THE PERFECT KILL by A. J. Quinnell Read Free Book Online

muttered. She turned over. He tried to force himself into her rectum. She muttered something in French, and pulled away.
    “Dammit,” he snarled, “I gave you five hundred bucks up front.”
    “For that it’s another five hundred,” she said flatly.
    He cursed and then said, “OK bitch.”
    He tried again, and again she writhed away.
    “Five hundred in my hand,” she said.
    Another curse. He rolled off the bed and walked into the bathroom. A minute later he came out holding five hundred-dollar bills. She was lying on her stomach, her bottom raised, her left hand open. He put the bills into her hand. She pulled them in front of her face and studied them all carefully, just as she had the first five.
    “All right,” she said. “Go ahead.”
    It was brutal, but it didn’t last long. There was not a shred of gentleness in him. When it was over, he rolled off with a satisfied grunt.
    Within seconds she had gathered her clothes and her large handbag and disappeared into the bathroom. Within five minutes she came back out fully dressed. She did not look at him, just walked out into the lounge and then into the corridor; the door slammed behind her.
    “Bitch,” he thought, but then all his thoughts were frozen. The heavy maroon curtains opening onto the balcony had parted and a man was standing there.
    Joe Rawlings always liked to have sex with the lights full on. He recognised the man instantly and his heart turned to ice. The man, dressed in black trousers and a black long-sleeved polo neck shirt, walked over and stood looking down at him.
    “Hello Joe,” he said. “Or should I say hello Creasy?”
    The man held a black bag in his right hand, the kind of bag that doctors carry around. It was a full minute before Joe Rawlings moved. He edged himself up on the bed into a half sitting position.
    “Go and get it, Joe.”
    Joe Rawlings’s eyes were those of a cornered snake looking into the eyes of a mongoose. His voice was a croak. “Get what?”
    “The money, Joe, what’s left of it…go get the money…it’s in the bathroom.”
    Again a croak, “What money?”
    “The money Senator James S. Grainger gave you, Joe…the sodomy money, Joe. Go get it, and if you leave as much as a single dime, I’ll cut your prick off…and Joe, if I do that the girl who just left would give me the whole damn thousand back.”
    Joe Rawlings very slowly, very carefully rolled off the bed. He moved to the chair on which his clothes were draped.
    “No, Joe. Go into that bathroom naked.”
    Rawlings crept to the bathroom door. He had matted black hair on his back. As he reached the door the voice stopped him. The voice that was so soft, so gentle.
    “Joe, also bring the gun, the little Beretta the one you always leave with your stash. And Joe, when you come out of that bathroom door, you will be carrying the bucks in your right hand and holding the Beretta in your left holding it by the end of the barrel between your thumb and forefinger.”
    Rawlings was about to move, but the voice came again, as soft as silk, “On the other hand, Joe, if you want to hold it by the butt you do just that.”
    The snake moved into the bathroom. The mongoose dropped the black bag on the floor, spread his legs and slipped his right hand into his trouser pocket.
    A minute later the snake came out of the bathroom. In his right hand he held a thick wad of hundred dollar bills. In his left, a small blackgun. He held it by the end of the barrel, between his thumb and forefinger.
    Creasy said, “Toss them both onto the bed, Joe.” The money and the gun thumped onto the bed.
    Creasy reached down, picked up the black bag and gestured at the door to the lounge.
    The left index finger came off easily, but then the instrument was a surgeon’s saw, and Creasy was a powerful man. He had used only a heavy local anaesthetic, the rest of Joe Rawlings’s hand and left arm would be numb and senseless for twenty-four hours. They sat side by side. On the table in