The Consummata (7 page)

Her eyes didn’t leave mine. Something seemed to satisfy her at last, because she still smiled and the pleasure remained in her face. “Your wife must be a very special woman.”

“I haven’t seen her for a year. If we’re both lucky, I’ll never see her again.”

She frowned. “I do not understand.”

“Not sure I do either, kid.”

Her head went back. Her breasts jutted. And this time, if those feds had flashed a light on me, I’d have been hard enough to pass the audition.

“A man of such determination I must kiss,” she said. “That you cannot refuse me. A woman’s heart is pleased that such men still exist.”

I couldn’t have stopped her if I’d wanted to.

She stepped out of the pile of clothes and walked toward me, exhilarating in her nakedness, the constant challenge apparent in the subtle, eager flexing of the muscles that played under that soft olive flesh. She reached down, tilted my chin up, then bent at the waist and let her mouth brush mine softly, the wish plain behind the lush dampness, but no insistent demand at all. Inadvertently, my fingertips brushed the firm texture of her thigh, then I drew them back and she stood.

“I could love you, Morgan.”

“Not a good idea.”

“You are right. I should not fall into a trap that you do not wish to set.”

She walked away and stood in front of the mirror over the dressing table, studying me in the glass. Her rump was a rounded, dimpled distraction.

“What is it you
do
want, Morgan? There are things I could do for you,
to
you, that may not violate your quaint morality. Tell me, and whatever it is I will give it to you.”

“A gun,” I said. “Standard Army issue Colt .45 automatic.”

Her eyes laughed at me. “That is all?”

“For now,” I said. “So put your clothes on and fill me in.”

Watching her go through the measured motions of dressing was even more torturous than seeing her strip. Everything
she did now appeared unconsciously exciting, and I couldn’t stop looking at her.

You could die tomorrow, man,
a voice was saying.
Hell, you could die tonight. And you don’t want to say yes to this finely stacked beauty?

Maybe she didn’t mean to tempt me.
Right.
She
had
to be deliberately tantalizing about the whole process or she wouldn’t have been a woman. When they have you in a bind, they like to put the screws to you all the way.

When she was done, she smiled gently at me and said, “You really
could
have taken advantage of me,
Señor
Morgan. But I do think morality becomes you.”

“I was just thinking it’s a pain in the ass,” I said. “Now fill me in some more on this operation you have working here.”

“Gladly,
Señor
Morgan. What you have seen up to this point was simply an emergency route, if there was ever necessity to make a quick and safe exit. It leads only to this room.”

These were very special quarters, then—a sort of hotel suite-style safe house.

“I assure you,” she was saying, “that the remainder of the premises are much more elaborate, and more varied in their escape possibilities.”

“Well, you never know when you’re going to have to make a fast exit out of a whorehouse.”

That actually got a little laugh out of her. She gestured. “Come, there are others waiting to meet you...and I can give you a glimpse of what
else
is on offer here....”

Gaita’s brief description of the establishment was much too modest.

From selected apertures at strategic locations, I was able to see the plush bar and tap room, a polished mahogany restoration of the gilt-edged 1900s. There was a casino adjoining with a Vegas-like array of gaming and a small stage at one end, and buffet tables against two walls, prime rib and cracked crab and all sorts of goodies for patrons who had worked up an appetite, presumably having sated other appetites they’d brought with them.

The dark-haired Cuban cutie pointed out tactfully concealed entrances to the upstairs rooms where customers could discreetly avail themselves of certain services. And everything was modernized now—no such thing as cash anymore, this was strictly a credit card business with coded statements at addresses or post office boxes of the client’s choice. Those enjoying the facilities were carefully screened before admittance, vouched for and vetted and to date there had been no police intervention at all.

It took longer than it should have, but finally it hit me.

I was inside the notorious Mandor Club, that ultra-select bordello whose existence was whispered about in elite circles and known to but a few.

I had stumbled across the name ten years earlier, in Rio, when a lovely-but-been-around redhead had invited me out on a cruise on her yacht, which she hadn’t obtained by selling Girl Scout Cookies door to door. She’d been great company and a memorable lay, but had become a little maudlin halfway through a magnum of champagne and damn near told me the story of her life, whether I wanted to hear it or not.

Four years as a Mandor Club hostess had set the redhead up in luxury for life, but the stipulation was that she retire outside the United States, a requirement for all of the club’s retirees. Giddy or not, she realized fairly deep in her tale that she’d spilled too much, got a little pale, spilled some more over the rail of the boat, then said no more on the subject of one of the world’s greatest whorehouses.

“Well laid out,” I told Gaita, “if you’ll pardon the expression.”

A smile twitched the lush lips. “A grand old dream of a grand old man...long dead.” She gestured like a guide on a palace tour. “The building itself was once a mansion, surrounded by others of its kind, but over the years people of wealth moved to other places, and many of the structures were brought down. This fine old place, sitting back on generous grounds, was in a good position for new owners to...conduct business.”

“You’re not talking about last week.”

“No. More like...last century.”

I gazed down at the floor again where several beautiful women in tasteful if low-cut evening dress had gathered, preparing for a cheerful night’s debauch. They were Latin,
they were Asian, they were black, they were white. I might have to revise my opinion of the United Nations.

I asked, “Who runs the joint
this
century,
querida
?”

“You are about to meet her.” Gaita took my arm. “This way please,
señor
.”

A door activated by a buzzer from the interior opened onto a room as functionally modern as an insurance company office. Business machines were beside the two empty desks, filing cabinets lined the walls, a new, formidable-looking vault dominated the rear, and the only decorative concessions to the nature of this business were two oil-painting nudes by a world-famous pin-up artist in elaborate gilt frames, and a leather couch beside a paisley wall hanging.

Beneath the paintings, at a gray, glass-topped steel desk, sat a woman of almost timeless beauty, fingering the neckline of a sleek black dress, then idly running her fingers through piled-high blonde hair with weird purple highlights. This stunning, mature beauty was slowly scanning the pages of a ledger.

Her birth name had been Louise Cader Gibbs. Her husband had died in a federal prison ten years ago, early in a term resulting from a stock market scandal that had turned Wall Street upside down and sideways. She hadn’t looked up yet, so she didn’t see me grinning.

I said, “Hell, Bunny, you
do
bounce back, don’t you?”

Then her eyes rose to mine, and hit with the force of a punch. Her face went through a strange transformation as a montage of reminiscences played in her brain and reflected out her eyes.

Finally she chuckled deep in her throat. “Damn,” she said. “Morgan the Raider. The only son of a bitch who ever managed to take that old fox I married for a hunk of his illacquired fortune.”

“It’s what I do,” I said with a shrug. “Or anyway, what I used to do.”

Gaita was looking quizzically at us both. “Madam...I am not surprised you know
of
Morgan...but you
know
Morgan?”

Bunny sat back and relished the moment, then rose and walked over to me with her hand outstretched. “Know him? Honey, I once paid out a contract to have him killed.” Her hand was strong and warm in mine. “Remember that, Morgan?”

“Rings a bell.”

“But...” Gaita smiled. “...he does not seem to be dead, Madam.”

Bunny laughed that deep laugh again and shook her head. “No, but two times, guys supposed to do the job were found
completely
dead. And seemed nobody wanted to pick up my contract after that.”

“Can I help it,” I said, “that you hired accident-prone types?”

“Anybody who takes you on, Morgan, is an accident waiting to happen.”

“Still sore?”

“Hell no, Morgan! A major rule of business is knowing when not to throw good money after bad....I wrote it off as a loss. Even found a way to deduct it off my taxes that year.”

“Must have been interesting wording on that tax form.”

She gestured to a chair and I sat, while she perched nearby on the edge of her desk. A lot of leg showed, thanks to a slit in the black dress—nicely rounded gams, more substantial than the Twiggy types, and fine by me.

“Sure burned my husband’s heinie, though,” she said with a chuckle. “He bitched about not getting even with you till the day he died—indignant to the end...and with all the people
he
screwed over, who never got even with
him
!”

“We all see the world through our end of the telescope, Bunny.”

She shook her head. Great smile on the gal, lots of white teeth that were maybe even hers. “What did you ever do with that dough? Better than half a
million
you nipped us for. And that was back when half a mil was money.”

“Well, I saw some of the world I hadn’t seen so far. You know me and boats.” I leaned back and gave her the onceover. “You look pretty damn good, Bunny. Don’t you know madams aren’t supposed to look better than their girls? Crazy hair, though.”

She touched a purple streak. “Sets me off from those girls. Like the man says, a madam has to
look
like a madam, otherwise she’d disappoint the customers.” She paused and laughed again. “Anyway, I’m not fool enough to believe I can compete with my girls.” She touched her generous bosom. “This chick has got some miles on her...but at least I found my level.”

“What happened to high society?”

She snorted a laugh. “The
grande dames
booted me out ...and now I socialize more with their husbands than I ever
did with them. As a matter of fact, I’ve begun to think I’ve found the profession I was truly cut out for. The old fox knew what he was doing when he bought this place back when he had the bread...this was the only investment we hung onto! So don’t feel sorry for me.”

“Never that, Bunny.”

She stared at me, as if through new eyes. “So
you’re
the one that got the mission,” she mused. “I didn’t know
who
it would be.”

“You’re playing kind of funny games, aren’t you, Bunny? Traveling in strange circles?”

Her smile turned sideways. “That makes two of us, doesn’t it?”

“I could expect it of me.”

“But not of me, eh? Well, my old friend, don’t fool yourself. Times have changed, people change with them. I’m here, where I am accepted, instead of castigated, and I have good friends in strange places. Anyway, the old fox and I had investments in Cuba that we lost when that bearded bum took over.”

I grinned big. “Ah. So there lies the source of your Cuban exile sympathies.”

“They’re nice people, and I don’t like to see nice people get hurt.” She reached out and squeezed my arm. “I’m glad it’s you, Morgan. It’ll take a man like you to take Jaimie Halaquez down. I’m going to follow this with pleasure.” She tossed a thumb at Gaita, who had melted back into the periphery. “They’ve assigned you a good one.” Then to Gaita, “Do you have everything ready?”

“For this evening, madam? Yes.”

“Good. Then take Morgan back to your room and keep him out of sight until it’s time. He’ll need a lot of filling in.”

I sat forward. “This little kitten’s already done a good share of filling me in. But you could do some more.”

Bunny’s eyebrows rose. “Oh?”

“What can you tell me about Halaquez?”

The madam was frowning. “What has Gaita told you?”

“That he was a patron here. That he’s a ruthless killer with sadistic tastes that bleed over into his sexual kinks.”

Her laugh held a hollow ring. “Well, Morg, you seem to know the score already.”

I shook my head. “I need to
really
know this bastard if I’m going to track him. Get specific, doll.”

She frowned. Mentally, she sorted through file cards, selecting just the right facts, just the right words. “He’s an odd one, even for a customer into bondage and discipline. He wants the shame of it, even to torture. His needs extend well beyond what we provide here at Mandor.”

“Such as?”

“The lash.”

My jaw damn near dropped. “He wants to be whipped?”

“Yes. But that is not why we came to forbid him from our doors.”

“You
banned
his ass?”

She nodded. “The game of submission is such that there are guidelines—lines that don’t get crossed, code words agreed upon to stop the game. But he would push the women hired to dominate him—beg them for more.”

“More torture?”

“More pain. Yes.”

I thought about it. “Okay. So the idiot wants his ass whipped. Whip it, and take his credit card number. Why not?”

“If only it were that simple.” Bunny glanced at Gaita, whose head was lowered. “When the game was over, when the girl had done whatever he asked...he would pay, as required, he would even provide a handsome tip. But on occasion...not every time, perhaps once every three visits, then later on, after every other visit...he would punish the girl.”

Frowning, I said, “I thought these freaks
liked
being dominated.”

“Oh, they do. But when the game is over, some feel shame, and a sado-masochistic bastard like Halaquez will suddenly take it out on the very person he hired to humiliate him.”