Love You Dead

12 Wednesday 18 February

Ten minutes later, entwined in each other, Romeo and Juliet kissed passionately throughout the entire short journey of the elevator up to the fifty-second floor. Still partially entwined, they stumbled along the corridor to the door of his suite.

Inside, he led her to a sofa, then picked up the phone and ordered a bottle of vintage champagne from room service to be sent up urgently. He hung up and disappeared for several minutes through double doors into another room, then returned with a plastic bag full of white powder, a drinking straw and a knife.

He made several lines of cocaine on the glass surface of the coffee table, lifted the straw to his nose, ducked his head down and sniffed up one entire line. ‘Whoohaaaaa!’ he whooped. ‘Whooohaaaaa! I tell you, this is the best! The best in this whole city!’ He handed her the straw.

Just as she took a tentative sniff, the doorbell pinged.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t let anyone in!’

As Romeo went to get the door, she heard the rustle of paper, then a voice saying, ‘Thank you, sir, have a great evening!’ Moments later Romeo reappeared holding a silver tray with the bottle of champagne in an ice bucket, two flutes, a bowl of nuts and another of olives. He set them down on the table, next to the cocaine, kissed the back of her neck and sat down beside her.

Then, without warning, he grabbed the straw from her and sucked up another line, followed by another. Shouting out ‘Whooohaaaaa!’ he hauled her to her feet and began kissing her wildly. So wildly it alarmed her.

She tried to back off. ‘Hey!’ she said. ‘Hey! Gentle, OK?’

‘Don’t gentle me. I know what bitches like you want!’ His voice was slurred. ‘You like it rough, yes?’

‘No.’

He pushed up her skirt and fumbled for her underwear.

‘Hey!’

He shoved her back, violently. She stumbled and crashed into the wall. He was pressing himself against her, pulling her knickers down.

‘Stop!’ she said, increasingly frightened by his sudden mood switch.

He was grinning demonically now, his eyes glazed with alcohol and the drug. ‘You want it, bitch. You want me to fuck you hard, don’t you? You like it rough.’

With one hand he held her against the wall. With the other, he was unbuckling his belt. His eyes were crazed, he was scaring her.

She headbutted him, on the bridge of his nose. He staggered backwards and sank down onto his knees, blood spurting from his nostrils, his face a mask of confusion. Instantly, she lashed out as hard as she could with her right foot, the pointed toe of her Louboutin catching him beneath his chin, snapping his head sharply up and shooting a loud grunt from deep inside his throat.

His eyes stared, unfocused for an instant, then closed. He fell backwards and lay still.

Shaking, aware she had drunk far too much, she staggered forward and looked down at him. He was out of it, but still breathing. Blood streamed down his cheeks from his busted nose and onto the carpet. She grabbed her clutch bag from the sofa, rubbed her head which hurt and, glancing at him again, walked quickly over to the door.

Then she stopped, realizing the opportunity she now had. She turned and went through the double doors he had gone through some minutes earlier, into a large bedroom with a walk-in closet leading off it. She peered around in search of his wallet. There was an open, partially unpacked suitcase on a metal and leather stand close to the bed. She rummaged through it and at the bottom found another plastic bag full of white powder. It was sealed shut.

Her nerves jangling, she looked over her shoulder. Might as well take it, she decided, and put it into her clutch bag. Then — and she had no idea what made her do it — she dropped to her knees, lifted the vallance of the bed and peered under it.

And saw a large Louis Vuitton suitcase.

She ran back to the doorway. Romeo was still totally out of it. She returned to the bed, pulled out the case, popped the two catches and lifted the lid.

Despite her drunken state, she began to shake with excitement.

It was packed with bundles of new $100 bills wrapped with paper bands.

Shit!

She looked over her shoulder again, closed the lid, snapped the catches shut, then picked up the case and went back cautiously to the doorway.

The Romanian hadn’t moved.

She glanced at the opened bag of cocaine on the table, tempted to take that too. But he had slit it open messily and some of the powder had spilled onto the table and floor. She let herself out of the door as silently as possible and closed it behind her, then gripping the case tightly, sprinted along the deserted corridor towards the fire exit sign. She hurried, stumbling, down the bare concrete steps for ten floors until she saw the number on the door of her own floor.

42.

She pushed the fire door open. The corridor was empty. Stepping out, she strode along it as nonchalantly as she could.

Moments later, safely back in her suite, she switched on the lights, closed the door and slipped on the safety chain.

Her heart was hammering, her brain racing.

Music was playing on the television and the curtains were drawn. She looked around warily, her nerves all over the place. The turn-down service had been, she realized.

Hurriedly, she put the suitcase on the bed, then began to check the money. It was in bundles, each wrapped with a paper band marked $10,000. She counted twenty. Jesus! $200,000. A very nice surprise and sweet compensation after the shit she had been through in Muscutt’s office today.

She removed the bundles of bills and stashed them, spreading them between her own three large suitcases, interweaving them with her clothes, as well as putting some in her hand luggage. She was wondering whether to take his case with her, to avoid it being found here, then stopped and decided to check it for any tracking device that might be in it.

She unzipped the side pocket, but it was empty. Then she ran her hands round the interior lining. And felt a small lump.

She went over to the fruit bowl, which had already been replenished, the knife replaced with a clean one by the turn-down service; picking up the knife, she cut open the suitcase’s lining, shooting a nervous glance towards the door every few moments. How long before Romeo woke up — and found out what was missing?

She slipped her hand inside the lining and pulled out a plain white envelope with a small object inside it. She slit it open and saw, inside, a shiny black USB memory stick.

Why was this hidden in the lining?

She looked at her watch. 9.40 p.m. Was it too late to get a night flight out of here?

She put the memory stick back in the envelope and zipped it securely in a pocket inside her handbag. She had a feeling that to have been so carefully hidden, it must have a value. She would call Romeo Munteanu when she got back to England, she decided, in her addled mind, and find out how much he would be willing to offer for the return of the memory stick.

Or maybe not.

After all, two hundred thousand greenbacks, at today’s exchange rate, wasn’t a bad return for one evening’s work.

Hardly the millions she had been expecting from Walt Klein. But not to be sneered at.

She hastily finished packing her bags, transferred the packet of white powder from her clutch to her handbag, then looked at the suitcase, debating what to do with it. She stepped out, looking around cautiously, went a short distance down the corridor and put it in the laundry room, then hurried back and phoned down for a porter.

For the next few minutes she paced around, nervously waiting. When the doorbell pinged a few minutes later, she checked the spyhole before opening the door. She asked the porter to get her a taxi to Newark Airport, gave him a twenty-dollar bill and said she would see him outside.

Again, warily, she went out into the corridor and took the elevator down. She scanned the almost deserted lobby before she stepped out, feeling relieved it wasn’t under siege from the paparazzi. She cancelled the limousine she had booked for the morning, checked out, fearful that Romeo Munteanu would appear at any moment, and hurried out through the revolving door into the bitterly cold Manhattan night.

The porter showed her the suitcases, safely stowed in the trunk of the yellow cab, before slamming the lid.

Moments later she sat back in the cramped rear, as the elderly, turbaned driver headed out across Columbus Circle.

‘Newark?’ he said. ‘Which airline?’

‘Change of plan, I’ll tell you in a minute,’ she said, tapping the Google app on her iPhone, searching for any flights out of here, on any airline, to the UK tonight. Or, alternatively, any flight out of here tonight to anywhere.