Who Killed Tiffany Jones? Read Online Free PDF Page A

something.
    Perhaps you don’t know who you’re dealing with. When you entered the deal with the Napolinis, agreed to handle their business and use their warehouse, you sold part of yourself. When you bring something else into their premises, they expect part of it. I wouldn’t try to squirm out of that deal if I were you.”
    Frustrated and enraged, Kees stared at Petris for a moment, then stormed out the door. Without even thinking, he headed back toward The Den.
    It was dark when Kees lurched unsteadily out of The Den. He tried to convince himself that his anxiety resulted from the drugs, but he still couldn’t shake the suspicion that someone had been watching him all 16470_ch01.qxd 7/12/02 4:33 PM Page 21
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    evening. And after what had happened earlier in the day, he wasn’t anxious to go home. As he walked down Oude Hoogstraat, he quick-ened his pace and glanced over his shoulder several times. Nothing seemed unusual. There didn’t appear to be anyone suspicious on the street. But it didn’t allay his fears. He was certain someone was watching him, waiting for him to slow down, to drop his guard. Struggling not to panic, he made a quick right turn onto OudeZijds Achterburg-wal, into the red-light district. As usual, the area was crowded with men ogling the working girls who sat behind large picture windows lit by red fluorescent lights.
    Kees tried to blend into the crowds lingering around the sex shop doorways and the prostitutes’ windows, but he still felt conspicuous.
    Sweating heavily, his anxiety building, he stared blankly into the sex shop near him and tried to compose himself. Someone tapped him on his shoulder, and he turned abruptly, instinctively reaching into his jacket for his gun.
    “Hallo, mister. Would you like to come in, ya?” a beautiful young woman asked as she leaned out of the doorway next to him.
    Kees sighed with relief.
    She was dressed in a white lace teddy and white stiletto heels, and her long blond hair cascaded down below her waist. He stared at her silently for a moment and was about to turn and walk away, but her smile disarmed him. There was no trace of the empty, cold eyes or tell-tale haggard look that most often came with the territory. She seemed almost genuine, he thought, almost as if she had been waiting there just for him. And, even as he considered it, he had to laugh at himself.
    I’m thinking like a trick, he said to himself. She smiled again and motioned for him to come inside. He paused only briefly before following her. The young woman locked the door behind them and closed the curtain over the window looking out on the street.
    Nellica was her name, or so she said, and when her shift ended at four o’clock she suggested that they go to a nearby after-hours pub for 16470_ch01.qxd 7/12/02 4:33 PM Page 22
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    drinks. Although he wasn’t up to more drinks, Kees considered it since he was still trying to decide if he should return to his own apartment.
    She seemed harmless enough. She had told him that she was twenty and had been working as a prostitute for only six months. Her parents didn’t know. They thought she was paying her way through school by working as a receptionist.
    As he dressed, Kees let it slip that he had had some problems at his flat so he couldn’t go back there until he found a way to clear everything up.
    “Well, I’ve never, ever done this before,” Nellica said, after a pause,
    “but you seem like you’re really having some serious troubles. If you’d like, after the pub you can come and sleep at my flat for the rest of the night. I’d like that.”
    A half hour later, they climbed the four long, steep flights of stairs leading to her tiny attic room at the Hotel America.
    “I don’t have a real flat,” Nellica explained. “I move from hotel to hotel every few weeks.”
    “Why is that?” Kees panted, trying to catch his breath after the long