Page 18 of Dagger in the Sea

I picked up the concierge phone. “José, Ms. Ciara is no longer welcome at my home. Do not let her into the building ever again. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. DeMarco.”

I hung up the phone and drained my glass, tearing off my tie and tossing it on the bar. So what if I was thirty-three and had never been in a long, successful love relationship? So what if I’d never been engaged or married? I’d saved myself the thousand irritations and petty annoyances that came with it. A few of my college buddies who’d been married for about five to seven years now were already bitching and complaining and looking war weary. The tedium was real. I certainly wasn’t going through that crap.

My mommy and daddy had been just a flash of lust in the dark for a handful of weeks, and then it was done, nothing more than an opportunity for a con and a smack on the face for her. Even I’d felt the sting of that crack. Me? I distilled my needs and wants perfectly with women.

I caught my splintered reflection in the broken mirror. My face was drawn, dark circles under my eyes. My hand rubbed against the edge of my jaw. I was the fine, upstanding, not so young anymore, citizen of my community from a well-respected family. But I was also an underground killer and a fixer and a pimp for hire.

“But a shadow in both worlds,”a voice whispered in my ear.

A chill raced over my flesh, and I let out a tight breath shaking those words away, yet a hit of tension knifed my gut. Fuck that. I dialed Tricia’s number on my cell. My madame.

A classmate and study partner in business school, Tricia had a hard time paying her undergrad and graduate student loans once we got out into the real world. I offered her a managerial position which needed her looks, poise, and merciless organizational skills. She hadn’t been offended. Like me, she appreciated cash and had no moral qualms about sex. Business was business. We made a good team.

“Hello there,” her singsong voice magnified the swirl of my anticipation.

“Tricia, send me someone.”

Her voice perked up even more. “Any preferences this evening?”

“Short to medium height, pale skin, blue eyes. And tattoos.”

“I have just the girl. But she’s a newbie, still in training, and I don’t want you to be disappointed.”

My dick hardened in my trousers. “Sounds perfect. In fact, I’ll make sure she’s ready for you. It’s been a long time since I’ve done any training.”

“It certainly has. Um, are you okay? You sound—”

“Send her over now. With a goody bag.”

“You’ve got it.”

When my father had given me his small brothel business to run, I first focused on cleaning up the accounting, then the seedy locations that were used. Then I got down to the product, the centerpieces, the stars of the spectacle. I showed the women not just sexual moves hungry men would go for, but the way to talk to a client, how to change up their demeanor according to tastes and preferences in order to make the fuck all the more satisfying and tailor made. How toengage. You wanted that john to remember the experience, to leave him desperate for more, to be convinced he needed more. Return, steady clients were top priority. I even had a couple of top executive gay women who were steady clients.

Tricia and I chose our stable carefully, kept our girls clean, healthy, and happy with good pay, clothing allowances, regular doctor visits, and client screening. Unlike in my father’s day, when all he gave a shit about was getting the most bang out of his buck—literally—and not giving a shit about anything else. Completely wrong. Yes, online porn was the rage now and a great moneymaker for the Outfit, but prostitution was the greatest theater of them all, and it was sorely taken for granted.

“Turo, before you go, I have some news for you,” Tricia brought me back to the present.

“What is it?”

“I just got another call from Mr. James Bradley,” she said, her voice liquid honey over the phone. She knew I’d be pleased. “He requested Nari again.”

“Did he now?”

“He did. Third time in two weeks.”

My stepfather had an obsession with Korean pussy.

About a month ago, I had sent a girl his way one afternoon when I knew he’d taken off work to go sailing, his favorite hobby. I’d sent Julia, our WASP princess who knew how to sail, had just graduated Northwestern, having majored in chemistry and wanted the job as she was heading for an expensive med school in the fall. They’d flirted, he’d propositioned her, and she’d let him know she was on the clock. He’d been surprised at first, she’d said, his manly ego taken aback that for her this was about business and not desire.

We men can be such idiots.

But then the power of his smug self-indulgence had taken over, as I’d hoped it would.

Three hundred dollars later, fuck him she did. Over a catered lunch on the boat the next week, he asked her about her “friends,” and expressed a particular desire for an Asian girl. Enter Nari, our new Korean American asset. James blew through a five hundred dollar session with Nari. Of course I’d asked my ladies how James was in the sack, and they’d both reported that he was adventurous, but not very attentive. Poor girls had to do all the work.

James came from money, but he hadn’t managed it well over the years. My mother had taken over whatever brokerage accounts and trusts he had in his name and put him on a salary as a senior VP of her company which seemed to work out well. I thought of it as an allowance really, because he never did much of anything at the office. He would show up, always very well-dressed, look official, make a few calls, sign a few documents, and leave.

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