The man sat in his car in the parking lot, watching the whore as she approached along the street. "Chiffon," she called herself. Obviously not her real name. And he was sure there was a lot more about her that he didn't know.
I could make her tell me, he thought. But not here. Not today.
He wouldn't kill her here today either. No, not right here so near her regular workplace-the so-called "Kinetic Custom Gym." From where he sat, he could see the decrepit exercise machinery through the storefront windows-three treadmills, a rowing machine, and a couple of weight machines, none of them working. As far as he knew, nobody ever came here to actually exercise.
Not in a socially acceptable manner anyway, he thought with a smirk.
He didn't come around to this place much-not since he'd taken that brunette who had worked here years ago. Of course, he hadn't killed her here. He'd lured her off to a motel room for "extra services" and with the promise of a lot more money.
It hadn't been premeditated murder even then. The plastic bag over her head was only meant to add a fantasy element of danger. But once it was done, he'd been surprised at how deeply satisfied he'd felt. It had been an epicurean pleasure, distinctive even in his lifetime of pleasures.
Still, in his trysts since then, he'd exercised more care and restraint. Or at least he had until last week, when the same game went deadly again with that escort-what was her name?
Oh, yes, he remembered. Nanette.
He'd suspected at the time that Nanette might not be her real name. Now he'd never find out. In his heart, he knew that her death was not an accident. Not really. He'd meant to do it. And his conscience was unsullied. He was ready to do it again.
The one who called herself Chiffon was approaching about a half a block away, clad in a yellow tube top and a barely existent skirt, tottering toward the gym on impossibly high heels while talking on her cell phone.
He really wanted to know if Chiffon was her real name. Their one previous professional encounter had been a failure-her fault, he was sure, not his. Something about her had put him off.
He'd known perfectly well that she was older than she claimed to be. It was more than just her body-even teenage whores had stretch marks from childbirth. And it wasn't the lines in her face. Whores aged faster than any kind of women he knew.
He couldn't put his finger on it. But there was plenty about her that perplexed him. She displayed a certain kind of faux-girlish enthusiasm that wasn't the mark of a true professional-not even a novice.
She giggled too much, like a child playing a game. She was too eager. And most oddly, he suspected that she actually liked her job.
A whore who really enjoys sex, he thought, watching her come nearer. Who ever heard of such a thing?
Frankly, it turned him off.
Well, at least he was sure that she wasn't an undercover cop. He would have picked up on that in a split second.
When she got close enough to see him, he honked his car horn. She stopped talking on the phone for a moment and looked his way, shielding her eyes from the morning sunlight. When she saw who it was she waved and smiled-a smile that looked, for all the world, completely sincere.
Then she walked around back of the gym toward the "service" entrance. He realized that she probably had an appointment to keep inside the brothel. No matter, he would hire her some other day when he was in the mood for a specific kind of pleasure. Meanwhile, there were plenty of other hookers around.
He remembered how they'd left things last time. She'd been cheerful and good-natured and apologetic.
"Come back anytime," she'd told him. "It will go better next time. We'll hit it off together. Things will get really exciting."
"Oh, Chiffon," he murmured aloud to himself. "You've got no idea."