Four Blind Mice - James Patterson [57]
Harris found bottles of scotch and champagne in a small kitchen. He passed the hootch around and made the girls drink too.
The alcohol calmed them, but Kym kept asking about the owner. Occasionally the bell rang downstairs. Kym’s English was the best, so she was told to say that the girls were busy for the night — a private party. “Come back another time, please. Thank you.”
Griffin took two of the girls upstairs to another floor. Starkey and Harris looked at each other and rolled their eyes. Starkey kept an ear cocked once Griffin was upstairs. At least he’d left two pretty ones for Brownley and him. Kym and Lan.
Starkey asked Kym to dance. Her eyes were gleaming slants of dark purple. Except for her three-inch heels, Kym was naked now. An old song by the Yardbirds played on the radio. As he danced, Starkey remembered that Vietnamese women had a thing about their height, at least when they were around American men. Or maybe it was American men who had a thing about height? Or length?
Harris was speaking in English to Lan. He handed her a bottle of champagne. “Drink,” he said. “No, drink it down there, babe.”
The girl understood, either the words or lewd gestures. She shrugged, then dropped onto the couch and inserted the champagne bottle in herself. She poured the champagne, then comically wiped her lips. “I was thirsty!” she said in English.
The joke got a good laugh. Broke the tension.
“Ban cung phai uong nua,” the girl said.
You drink too.
Harris laughed and passed the bottle to Kym. She lifted one leg and put it inside without sitting down. She kept it there while she danced with Starkey, spilling champagne all over the carpet and her shoes. Everybody was laughing now.
“The bubbles tickle,” Kym said, sitting down on the couch. “I have an itch inside me now. You want to scratch it?” she asked Starkey.
The switchblade seemed to come from nowhere. Kym jabbed it at Starkey without actually stabbing him. She screamed, “You go! Leave right now. Or I cut you bad!”
Then Starkey had his gun out. He was cool and calm. He reached over to the radio and shut off the loud music. Silence. And dread. Incredible tension in the room. Everywhere except on Thomas Starkey’s face.
“Dung, dung!” cried Kym. “Hay dep súng ong sang mot bên di bô.”
No, no! Put the gun away.
Starkey moved toward little Kym. He wasn’t afraid of the switchblade, almost as if he knew he wasn’t going to die like this. He twisted the knife out of her hand, then held the revolver against the side of her skull.
Tears ran down the girl’s smooth cheeks. Starkey brushed them away. She smiled up at him. “Hay yêu tôi di, anh ban,” she whispered.
Make love to me, soldier man.
Starkey was there in the apartment, but his head was in Vietnam. Kym was shaking, and he loved that — the total control he felt, the evil he was capable of, the electricity it could bring into his system.
He looked at Harris, who had his gun out now too, and his friend knew. He just knew.
They fired their guns simultaneously.
The girls flew back against the wall and then slid down onto the floor. Kym was shaking all over, very close to death. “Why?” she whispered.
Starkey just shrugged at her.
Upstairs there were two more pffthts. The sound of falling bodies, Susie and Hoa. Warren Griffin had been waiting for them. He knew too.
It was just like in the An Lao Valley, Vietnam.
Where the madness had started.
Chapter 67
WHEN WE FINISHED up at Colonel Bennett’s house, Sampson and I checked into the Hotel Thayer right on the grounds of West Point. I continued to think about the three killers and how they kept getting away. There was no blue paint this time, and none of the other victims had been set up to look like suicides. But it still felt the same. Force to bear without conscience. That was what Agent Fescoe had called it.
In the morning, I met