Book Club
What's your book club reading? What are you reading in bed? Who would you like to invite into your bed?
Book of DoomShe lingered in the opulent mansion alone with a novel she'd found on the back of a toilet in a local coffee shop, but the book seemed to be describing ...
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‘I’m glad you could make it,’ she said. She was lying on the couch in the drawing room, and she suited the place so completely she could have been another piece of the half-opulent, half-modernist décor. ‘Take a seat.’
I sat down on the couch opposite. The room was lit by the candles on the table between us, half-hiding her face in the shadows cast by her long dark hair.
‘It’s not always easy to make the choice,’ she said, ‘but given the information you sent I’d say we we’re right for you.’
She was there to disarm me, but I wouldn’t fall for it. She was pretty enough, but she was too perfect to be for real. And I had done enough homework to sift the crap from the genuine.
‘I need to know,’ I said, ‘your terms. You were vague in our emails.’
‘Of course,’ she said with a smile. ‘Such things are better discussed face to face. Basic information is five hundred. For full profiles, itineraries, social maps, it’s fifteen hundred. We can arrange for a chaperone, too, to make sure…’
‘That won’t be necessary.’
‘All payable in advance and non-refundable.’
‘What about… variety?’
‘We cannot offer specific individuals, you understand, but we can filter according to various criteria. Gender, hair colour, profession, that kind of thing.’
‘I don’t need that. It’s just that each one needs to be different from the last.’
‘We can arrange that, too.’
‘And quality. I want a challenge.’
‘That,’ she said with a well-rehearsed smile, ‘is our speciality.’ She brushed a length of hair from her face. Her eyes were startlingly green, her teeth brilliant white, emphasised by her deep tan.
Like I said, it didn’t work. Not on me.
‘When can I start?’
‘Tonight. I have just the candidate.’ She took a ledger from the floor next to the couch the thumbed to a particular page.
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘There’s one other thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘I might need one at short notice. Very short. Sometimes I… I just need to kill someone.’
‘Oh, we can arrange that too,’ she said, leaning forwards. ‘Just call us up and we’ll have a local, fully accredited victim waiting for you. There’s an extra charge for the on call service, but you sound like a man who’s willing to pay for the best.’
‘Do I need to sign anything?’
‘We’ve already get you set up.’ She found the page in the book she had been looking for. ‘Ah, here we are. He’s within walking distance, fully prepped. If you need a weapon we can…’
‘I brought my own,’ I said, powerfully aware of the length of bright steel in my back pocket, the one with the notches on the handle.
She gave me another smile. I wondered how many men like me had seen it, and what she really thought of us. ‘Then welcome aboard,’ she said.
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