The Betrayer (24 page)

Appear where they cannot go, head for where they least expect you.

— Sun Tzu

Vitali was dreaming, not of home but the long journey to it, which he hoped to begin any day now.

Or maybe even sooner than that. Maybe even any hour now.

Just a phone call away.

Waking from his dream, he had to look around to remember where he was. For a second he thought he was still in that hotel in Portsmouth, but then he realized this was his room in the Chelsea Hotel. He checked his watch; it was two in the afternoon. He had only managed to sleep a few hours, but he didn’t need more than that. He had returned to his room around eight this morning and had been told by his benefactor to sit tight and wait for his call. Vitali had hoped that the call would be what woke him —
It’s time, we’ve flushed him out, here’s what you’ve been waiting for.

Kill the man who had killed your father.

But that didn’t turn out to be the case. Sitting up, he reached for his cell phone and checked to make sure it was working. It was. He checked the battery status, saw that it was fully charged. Standing, he grabbed the pack of cigarettes he had borrowed from Smith and crossed to the window that overlooked Twenty-Third Street. He opened the box, removed the slim disposable lighter and the last remaining cigarette, placed the cigarette between his lips, and lit it.

He was frustrated and smoking helped ease that, at least to a point. Smith’s brand — Camels — were as terrible tasting as all the other American brands he’d been forced to smoke these past three years, but that was the trade-off he was required to endure, wasn’t it? Smoking brought some relief to the tension building steadily inside him, but it also reminded him of the French and Spanish brands he sorely missed.

And that would be available to him when he was finally able to leave this place, when he was free to strike out on his own and wander Europe and relax, at least till it was time for him make some real money again.

Beating the Coyle boy this morning, while enjoyable in itself, wasn’t satisfying, not in the way he needed it to be. He was, therefore, edgy, and didn’t like the feeling. Edgy led to mistakes, edgy meant his urges could overrule his intellect, and that was dangerous. Even the slightest infraction — the slightest oversight due to impulse — could lead to his undoing. He knew he would need to do something about that, and soon. He thought of the many videos at his disposal — viewing one would help take the edge off, that was true, but
making
a new one would calm him in the way he needed to be calmed.

He wondered if there was a maid somewhere in this hotel, cleaning a room at this very moment, her supply cart in the hallway, the door left ajar. A young thing, perhaps, small enough to dispose of easily once he was done with her.

Would her employers think she simply walked off the job? How long before they got the police involved?

But he couldn’t take that risk, not now, no matter how much he craved the act that drove his every waking moment.

Taking and killing and slipping away
.

Attack, sustain, release.

He would have to live with the frustration a little longer. He would have to wait.

But then he thought of the woman in the room below his. The blonde with the Slavic face. She had said her name was Rachel when he had met her in her room shortly after she had arrived. Professional courtesy — get to know each other, size each other up.
Her face was a glimpse at what awaited Vitali upon his return home. Broad, prominent cheekbones, angular jaw. A hard face.
He’d had his first woman when he was thirteen, and had killed his first woman two years later — all of them possessed some variation of that face.

She is at your disposal.
Isn’t that what his benefactor had said?

There would be power in that, no? Telling her to undress, having her submit — tell her it was part of the job, she could not say no.

He had set up his hidden camera, so he would need to bring her back to his room if he was going to record this.

Perhaps he would make her undress first, then walk from her room up to his naked.

The thought of that sent heat to his very core.

He dressed, set his cell phone on vibrate, then left his room and headed down the stairs. He had a copy of her room key — a necessity, in case something happened to her, he had told her. In case he had to “scrub” her room — remove any equipment she may have left behind, any incriminating evidence or identifying articles of clothing.

It was partially true, yes. But she had looked at him in a way that led him to suspect that she knew fully well what it really meant.

He reached her room and knocked on the door. As he waited, he looked up and down the corridor, saw no one. When he didn’t get an answer, he knocked once more, then used the key card and entered.

The room was empty, the bed made. He checked the bathroom. There was no indication of recent use — the sink, tub, and shower curtain were all dry.

Vitali checked the dresser drawers. Empty. So was the closet. A single duffel bag lay beside the TV. Something told him to grab it.

He was back in his room and about to go through the bag when his cell phone buzzed in his pocket.

An incoming text, not a call.

His benefactor had never texted before, so Vitali was immediately suspicious. But the message it contained seemed straightforward enough.

Meet Smith, NE corner 23 and
8, 15 minutes.

Vitali replied,
Will do.

He was heading for the door when a second text came through.

Bring her clothing.

There was only one “her.”

He grabbed the duffel.

The car that pulled to the curb was a late-model Ford sedan. Vitali made sure that Smith was the vehicle’s only occupant before getting in.

Smith tossed an unopened pack of Camels onto Vitali’s lap.

“So you can stop bumming mine,” Smith said.

Vitali thanked him, then asked where they were going.

“Up north. Thirty minutes from here.”

Vitali didn’t need any more information than that.

They rode in silence up the West Side Highway, crossed into the Bronx via the Henry Hudson Bridge, then headed north on the Saw Mill River Parkway. Vitali chain-smoked four cigarettes, tossing each one out the window when he was done with it.

Twenty minutes later they were exiting the parkway. Several quick turns after that, they were pulling into the parking lot of the Saw Mill River Motel.

Smith noticed that Vitali was looking for surveillance cameras.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s clear.”

Smith removed two pairs of gloves from the glove compartment. He kept one pair and offered the other to Vitali.

They exited the vehicle and headed for the room farthest from the manager’s office. Vitali slung the duffel bag over his shoulder. Smith unlocked the door with a key card and the two men entered.

The curtains were drawn over the only window, the room surprisingly dark for daytime. Still, Vitali could see that the woman named Rachel was lying on the bed, under the blankets. Her eyes were closed, her breathing soft but steady. A bandage was wrapped around her head.

“What happened?” Vitali said. He spoke softly, more curious than concerned.

“The Coyle woman got the better of her, apparently.”

Vitali stepped closer to the bed and studied the woman’s injuries. “How bad is she?”

“Don’t know.”

“She unconscious or sedated?”

“Sedated. We need to get her back to the city so our doctor can check her out.”

“I can’t be seen with her.”

“It’s all right.”

“How we will get her into the hotel?”

“We’re not going back to the hotel. He has a new place for you two.”

Smith pulled back the covers. The blonde was naked. Vitali didn’t need to ask why; her clothes had likely been tainted with her own blood, and maybe the blood of her attacker, so they would have been disposed of. Had she done that? In her condition? Not likely. And she couldn’t have had new clothes to change into, so she would have had to return from wherever she had tossed them naked, or, at best, wrapped in a blanket from the motel bed.

No, someone else had taken care of that. The same someone who had sedated her and wrapped her wounds.

Vital took a look at the woman’s body. Strong, but he knew that, had determined that during their initial meeting. She probably weighed a good 150 — her height and powerful legs and broad shoulders accounted for much of that, but she also carried a layer of body fat evenly distributed throughout her torso.

He noticed that she, like himself, had no body hair at all. The sight of her bare vagina, combined with her unconscious state, stirred him.

“We need to get her dressed,” Smith instructed. “But first things first.”

Vitali looked at the man. Smith was aiming his cell phone at the woman. He took several photographs of her, some full body shots from a few feet away, others extreme close-ups of her private parts. “Don’t be shy,” he said to Vitali.

Vitali, to his surprise, felt a wave of jealousy. But he ignored it.

When Smith was done taking pictures, he removed a capsule of smelling salts from his pocket and broke it under the woman’s nose. Her head rolled lazily from side to side. Smith kept it close to her nostrils. She came to, but only barely.

Vitali handed Smith the duffel, and from it Smith removed a blouse, pair of jeans, and shoes. There were undergarments among her things, but Smith didn’t want to bother with them. They proceeded to dress the woman, Smith pausing now and then to touch her — first her waxed vagina, which he said was the smoothest he’d ever felt, then her breasts, which he concluded were real. Vitali felt a powerful mix of jealousy and arousal but said nothing. Nor did he join in. He was sure he would get his chance with her. His chance to fuck her and then kill her. He hoped, suddenly, that before this was over he would get the chance to kill Smith as well.

A gesture of professional solidarity.

After the woman was dressed, Smith removed the bandage from around her head. Her short blonde hair was matted with blood in several places. Vitali searched through the duffel, found a cotton cap with a long bill — standard issue for someone in their line of work, a simple solution to keeping one’s face hidden in a world of overhead surveillance cameras.

Vitali held on to the cap as Smith used another capsule of smelling salts to wake the woman. When she attempted to pull away, Smith grabbed the back of her neck and held her so she couldn’t move. It took a moment before she could look Smith in the eye with a degree of cognition.

And then, to help her reach full consciousness, Smith slapped her face once, then again.

Vitali felt a rush of rage — nothing more, he told himself, than the displeasure of seeing a fellow professional being treated in such a manner. He didn’t hold his tongue this time.

“Hey,” he said.

“We need her awake,” Smith replied.

Vitali decided it would be best to keep his objection free of anything that could be interpreted as concern. “She has head injuries,” he said. “You want to make them worse?”

“We’re on a schedule,” Smith replied impatiently. He turned his back to Vitali, and it was then that Vitali noticed that Smith was wearing a bulletproof vest under his shirt.

Now that he wanted to kill Smith, his eyes sought out such things.

Smith addressed Rachel as if she were an infirm old woman. “We’re going to get you out to the car. You’re going to have to walk. Can you do that?”

She nodded, then looked at Vitali, locking her gaze on him.

He tried to read her expression but couldn’t. Had she heard him come to her defense just now? Was her look that of one seeking out the only ally in the room?

Or was she simply aware that her failure with the Coyle woman meant Vitali would likely be ordered to kill her at some point?

Was her stare, then, just a matter of her being unwilling to take her eyes off him?

The last man she would want to wake up and see.

The last man she may very well ever see.

Smith pulled the woman to her feet, did so roughly. He had no patience, didn’t care that she was injured, clearly just wanted to get the hell out of there. He told Vitali to strip the bed of its sheets and pillowcase — anything that might retain traces of the woman.

Vitali did what he was told, then exited first, carrying the items he’d gathered in the duffel. He made a visual sweep of the area as he walked toward the Ford but saw no one. He was in the backseat when Smith and Rachel finally exited. They were walking arm in arm, as a couple would. Rachel was wearing the cap to hide the blood, but also to obscure her distinctive face with its long bill. Smith’s head was bowed slightly. They moved quickly but casually.

The woman sat in the backseat with Vitali as Smith drove them back toward the city.

The only words spoken were when the woman asked for a cigarette.