Claire visited the private hospital with flowers for Cindy and to hear the results of the scan. The news was bad. The scan revealed a hematoma in the brain, and Cindy needed a serious operation.
“We’ll operate tonight and hope for the best, but there is a risk of permanent damage. The hematoma is in an unfortunate location…”
The doctor brought out the scan and pointed and explained. Claire was only halfway listening. Her other half boiled with anger.
Back at the brothel, she put on the entire circuslike garb: stilettos, net hose, leather costume, half-mask, whip, and black wig. Then she slipped on the long gloves.
The long gloves that she had never taken off in the S &M room.
“The deal is, he’ll stay down there until tomorrow, but you can just leave him after he’s had two or three ejaculations. That’s the deal. Then he’ll have another ejaculation early tomorrow before he goes home to his wife, but Lara and Theresa will take care of that…”
Just before ten she walked into the soundproof basement room.
John Winther, nicknamed Teddy Bear, stood buck naked on a small platform that his leg irons were fastened to. His hands were manacled behind him, and the handcuffs were chained to a heavy iron shackle. The lower part of his face was covered by a peculiar leather creation that served as a gag. And loosely around his neck hung the gallows noose.
He could communicate only with his eyes, and Claire read the eager anticipation in them. She let her gaze glide down the length of his body, to where his erection presented itself.
He hadn’t recognized her, she was surprised at that.
She fought off a sudden impulse to flog him as an outlet for her rage, for his penis already stood greedily up on his stomach, and the mere thought of giving him a climax nauseated her.
Instead she first flung off her wig-and then her leather mask. His penis fell and shrunk into itself like a frightened snail, and she read genuine terror in his eyes.
In a moment of weakness she considered removing his gag so he could answer her question: WHY?
But no, she had made up her mind long ago. No explanations and excuses, no more lies. Instead she held a monologue: “You’ve surprised me in two ways, John. One: I’d been expecting you, but not tonight. And two: I didn’t know that you were the pimp. Just thought you were a customer.”
His cheeks moved, and a weak whistling sound escaped from the leather clump in his mouth, while his questioning eyes shone with horror.
“How did I find out? Oh, it was so banaclass="underline" your secret cell phone with the prepaid card! It was lying in your desk drawer, vibrating, the day I was waiting in your office-when you were late for lunch at King Hans. I read all the text messages about Alette’s death. It was a bit cryptic: A is dead from an OD-that’s how it looks. I understood that. My own mother died of an overdose. Murder or suicide? That’ll never be solved, right? I call it murder, whether the poor woman stuck the needle in herself or not!”
She drooped and went quiet. Tried to recall the image of her mother but could remember only her scream and her frightened eyes.
When her mother entertained customers, Claire had hidden in a cubbyhole behind the clothes hanging in the closet. That evening she’d fallen asleep in the cubbyhole, and when she crawled out the next morning her mother lay cold, dead on the sofa. The needle lay in the ashtray.
Claire was put in an orphanage and later placed with a number of foster homes. She did okay for herself, and had never set foot again in Vesterbro.
John Winther rattled his chains desperately.
She continued: “At first I only thought divorce, but then it hit me: why should I divorce myself from a few billion kroner? A text from ‘the mistress’ gave me the idea. I’ve been waiting for you, waiting for this hour in this room. Before you die, I want you to know that Cindy, the girl you wanted to ship out of the country with a brain hemorrhage, was operated on tonight. She’ll be okay. I’m guessing that the only reason you bought this building was to have easy access to sexual services, and the income from the whores was just a little bonus that in your habitual greed you pocketed. But it’s a lot of money to them, so I plan to pay them back when your estate is settled. Goodbye, John.”
All she had to do was tighten the noose around his neck.
He climaxed as he died.
The next morning, wearing her warm mink, the tall, elegant Claire Winther stood in the airport and waited for her husband. When he didn’t show up on the flight from Rio, she contacted the airline, then the police. She showed them the text message about his arrival and seemed to be on the verge of tears. A few hours later it was discovered that he had arrived the previous day.
At approximately the same time, the police were notified of a brothel customer found dead in Vesterbro. The two incidents weren’t immediately seen as being connected. Claire Winther received a call on her secret cell phone with the prepaid card. The conversation was short, something about her making sure that the bill would be paid.
Then she tossed the cell phone down one sewer drain and the card down another.
Toward evening the police showed up at the coast road villa. There was reason to believe that Claire’s husband was dead, and would she like to sit down.
Claire broke down when she identified the body, and she was offered emergency counseling, to which she said yes, please.
The tabloids all carried essentially the same story the next day: One of Denmark’s unknown billionaires, the Danish-American John Winther, had died in a sex game gone awry at a brothel in Vesterbro. In connection with his death, the police are looking for a small Spanish-speaking woman answering to the name of Michelle. She is possibly from South America. According to the brothel’s other prostitutes, the woman had recently been hired for a trial period and was servicing John Winther in the brothel’s S &M room, where the accident occurred. John Winther, 46, earned his fortune as an international developer. Recently he had bought up and developed sites in Russia and Brazil, where his company was presently involved in new subdivisions. The company owned many properties, both in and outside of Denmark.
The doctor had recommended to Claire that she check into a hotel to avoid the press storm, so she took a suite at D’Angleterre. The chairman of the board for John Winther Development, a prominent business lawyer, briefed her in the suite.
The company was in good shape, it could carry on as if nothing had happened, with one difference-she was now the majority stockholder.
“I’m going to spend the winter at our house in Florida, but I want to be kept informed of anything significant happening with the company, and to participate in all the board meetings,” she said.
The chairman nodded: “Naturally.”
Again she stood in the airport. Had just checked in her luggage, when someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned and looked into a puffy, yeasty face with pores like craters.
“Bonnie!”
“You won’t forget us, right?”
“Of course not. You know me! But things need to settle down a bit. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
They waved for as long as they could see each other.
PART III. CORPSES
SAVAGE CITY, CRUEL CITY
by Kristian Lundberg
Malmø
Translated from Swedish by Lone Thygesen Blecher
We must start at the very beginning.
Our story is simple. Just like life itself, it has no beginning and no end. We’re in Malmø, one of the larger suburbs of Copenhagen. Our story is about death. Death is at the core of everything. All stories about life and love contain a kernel of death.