CHAPTER ONE
 
London
Friday
Local Time: 6:00 p.m.
The Lowndes Hotel, Room 452
 
   Robert Altman, age 25, was happy be was there. The money was good and he had no qualms about what he did for a living. It was necessary, he assured himself, as he did so often during the four years he had sold himself in this manner. He kept his eyes closed, for he really didn't want to see the balding, bobbing head of the old man work his private member to climax. After one hour with the trick, Robert would go home and take his friend of two years to dinner. "Maybe Scott's," he thought. Yes, that's where they would go. The old man would probably give him a tip in addition to the one-hundred-pound note, so there would be plenty of money to spend on the celebration.
   He felt a slight chill from the wind blowing through the door opening onto a small balcony that overloooked the garden court behind the hotel. Although it was a rainy and cool September night, the old man had insisted on keeping the door slightly ajar, "to let in fresh air," he said. The room was dark except for the twilight filtering through the sheer windows. Robert closed his eyes tightly as his climax was about to be reached, and he began to moan, falling into the joy as his body reacted to the smooth and quick mouth action of the trick. Robert's hands held either side of the man's head, guiding him in the proper movement when it suddenly stopped, and for an instant he felt a warm liquid on his groin. Just as he repoened his eyes, he saw the quick flash of light on steel as the small, slender knife neatly and silently slit Robert's jugular vein.
   The double murder took only 30 seconds. . .


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