The Blonde

4:37 a.m.

South Eighteenth Street

After he retrieved his gym bag—almost forgot about you Ed, oF pal—Kowalski waited outside for the cab. When it pulled up, he had to laugh. It was the same guy who’d taken him to the airport last night. The dark-skinned guy who was going on about the flat fee. He wondered if there was a flat fee to the place Jack Eisley had gone. Take you from any swank Center City hotel to the S-M perv-out dive of your choice.

This one, the Hot Spot, was a real screamer: mutual masturbation. Kowalski had strong-armed the cab company to divulge the name of the driver corresponding to the medallion number he’d plucked off the video. Another call revealed the man’s cell number. A quick call to the driver, and one mild threat later, he had a name and an address. And yeah, his boy Jack was still there. Having a good time in a back room, the way the driver told it. “Bribed me just to get into the place,” the driver said. “And I don’t even know where the hell he is.”

Next, Kowalski called his favorite freak, a glam-vampire dude named Sylvester, who lived up in the Bronx, to give him some background. Last thing he needed to do was walk into a place like this blind.

The Hot Spot was relatively tame, Sly said. Married guys, mostly, went there to whack off while they watched women straddle high-powered Sybians. Direct clitoral stimulation with double the horsepower of any Black & Decker device. Guys liked it. Gals really liked it. Moaning, talking, sweating, but no touching. Because that would be adultery.

Ho, ho, people did amuse him sometimes.

But why would Happy Jack go there? He meets some saucy blonde, gets nearly strangled to death, then goes to an after-hours knuckle-shuffle club?

Unless …

Unless he didn’t want to be alone.

Knew something bad would happen if he did.

“Third and Spring Garden,” Kowalski told the driver. “Is there a flat fee from here to there, by chance?”