Two men were grabbing at the hairy fat man, pulling him off Monique, hands digging hard into his naked flesh, ignoring his wide-eyed look of shock and surprise. “Wha—?” Christian Lombard, angry at what he thought was a bad joke and mistaken identity,
surely
mistaken identity, was ready to shout, curse, anything.

Monique, in pain, breathing loudly through her open mouth, folded her arms across her stomach, trying to press the pain down and away from her. Oh Jesus, the fat man hurt her, hurt her something bad, and now his friends were here to play the joke on him, but she didn’t care anymore. To hell with all of these bastards. Men. Goddamn pigs.

She stood up, stiffened, bent over, and cried out, a short, sharp sound. Rough hands grabbed her, pulling her toward the door, shoving her through it and into the hall. The door slammed behind her, loud; the sound of footsteps scuffling across the floor was dim in her pain-racked brain.

“You all right?” Suzanne’s voice was tentative, her thin hand gently touching Monique’s temple. Monique looked awful, just awful.

Pressing her lips together to keep from crying out again, still keeping both hands folded across her stomach, Monique stiffened against a new wave of pain scraping against her insides like jagged glass. She nodded her head yes, but she didn’t mean it.

Suzanne, frowning, catching her own lower lip in her teeth, dropped her hand to her friend’s shoulder. This “joke” was turning out badly, and the best thing for them was to get the hell out of here fast. She had a bad feeling about what was going on on the other side of that door. A very bad feeling.

Bending over, she picked up Monique’s skirt. “Here, come on, let me help you. …”

On the other side of the door, one of Remy Patek’s men pressed the pillow down hard on Christian Lombard’s face, leaning down on the pillow with straight, stiffened arms, his face determined to do his job well. His knees pressed down hard on Christian’s left arm.

A second man held the chemist’s right arm down on the bed, and leaned on his chest as well.

The third man was on the bed, forcing Christian’s legs apart with his own knees, fighting hard against the pudgy man’s panic. The chemist wasn’t angry now; he was frightened because he couldn’t breathe, and didn’t like his legs being forced apart like that. Not at all. Who were these guys? What did they want? Why did they …?

The third man, small, dark, a Corsican named Alphonse, bulging eyes just under his high forehead, pressed down on Christian’s right thigh with his left hand, keeping his right knee on Christian’s left thigh and bucking up and down with the struggling man.

The knife, a small, freshly sharpened blade, was in Alphonse’s right hand, and he sliced off Christian’s penis, smiling as the fat man jerked upward fast, a horrible, muffled scream coming from under the pillow.

“W
HOEVER DID IT LEFT
the body in the hotel. Christ, what a fucking mess. Blood everywhere.” Roman shook his head, frowning, remembering. Christian’s fat, hairy body, cut up and bleeding, lying on his back, arms spread as though crucified. Yeah, that was it. Crucified on an unmade brass bed in the Étoile Hotel.

Coughing into his own fist, Roman let his dark eyes go to Count Lonzu, who sat quietly in a huge, dark brown wooden chair carved from oak, flickering orange light on his immobile face from the flames in front of him.

“Castrated him,” mumbled Roman, a dark-skinned Corsican with thin lips, almost no chin, and clothes which didn’t fit his scrawny five-feet-five frame. “Castrated him,” he repeated, looking at the Count for a reaction. When he got none, he dropped his eyes to the polished wooden floor under his feet, shivering quickly at the thought of a knife carving into
his
private parts.

Roman had seen the body. Two cops on Count Lonzu’s payroll had made a quick telephone call to the monastery. From there the Count had telephoned Paris, ordering Roman to get over to the Étoile Hotel quickly, then drive out to the monastery and report.

At the moment, Roman was doing all the talking. All the Count did was sit in that big ugly wooden chair with carvings of knights and dancing bears on it, his cold eyes staring into the huge fireplace as if he’d never seen flames before.

Roman cleared his throat once more, again signaling for the Count’s attention. “Talked with the hotel people. Clerk didn’t know much. A maid said Christian went upstairs with two girls, young girls. Teen-agers, which is no surprise, knowing Christian.” He let a low chuckle come up to his throat as he half-smiled, but the smile disappeared when the Count didn’t turn from the fire.

“Uh, anyway, she says one girl was blond, the other had dark hair. Both were, say, fourteen to seventeen, no older. She says they work that area, usually once, twice a week, no more. Amateurs, she thinks. Too young to be working pros.”

Roman stopped talking, head bowed, eyes staring up under eyebrows that met over his hooked nose. Shit, the old bastard wasn’t saying a word. Just sitting there staring at the fire like it was a crystal ball. Didn’t he realize what had happened? Some fucking maniac had killed Christian like he was a pig at a peasant feast. Throat cut,
both
thumbs cut off and shoved up his ass, his chest with more stab holes in it than he had hairs in his red beard.

But Jesus, that wasn’t the worst part. Not by a long shot. Whoever did it had sliced off his dick, stuffing it in Christian’s mouth the way some Sicilian peasants would do when an outsider seduced one of their teen-age virgin daughters. Some sick fucking joke, if you asked Roman. Shooting a guy is one thing, but this kind of shit …

All right, so Christian liked teen-age girls, but he always paid for the ass he liked, sticking strictly to whores in every town he went to. Marseilles, Bordeaux, Paris. Always teen-agers, and
always
whores.

Maybe Christian had made a mistake this time. Sure, that’s it. He had fucked the wrong somebody’s daughter, and the kid’s father had found out and had his boys teach the fat man a lesson. Yeah, that’s it. Christian had stuck it into the wrong baby just one time too many.

Roman had heard of guys getting into trouble over young stuff, but this was the first time he actually had
seen
that kind of trouble. And what does the old man do about it? Nothing. Fucking nothing. He sits there and stares into the fire like he’s waiting for the flames to tell him something. The flames can tell him one thing: Christian’s not coming back.

The old man has lost a top chemist, a valuable man, a magic man. Fat Christian was worth his weight in gold, turning out top-quality heroin and doing it quickly. No accidents, no fucking around. No drugs, no booze. Just good food for the fat man, and teen-age whores.

What the hell was the old man going to do about getting whoever had done this crazy thing to Christian? You can’t let your people get killed like that and not do anything about it.

The old man was tough. So why was he sitting so quiet like that?

Roman shifted his weight from foot to foot, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, dropping his eyes to the floor—nervous gestures tinged with fear of what might be waiting for him one day. Castration. Christ, that was sick.

Count Lonzu turned his head toward Roman. “Remy. He’s made his move, he’s told us he wants blood for blood. My blood, my people’s blood. He’s getting even for Claude.”

Remy? Roman frowned, feeling ice in his stomach. Remy. Shit, all hell was going to break loose now.

The little man kept quiet. Something in the Count’s voice said, “Don’t interrupt.” The gray-haired man was speaking softly, each word wrapped in steel, and Roman was afraid of him.

“Remy wants blood. Very well. He’ll get blood. Listen to me carefully and do exactly what I say. First, tell Armand to take four men and go to Le Havre. Tell him to stay there, on the dock where Alain’s ship is due to land. Someone is to be there around the clock. No more than two men asleep at any time, and they are to sleep in their cars,
not
hotels. Sleep in their cars, you understand?”

Roman understood. Alain’s safety. And news of the
La Rochelle.
The little Corsican understood.

He nodded, chewing his lower lip, feeling his heart beat faster and faster. War had come. Men would die. The Count was no longer staring at the fire.

“Tell Armand to let you know if he needs more men. I want him to leave immediately. Have him call in every two hours, understand? Someone will be here at a phone around the clock. Any news of Alain’s ship,
any news,
Armand is to let me know. If Remy has men there, let me know that, too.”

Roman nodded. His throat was dry, and it was difficult to hold the Count’s gaze. The old man had eyes like knives. They dug into you. Hard gray eyes that put holes in your soul. Blinking, the little Corsican broke off, moving his eyes to the fireplace, flicking up to the wall where crossed halberds—six of them—hung on the wall.

Christian looked like he’d been worked over by one of those things up there on the wall—a twelve-foot-long pole with a large double-bladed ax and spear point at the end. Ugly weapon. Plenty of that stuff around the room—knives, crossbows, spears, shields. The Count collected it like his baby brother collected women.

“Are you listening to me?”

The Count’s voice sliced into Roman’s thoughts, jarring him.

“Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I am.”

You watch a man’s eyes, thought Count Lonzu. If his eyes wander, so does his brain. Alain’s life depends on what I do. So does my empire. Everything I own is now at stake. Remy wants war. He’s told me so. I must answer.

“After you finish with Armand, send Bertrand in to see me. I have something for him to do.”

Roman nodded, his eyes on the Count now. Somewhere in the huge room an antique clock chimed five times. It was getting late.

Bertrand. Roman knew him. A killer, big, with eyes too bright to be normal. A man who liked killing and who always finished any job the Count sent him to do. People were polite to Bertrand. The big man had a way of insisting on it, without saying a word.

Bertrand was in charge of security at the monastery, overseeing guards, dogs, alarms, and all electronic devices. While visitors could be checked by other guards and admitted to the monastery, all visitors had to be searched by Bertrand personally before being admitted in to see the Count.

Bertrand. A mean bastard. If the Count was planning to send him away from the monastery for even five minutes, there had to be a very special reason.