‘Just a second! What do you mean the killer quoted the Bible?’
Dial smiled. Rose had taken the bait. The truth was he was trying to shield the Bible angle from all outsiders, fearing if the media reported it that every religious fanatic in the world would be asking him questions about the Bible that he didn’t know how to answer. But Dial also knew if he was going to get any top secret dirt from Rose, he was going to have to reveal some of his own. Nothing major, just enough to make it seem like give-and-take instead of take, take, take.
So he said, ‘Joe, I could get in big trouble for telling you this. However, if you promise to keep this quiet…’
‘You have my word, Nick. This is between us. I promise.’
Dial nodded, satisfied. ‘The killer left a note that said, “IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER.” Nailed it on the cross above the victim, just like the sign above Christ.’
‘But why?’ he gasped. ‘Why would he do that?’
‘We’re not sure, Joe, we’re really not. But that’s why I need to know everything about Father Jansen. His duties, his enemies, his secrets. It’s the only way to stop the killers from doing this again. It’s the only way to save lives.’
‘My Lord! You think they’re going to kill again!’
‘Yes, and I wouldn’t be shocked if they followed the same pattern.’
‘You mean more priests?’
‘No, Joe, I mean more crucifixions.’
19
Ratchadapisek Road,
Bangkok, Thailand
Raj Narayan had been spoiled his entire life. His father was a powerful man in Nepal, a fact that Narayan pointed out to anyone who got in his way.
Of course there were some drawbacks to his life – the major one being his inability to do anything without it becoming national news. So when Narayan felt the urge to be bad, he was forced to leave Nepal for the anonymity of a foreign country. And this was one of those times.
Ratchadapisek Road is lined with nightclubs and fancy hotels and some of the finest restaurants in all of Asia, yet none of that mattered to Narayan. He made the two-hour flight to Bangkok every month and did it for one reason only: the world-famous massage parlors. Within a span of five blocks, there were over twenty spas. Each of them catered to the needs of foreigners, men who were willing to spend more cash in a single night than the average Thai worker made in an entire year.
Narayan was a good-looking man in his early thirties. Jet-black hair, dark eyes, and more self-confidence than Muhammad Ali. He had visited Bangkok on several occasions and spent so much cash at Kate’s Club, a quiet club off the main drag, that the manager was willing to empty the lounge whenever Narayan was in town.
He sipped on a Bombay martini as the girls, wearing high heels and short negligees, took their seats in the fishbowl, a gallery that was tucked beyond a thick wall of glass. Most of the women were Oriental, an even mixture of Thai, Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese. Yet the most revered women in Bangkok were the Asian girls with porcelain skin, for it gave them an appearance of purity, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth.
But in this world, appearance was all that mattered.
Women were broken down into four categories: normal, super, sideline, and model – guidelines that determined how much they were paid for their services.
Normal girls were the cheapest of the four and included ladies who were dark-skinned, over the age of twenty-five, or a few pounds overweight. But they were not ugly. Sometimes they possessed a flaw as small as a tiny scar that lowered their value and status.
Super girls, on the other hand, didn’t have to be super models as long as they were trained in the art of the ‘super massage,’ a full-body soap technique done on large rubber mats that was considered an art form in Thailand, one that was taught in special classes by Thai women who were too old to work in a club. To many foreign men, the act was so erotic that they would fly to Bangkok just to be bathed.
The sideline girls were the wild cards of the group. They came and went as they pleased, sometimes working in several clubs per night. They usually sat at the bar, hoping to catch the eye of a stranger while trying to convince him to buy her a drink that would ultimately lead to more.
But never with Narayan. The truth was he wasn’t interested in normal, super, or sideline girls. In his mind they were undeserving of his attention or his family seed. To him the models were the only group that mattered. They were the cream of the crop. The best of the best. So stunning that many of them had been featured in American magazines like Penthouse or Cheri.
When it came to these women, Narayan couldn’t help himself. They were far too beautiful to ignore. The way they pranced and preened under the spotlight. The way they smiled at him through the glass and looked at him like he was the only man in the world. The way they caressed their skin with gentle touches, rubbing the contours and crevices of their bodies in a naughty fashion, silk nighties hanging off their shoulders like dew on a lotus blossom. There was something about the way they moved that affected him, something deep inside.