Blood Red

She could always tell when he was in that mood. He’d start by offering her drugs that she refused. Sometimes he’d insist, and she would take them, but not nearly as often as he wanted. In most cases she was able to handle the matter with a fake-out. Sleight of hand was a useful skill and one she’d learned from her uncle, who was an amateur magician. Uncle Albert was a sweet old man, and not nearly as warped as most of her family thought he was. He was just . . . eccentric in the extreme.

Now and then, as with earlier tonight, Tom insisted on “sampling the wares.” That was his way of saying he wanted to get laid. The thing about it was that Tom only felt it proper that the girls protest first, the better to have an excuse for knocking them around a little. He was smart enough not to leave marks, but it hurt when he decided to do his thing. She was also pretty sure the only way the creep could get off was if the girl he was using struggled and complained.

The good news was that he didn’t make demands too often, at least not of her. Maggie made too much money for him to slap her around a lot, and he wasn’t as horny as he was greedy. She was also smart enough not to get hooked on the shit he served to some of the girls. They were the ones that he took advantage of whenever he wanted. Once they wanted another fix, they would do whatever he told them to do. She didn’t play that game. He knew it, she knew it. He just needed to feel big from time to time and that meant doing what he insisted was his right.

Some day she was going to pay someone to kill the bastard, but for now he served a necessary purpose for getting her what she needed. It was all about the future, you see. Maggie focused on what she wanted in the future to the exclusion of almost everything else. It helped smooth out the rough spots, like Monkey Boy.

So she was a little sore, yes, but that was all right. She had a new client tonight, one that was promising to be very lucrative, too. He was also a rarity, because he wanted her to come to his house.

His house, as if the black stone mansion on the Point could be called a house. Maggie drove her Ford Focus up to the gates of the palatial estate and didn’t even have to wait for long. The automated iron barrier slid out of her way smoothly as she reached it, and she moved further into the place.

She let a low whistle out past her full lips and admired the architecture. “Damn. I want one of these.” Most of the houses on the cliff walk were accessible; meaning that people could, if they were polite about it, actually move over the lawns and see the exteriors of the homes without any difficulty.

This place was not like most of the homes; it had more in common with a medieval fortress, with its heavy black stone walls around the actual perimeter and a main building made of the same dark granite that earned the town its name. The house had been there for as long as she could remember, but this was the first time she had ever seen it close up. It was stunning, to say the least. From what she’d heard when she was younger, there were something like 80 rooms in the place if you counted the extensions for the servants’ quarters. That the lawns were flawless was a given, the hedges just so, and the ancient trees on the property were at least as old as the United States of America in most cases.

She didn’t have much time to actually look the entire place over before the door to the massive structure opened. Not one to ignore an obvious hint, she shut down her car and climbed out, ready to meet her new client.

He stepped through the door and smiled at her, a man of average height, reasonable build, and dark hair. There was nothing overly impressive about his features, but he carried himself like a king, with confidence and a casual acceptance of his authority over all around him.

He wasn’t like most of the guys she dealt with. Half of them came off as cocky; the others came off as nervous or just plain horny. Very few of them ever seemed relaxed about the situation.

“You would be Maggie, yes?” His voice was deep, but the words were softly spoken.

“That’s me.” She smiled as she spoke, not bothering with false pretenses or putting any seductive tones in her way of talking. For all she knew the man she was looking at was the butler.

He did not move to greet her, but stood within the threshold of the front door and waited for her to come to him. Even that was a bit of a change from the norm. Half the time the men she dealt with practically rolled out the carpet for her. She didn’t mind, but she noticed. It was important to understand what was expected of a client, especially one who was still an unknown quantity.