“His thirst for sexual gratification,” Gaita said. “His vanity and his physical need for a woman. Not just any woman, Morgan—only the most beautiful will do.”
“So what’s his kink?” Sounded like a game show.
“His tastes run to the...rough. He likes them young, but he also likes a woman of experience—any woman older than thirteen and younger than fifty, if she is beautiful and willing to...to play his sick games.”
An S & M freak. Hell, it was a place to start.
She looked at me for a long moment. “With just that one thing, you should be able to find him.”
“If it’s that easy, why don’t you just run him down yourself?”
Gaita’s face was absolutely impassive, but there was a strange expression in her eyes.
“Because, Morgan, he is a totally deadly person—a ruthless man trained to kill, who enjoys killing...and is more than the match for anyone we might send after him.”
Well, maybe not anyone....
She went on: “We have many who have volunteered for the mission, but these are brave Cuban boys we cannot afford to lose—young men of bravery but who were...what is the expression? In water over their heads.”
“But you’re okay risking a gringo’s life?”
“That is not fair, señor.” Her expression turned grave. “Three who took the assignment on their own initiative were successful enough to locate him, only to die painfully for their efforts. Slow deaths, señor. With a knife. Here.”
She touched her belly.
“Since then,” she said, “we have discouraged any such attempts. All those three succeeded in doing was to warn Señor Halaquez...and now he will be more wary than ever.”
I drank half the beer and put the can down. “He’s only safe with the money when he gets to Cuba. You don’t head west to get there. He could go south and try to cut across from Mexico, but my bet is you have pipelines into there, too, and he’d be picked up or your people alerted.”
She nodded.
“He wouldn’t chance getting caught in open country by somebody with a rifle, so he’d have to stay where any hostile contact would be made personally, so he could handle it, and that would mean sticking to the cities, and those Mexican cities sure wouldn’t be friendly to him at all. If he went north, his only available exit points would be international ports, and even there your people and sympathizers might lay hands on him.”
She nodded again, slowly. “Where then, Morgan?”
“Right here in his own back yard,” I said, “where he has previously established contacts. He’s close to Cuba, if he can make escape arrangements, he knows the area, and the probable moves of your organization...and all he has to do is wait for the right time and place to skip on out. Do you have any theory about why he hasn’t already skipped?”
“We do not.”
“I do. He needs to launder that money—well, not launder it, exactly. He’ll need to get it exchanged for currency that’s legal in Cuba—money from a country with normalized relations.”
“Would that be difficult for him?”
“No, but he would likely go through underground channels. And because he’s keeping his head down, he’s probably using middlemen. That may give me a lead on him. It’s the one thing that would force him out of hiding.”
Her eyes tightened. “Unless...”
“Unless what?”
“His own lust for the perverted sex, that may also...as you say, force him out.”
I looked around the room. “Well, he’s not coming here.”
“No. But there are other such places. And there is one other possibility.”
“Yeah?”
“When he learns, señor, that one capable of matching his skills is hunting him down? He may come after you. The hunted may prefer to become the hunter.”
I snorted a laugh. “So that’s how I got picked for the job. You fine folks want me to do the flush job.”
She shrugged, smiled just a little. “It was you who volunteered, Señor Morgan.”
I picked up the beer, finished it and leaned back again. “Hell, kid, I’m not complaining. Everything was getting too damn dull anyway. I was getting stale. I can use a break in the routine, to pick up my thinking again.”
She stood there in front of me, that enigmatic smile playing with the corners of her mouth again. Her hand went up to her throat, her fingers wove inside the drawstring of the blouse, and this time when she moved her shoulders the blouse came slipping off to her waist and she was like one of those bare-breasted Tahitian natives Gauguin loved to paint.
Once again her hands and arms moved, flowing behind her with swift, definite purpose, then the full skirt fell, taking the blouse with it, a fabric waterfall that pooled around her feet and she was a naked, lovely thing with olive skin that had a sheen to it and midnight hair that ornamented her to perfection. She pulled down white panties to fully reveal the dark delta that had already been showing through, and she kicked them away.
“You can have me, Señor Morgan, for a...break in your routine.”
“But I won’t,” I said.
Her eyes changed again. Surprise. Disappointment? “Why, Morgan?”
“I don’t like to be tested, baby.”
She luxuriated in an animal-like stretch, her lips opening in a smile, her pelvis jutting forward sensuously, the suckedin breath lifting her breasts even higher until she looked more like an artist’s conception than the living, vital thing she was. The expression in her eyes was clear now. It was one of relief.
She let her breath out slowly, a look of pleasure crossing her face. “Yes, Señor Morgan. You are man enough to take Jaimie Halaquez. He could not stand before you.”
I saw the tip of her tongue dart pinkly between her teeth. “And now since you have passed the test...you may really have me, if you wish. Not as a reward or a bribe or even a gesture of thanks. But because I want you to.”
And it wasn’t an act this time.
My throat felt tight. “Honey,” I said, “haven’t you heard? I’m a married man....”
Her eyes didn’t leave mine. Something seemed to satisfy her at last, because she still smiled and the pleasure remained in her face. “Your wife must be a very special woman.”
“I haven’t seen her for a year. If we’re both lucky, I’ll never see her again.”
She frowned. “I do not understand.”
“Not sure I do either, kid.”
Her head went back. Her breasts jutted. And this time, if those feds had flashed a light on me, I’d have been hard enough to pass the audition.
“A man of such determination I must kiss,” she said. “That you cannot refuse me. A woman’s heart is pleased that such men still exist.”
I couldn’t have stopped her if I’d wanted to.
She stepped out of the pile of clothes and walked toward me, exhilarating in her nakedness, the constant challenge apparent in the subtle, eager flexing of the muscles that played under that soft olive flesh. She reached down, tilted my chin up, then bent at the waist and let her mouth brush mine softly, the wish plain behind the lush dampness, but no insistent demand at all. Inadvertently, my fingertips brushed the firm texture of her thigh, then I drew them back and she stood.
“I could love you, Morgan.”
“Not a good idea.”
“You are right. I should not fall into a trap that you do not wish to set.”
She walked away and stood in front of the mirror over the dressing table, studying me in the glass. Her rump was a rounded, dimpled distraction.