country lane. I pulled up twenty minutes later, after a roundabout drive through empty parts of town.
âIâve already got the hole dug,â he told me.
I noticed his hand gripping a handgun pointing at the ground.
âYou really donât trust me, do you?â
âYou know how these things go, my friend. This is exactly when they decide to kill you and you wind up at the bottom of the grave you just dug, keeping a corpse company. Then the next thing you know a hotel night clerk has identified both dead bodies and the police close the books on a turbulent love affair gone wrong.â
âI wish Iâd thought of that myself,â I kidded him, as I swung open the back hatch of the SUV.
Â
Nicoletta had regained a modicum of self-control. With a cigarette dangling from her lips she was packing up the personal effects of the unfortunate Isabel in her upstairs bedroom. I saw a roll of bills on the night table. I tucked the cash into my overcoat pocket.
âShe wonât be needing it.â
âWhere did you . . . â
âDo you really want to know?â
She shook her head and cigarette ashes tumbled onto the clothing piled on the bed. âWhat should I tell the other girls?â
âThe same fairytale that theyâre all wishing would come true,â I answered. âThe Russian fell in love with her, bought her from you, and took her off to Moscow to live a life of luxury surrounded by sable stoles, caviar, vodka, and diamonds.â
âThatâs such a moronic story theyâd probably fall for it.â
I watched her pack for a while. âI think you should listen to me very carefully right now, Nicoletta. I wouldnât want for there to be anything less than a perfect understanding between the two of us.â
âWhat are you talking about?â
âA series of small but meaningful details,â I replied. âBuried along with Isabel, who is very well protected by a plastic bag, is your silk scarf and one of your own personal towels, along with the towel from the hotel.â
âWhy are you threatening me? You know Iâll never talk.â
âSee what I mean? Youâre still not listening carefully, the way I asked you to,â I scolded her. âIâm telling you that everything surrounding this murder points straight at you and only you.â
I held out my hands, encased in latex gloves.
âI didnât leave my fingerprints on anything, but you did. Thereâs blood in your nice living room and in your SUV, and thereâs no way youâll be able to eliminate every last trace of it.â
âBut you killed her.â
âMaybe so, but the evidence all points to you,â I explained in a faintly whiny, pedantic tone of voice. âI want to remind you that the night clerk saw you take a bleeding Isabel away from the hotel. And thatâs something any criminal court in the country would view as a decisive piece of testimony,â I added as I held up a clear pastic bag holding the bottle of rum that Iâd made sure to pick up before walking upstairs.
âAnd here are your fingerprints on this bottle, along with the dead girlâs.â
âYou bastard,â she hissed, as she lunged for the bag. I rammed my fist into her solar plexus. It wasnât a hard punch, but it stopped her cold.
âWhy are you doing this to me?â
âI trust you, Nicoletta. Weâve been friends for a long time, weâre business partners, and I wouldnât give up your blowjobs for anything in the worldâtheyâre definitely the best in town. But people change and so Iâd like to be positive that you would never try to rip me off.â
I blew her a kiss and slipped out of the house, walking through the dark to the car Iâd parked in a nearby street.
I watched Martina applying her creams and thought back to Isabel. It had been eleven years since the last time I killed somebody.
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