Enforcer (27 page)

The client squinted hard at Connor. The way Connor glowered back at him made him realize that it would be better to find another whore who could take his punishment than to cross the Romanian and end up having to owe the man. He’d heard stories about the Romanians and their version of
debt
. Once you were in debt to them, you never got out, like a roach motel, except instead of dying, you bled money until you had no more. Then you died.

“No, I understand.” The man licked his lips again, glancing nervously at Jera before looking back to Connor. “I think it would be best if we canceled this appointment then. I wouldn’t want to make Mr. Ojacarcu upset by thinking I might have mishandled one of his girls.”

“Probably for the best,” Connor said, giving Jera a rough shove to put her behind him. “You know how whores are, they’ll lie just to get someone to come and break one of your elbows or knees, especially if they know they can get away with it.” He looked back at Jera, giving her a look that promised her violence if she so much as breathed. “These bitches are nothing but trouble, but the boss pays us well to look after them. But don’t ever trust one as far as you can kick her.”

“No shit,” the client agreed, looking relieved that Connor was on his side.

“Unfortunately, I’ll have to ask you to pay for her services, since we did make the trip.” The client looked ready to protest until Connor said, “I know, I know. It’s shitty, but I don’t make the rules. I’d rather not explain why she showed up, but didn’t get paid. They don’t seem to care whether you fuck ‘em or not, they just want to get paid, and they want to make sure the next guy in line doesn’t get damaged goods, since damaged goods can’t make money.”

“Fucking Romanians,” the man said a moment before he realized that he’d let it slip.

“I agree wholeheartedly,” Connor said, clapping the man on the shoulder. “Can’t trust them any more than you can the whores, if you want my opinion.”

He held his hand out to let the client know it was time to pay up so they could part ways. The man dug around in his pocket and produced five hundred dollars. Connor wondered if the extra two hundred was the fee for being allowed to knock her around, put weird objects in her, make her scream in pain and terror.

The two men shook hands before Connor grabbed Jera’s arm and gave her another hard shove toward the front door. He looked back at the client with a
jeez, these dumb cunts, they never learn!
expression before shoving her out the front door and down the walkway. He heard the door close behind them and let out a heavy breath. If the man called his bluff and phoned Ojacarcu, Dracul would pay them a visit. He’d probably let the client torture Jera worse than she’d ever been tortured while making Connor watch. Connor was sure he’d be in a lot of pain of his own if that happened.

He felt Jera’s fingers curl into his as they walked toward the car.

CHAPTER 22

Summer

“Where to?” Connor asked as Jera climbed into the front seat.

“East Ridgeline, up in the foothills,” she said, pulling the sun shade down to check her makeup in the mirror.

Connor pulled out onto State Street and started working his way through the lightly trafficked roads to their destination. He glanced over at Jera while she touched up her mascara, wondering which version he’d get today. For the last three weeks, they’d waited for Dracul to show up out of nowhere to give them a refresher course on obedience. The client never called Ojacarcu to question Connor’s little speech, as far as they knew, anyway, though the boss might be saving up the black mark against them for another time.

The Lincoln pulled into the driveway of an expensive home, and Connor shut the engine off. He turned to look at her, unable to stop himself from asking her if she was going to be all right.

“Jera—”

“Connor,” she interrupted, “don’t talk to me before I have to go in. Just don’t.”

She opened the door and stepped out, pulling her miniskirt down on the sides. Connor wasn’t sure it could even be considered a miniskirt. It seemed more like a black gauze bandage that had been wrapped around her hips. He walked her to the door, both of them stepping inside when a middle-aged man in a robe opened the door. He exchanged Jera for the fee, checked the time on his phone, and nodded to both of them before leaving the house to wait in the car.

I miss you
he texted to Dana from the front seat of the Lincoln.
I’m sorry I have to work again.

He drifted through various radio stations, at one point stopping on the local sports station before moving on. Three weeks after their epic collapse in the third period and the city had already forgotten. The Steelheads had missed the playoffs and had received more sports coverage than the Bombers. The dominant conversation in the state was the BSU Broncos, poised for another trip to a bowl game. The season hadn’t even started, and the local bloggers and reporters had pegged them for one of the January bowls. Probably had them winning it as well.

It’s okay. I passed all of my finals btw
was Dana’s reply text. He pouted for a few seconds until a second text made his phone chime.
I miss you too. I have tomorrow off…

I’m there!
He hoped nothing would happen that would interfere with actually being with her all night.
What are you doing right now? Bored out of my mind here.

Thinking about you
she replied.
I’m going commando, that thought should keep you from being too bored.

Connor felt a quickening of his pulse at the thought. He looked toward the house, not really expecting to see anything or anyone, but it was a habit anytime he had been sent a racy text on his phone, as if the instant the text showed up, a crowd of disapproving old people would
tsk-tsk
him to death.

Now I’m annoyed that I’m stuck here
.

I’ll be here all night
Dana replied back, giving him a smiley face.

He wanted to message her back and forth the entire time he waited for Jera, but that would only make his emotional turmoil worse. He was trying to find a way to tell Dana that he loved her without screwing everything up. He had no idea if it was a good idea to say such a serious thing to her after only a few months.

Connor felt caught between the proverbial rock and hard place, wanting her to know how he felt, afraid it would blow up in his face if she ever found out what his
driving job
really was. Part of it would be Jera. Most of it would be because he had lied. All of his scenario conclusions ended in Dana saying he couldn’t possibly love her if he was willing to lie to her.

Half an hour later, Jera opened the door and got in. Her makeup was starting to wear down from sweat around her eyes, her breathing heavier than normal. He couldn’t help wonder if she liked some of the men she serviced, liked engaging in the act with them. The client she’d just left had been a decent looking man, and from what Connor could tell, he looked healthy and in shape.

Were some of them good to her? Did some of them think about more than themselves and try to bring her to climax? Did they do it because their wives were unable to get there, or showed no interest in trying? Or maybe the wives were fat or ugly or just refused to perform oral sex anymore? Since he had rarely been unable to find a companion to spend the night with when he really wanted to, and none of them ever refused anything, he couldn’t figure out what drove these men to hire a prostitute.

Some of Connor’s partners had wanted to do things that freaked him out a little, making him wonder if his view of sexuality was a bit skewed. None of the girls who worked for Ojacarcu were ugly, and he doubted that any of them were over twenty-one, which was a possible bonus for clients. Ojacarcu was also smart, turning local men on to these young, attractive women for free once or twice before the girl would let the men know they were available for a fee.

He decided that if he were looking for a hooker, he’d feel much more comfortable, much safer going through a service such as Ojacarcu’s than heading down to wherever the street walkers peddled their wares. Connor had been in Boise for four years, and still couldn’t think of a place where prostitutes walked the streets looking for customers like their sisters did in the major cities.

Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, those places had the population to support the lowest class of professional sex workers. Places like Boise, Idaho and Des Moines, Iowa weren’t the type of cities that had that kind of open-air vice, nor the infrastructure to support the larger organized crime family operations. However, the Treasure Valley had more than enough sinners and purveyors of vice to support a small network of call girls, drug dealing, extortion, loan sharking, even car theft and protection schemes.

The trick, Petre had told him a few times, was to keep everything as low-key as possible. New York City cops barely had time to respond to a firearm homicide before getting another call to look into a fatal stabbing. Houston vice squads had their pickings when it came to which blocks to target prostitutes or underground gambling operations. If one person disappeared in Boise, it wasn’t a big deal for the most part, and it helped tremendously when the missing person happened to be one of those inhabiting the lower end of the social spectrum.

Two persons, or one high-profile person, and all hell could break loose. Too much intimidation, too many of the boss’ drug networks compromised from reckless business practices, or too many clients sniffing around for a piece of purchasable ass, and somewhere along the line a cop with a burr up his ass and a desire to make Sergeant or Detective would start putting two and two together.

Disappearing
a law enforcement officer was a taboo so extreme that Ojacarcu would have to get permission from Bucharest before attempting it. Even under the most dire circumstances, permission would more than likely never come. It was easier for the bosses to eliminate one of their own than a troublesome local cop or federal agent. A gangster getting knocked off would be par for the course, business as usual, and the authorities would gnash their teeth publicly about their inability to pursue more justice by infiltrating the web that always revolved around organized criminal operations. Privately they’d pat each other on the back as another top gun got what he deserved, and was even saving the taxpayers some money by not living off the dole in prison or eating up prosecution time in the courts.

Connor’s thoughts were finally broken up by their arrival at Jera’s place. He parked and waited for her in the car while she cleaned up and changed to whatever clothes her next client preferred. He still hadn’t been able to decide if she liked some of the clients she had to serve. He knew that more than half were slimy, fat, old, ugly, or had some other feature that bordered on repulsive.

He’d met about twenty different ones in the last two months of being Jera’s driver. There were maybe three or four who didn’t seem disgusting. He had tried to ask her a couple of times, but she’d refused to talk about it. She didn’t seem ashamed of what she was doing, or being forced to do, but he could tell that there was a hollowness inside her, as if she had mastered the art of shutting herself completely down and putting her body and personality on auto-pilot. She would turn into Nightmare Jera when he tried to broach the subject, any subject concerning her profession.

She wouldn’t talk about the night he kept her from the client who wanted to hurt her. She’d let go of his hand the instant he opened the door to the car for her, and refused to say another word for the next two days to him other than telling him where to deliver her. However, Jera had begun to at least be civilized to him. Connor wondered if there was a conscience somewhere deep within her, hidden under the weight of drugs and poor life choices, that might have been awakened just enough to have a voice.

“Ten Mile Road, south of Overland Road,” she said after getting back into the Lincoln.

He did a double-take when he realized she was wearing a professional business suit, complete with black jacket, tight black skirt that went to her knees, black heels, and snow white stockings. Every other client wanted her in the skimpiest outfits the mind could imagine. Whoever she was scheduled to meet next was either weird, or had what Connor considered good taste.

“What?” she asked after noticing his stares.

“Nothing. I just… I really like that outfit.” Connor felt stupid for complimenting her, knowing a raging tirade or a string of insults would be coming his way.

“Yeah?” she asked, pulling the sun shade down, looking at herself in the mirror.

“Yeah.”

“What do you like about it?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It looks… it just looks great on you. I like it better than the trashy stuff you have to wear.”

“I don’t
have
to wear anything unless they request it. I wear what I think they will like. If I’ve visited them enough times, I know what they like.”

Connor didn’t like the thought of her enjoying the job enough to start catering her fashions to what the clients liked. It was another piece of evidence that suggested she didn’t actually hate what she was doing.

“And this guy likes the professional business woman?” he asked her.

“Sure. What man doesn’t?”