“And Yolanda – how is she?”
“I don’t think medical attention is needed.”
“How long until she’s fully recovered?”
The unconcerned flick of a hand. “Does it matter? All expenses are paid by the client.”
“The freak.”
“Call him what you wish. I pad the doctor’s bill, of course,” Orzibel grinned. “We make more money when he hurts them.”
“No amount of money covers the risk.”
“What risk? Chaku stepped in when things got loud. The client was angry for the moment but thanked him later. He actually tipped Chaku for restraining him in his wilder impulses. Chaku said even he was frightened by the man’s … passions.”
Amili tapped at the laptop and frowned. “The freak is getting more passionate, Orlando. Two sessions last year, four already this year. Last year the girls returned frightened but not injured. This year Mr Chalk has hurt three, two quite badly.”
“He has the money to pay for his pleasure.” Orzibel paused and turned his gaze to Amili. “Once the client was in a clear mind, he wanted to have a discussion, to feel me out on a subject. He stepped into this particular pond very delicately, and when he knew he could trust me, we went swimming together.”
“Get to the point, please.”
Orzibel turned. “The client would like to purchase a girl, Amili.”
“He does. Several times a year.”
“You don’t understand, Amili. Mr Chalk does not intend to return the girl. It would be impossible.”
18
“How long since you checked table fourteen, Michael?”
Michael Ballentine and Alberto Fuentes spoke quietly and polished glassware behind the copper-clad bar in the Orchid Lounge, the main watering hole in one of the premier hotels in Key West. Far from the din and tumult of Duval Street, the hotel was near the airport, nestled amidst stately king palms and lush, multitiered landscaping that provided a buffer between the hotel and the highway.
Ballentine glanced at his watch. “Eight minutes. I’ll head over soon. They’re guzzling hard tonight.”
“They had a shitty golf round,” Fuentes speculated, drawing on two decades of experience. “Or the market dropped.”
The Orchid was dark, candles flickering on tables and in booths cushioned with red leather, the candles in crystal chimneys. It was before the dinner hour and a dozen customers populated the lounge, businessmen mostly, talking business and golf.
The door from the lobby opened and the pair turned to a man in an immaculate vanilla suit cut to make the most of a mesomorph build, the lapels slender and the shoulders padded for extra width. His shirt was cobalt blue, the tie a muted scarlet. The man’s face was smooth and strikingly round, with a button-dab of nose and high, pudgy cheeks above a red pout of mouth. His mouse-brown hair fell coyly over an eye, pushed back every few seconds, like a tic. Though the man was in his early thirties, he wore the face of an insolent child, a caricature, almost, like a smug ventriloquist’s dummy.
The man paused inside the entrance and electric-blue eyes vacuumed the lounge, absorbing every detail, as if crucial to survival. The lips pursed in self-satisfaction and his beurre manié loafers sauntered lazily toward the bar.
“Oh, Christ,” Ballentine said. “It’s Chalk. I thought he’d gone to one of his homes on the mainland.”
“For some reason he’s stayed in KW this summer.”
“How about you serve him, Alberto,” Ballentine said. “He’ll leave a twenty-buck tip on a thirty-buck tab.”
“No, amigo,” Fuentes’s grin was wide beneath the expansive mustache. “I am in charge, and you need the money more.”
Ballentine snapped his vest straight. He took a deep breath, forced a smile to his lips and walked to the guest, now pulling back a stool.
“Good evening, Mister Chalk. Can I get you the usual?”
The man started to sit but paused, head suddenly canting as if hearing a single discordant note in an otherwise perfect symphony. The blue eyes lifted and fixed on Ballentine. He doesn’t look at you, Ballentine realized. He looks through you.
“My usual?” Chalk said as he resumed sitting. His voice was high, almost feminine. “When did I start having a usual, Michael?”
“I, uh – don’t you generally order a Sazarac, Mr Chalk?”
The guest regarded Ballentine. Seconds ticked by.
“I have ordered Sazaracs before, Michael. That is quite true.”
“Then may I prepare you a—”
The man’s rising hand cut the barkeep off. “But I have ordered gin and tonic and the occasional margarita, Michael.”