CHAPTER 46

Burgas, Bulgaria

September

ANDRENOV HAD ARRANGED A French passport for Landry, which made sense given his heritage and reasonably good, though accented, command of the language. He couldn’t pass for French in France, but he had no intention of going there. He didn’t stay anywhere too long these days but he needed to be within reasonable proximity of his asset, so southern Bulgaria was ideal.

The Grand Hotel was nice, cheap, and right on the Black Sea coast. Landry spent most of his days working out in the hotel gym to maintain his bodybuilder’s physique and to sweat out the sins of the previous evening. While most operators had adopted more functional fitness regimes over the past decade, Landry’s vanity kept him focused on training individual muscle groups in isolation. Those workouts, and a healthy supply of anabolic steroids, kept him looking like a heavily tattooed version of a 1980s action movie hero. Too bad it was too cold to lie out by the pool. Landry loved the looks that the wives of the potbellied rich men gave him as he strolled the deck in nothing but a small swimsuit. He’d bedded more than a few when they went upstairs to “freshen up” while their husbands lazed drunkenly in their lawn chairs.

There were no such treats available this evening, as it was the slow season. There wasn’t much to do here but work out and drink in the clubs, but lately, the booze hadn’t been enough. The bartender had a source and soon Landry was adding cocaine to the mix. It took sleeping pills, Xanax, or opiates to come down from the blow in the early morning hours, sometimes all three, and marijuana to take the edge off when the new day came. Jules Landry had found himself in a cycle of stimulants, depressants, benzodiazepines, and sedatives, catalyzed by excessive testosterone levels and a level of alcohol consumption that would have been a problem all by itself. He may have looked like an inked Adonis to the women on the pool deck, but inside, he was a mess.

The post-dinner hour found Landry drinking in the hotel bar. He’d done a bump of coke after a shower and was three vodkas deep, which meant that he was at the peak of his chemically assisted relative normalcy. He’d done arms today and his biceps were pumped with blood; his black T-shirt clung tightly to them. He rolled his right wrist over and admired the vascularity of his forearm before doing the same on his left side. He looked good. He felt good. There was only one thing missing and he was certain the bartender could arrange it.

She arrived an hour later. She was cute; hot, actually. She had long, straight, jet-black hair that hung down to her midback, a decent face, and a body that looked to be flawless. She reminded him a little bit of a girl back home. Her long legs looked great in tight black leather pants and, when she removed her faux-fur coat, her glittery gold halter top rode up and exposed a six-pack of abdominal muscles. Her breasts were obviously enhanced, but she hadn’t made the mistake of going too big with them. Yeah, she would do for sure.

She spoke no French and only a little English; they weren’t going to do much talking anyway.

“I am Darina, ” she said, extending her hand.

“Jules, ” he responded, amused by the formality of the introduction.

The bartender brought her some type of vodka drink in a tall glass and Landry reached out his hand with two pills in the palm.

“What is? ” she questioned.

“Ecstasy. ”

“What? ”

“Ecstasy, you know, ecstasy, ” Landry said as he feigned dance moves with his fists up.

“Ahh, yes. ” She took a tablet from Landry’s hand and popped it onto her tongue, washing it down with her drink. Landry swallowed the other pill. By the time the MDMA kicked in, both had downed two more drinks, and Landry motioned to her to follow him upstairs. She asked for the money as soon as they entered the large suite, and Landry handed her a stack of hundred-euro notes. Darina excused herself and disappeared into the bathroom to get herself ready. Jules made them each a drink from the bottle he’d brought from the bar and snorted a fat line of cocaine. He heard the toilet flush and then the click of the bathroom door opening. He pulled off his shirt and sat on the bed, holding his drink and waiting anxiously for what would come next.

Darina walked seductively into the room wearing only her black thong panties and high heels. Her body was even better than he thought it would be. He motioned to the nightstand, where her drink sat next to several more lines of cocaine; she skipped the drink and went for the powder. She climbed onto the bed and straddled the muscle-bound man who owned her for the next few hours. Minutes later they were both naked and he was doing another line of blow, this time off the small of her back. Landry was in heaven.

• • •

Landry’s head pounded. The sun was beating through the windows. He’d forgotten to close the curtains in all of last night’s excitement.

What time was it?

He rolled over and pulled a second pillow over his head, trying to go back to sleep. His foot slid to the right and he felt something solid on the other side of the sheet.

Is she still here?

He took the pillow from his head and rolled over far enough to see a nude female lying facedown, her head toward the footboard of the bed. Something about her didn’t look right. Landry kicked her in the thigh in the hopes she would wake up, gather her things, and head out.

Nothing.

He kicked her again a little harder.

“Get. . . the. . . fuck. . . out, ” he said, kicking her a bit harder with each word.

Instead of responding, she slowly slid off the bed and slumped onto the floor.

Landry squeezed his eyes together in an attempt to quiet his pounding head. He reached down and touched her arm. Her pale body was unnaturally cool. He rolled her over and brushed her tangled mess of dark hair out of the way, exposing a large bruise on her cheek. Her eyes were wide open and lifeless. A path of dried blood led from her nose to her upper lip. He leaned in closer and saw that she had swollen purple marks on her fragile throat.

Instead of revulsion or horror, Landry looked at her in curiosity, trying to remember the events of the previous evening. He’d hit her, but it was just with an open hand. And he’d choked her, he recalled that. Her bulging eyes had filled with fear as he continued to fuck her. He liked that; being inside a prostitute as he took her life. Luckily, shithole countries the world over were filled with young girls for him to punish. He was upset with himself, though, not that he’d killed an innocent woman, but that he couldn’t remember how he’d killed her. He’d cheated himself out of that pleasure.

Landry took a moment to admire what he could see of her breasts and abs before leaning over the nightstand to do the last line of cocaine. Then he grabbed her under the arms and positioned her on the bed for one last dance with the devil.

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