Page 11 of Lethal Torture

Smug bastard.

A particularly loud bang goes off in the background on Mak’s end of the call. “I’ll be in touch,” he says, then abruptly cuts the line.

I finish my Scotch and stare at the lights reflecting off the dark water, my heart still electric in my chest.

I should have said no.

My phone buzzes with a link to an encrypted file. I go inside, pour another, very large Scotch, and open the message on my laptop.

Fucking Mak.

The prick hasn’t just sent me an address and the details of his tailor.

He’s sent me a comprehensive client profile.

The brief doesn’t mention anything about the job. But it takes little more than twenty minutes before I know as much about Zinaida Melikov as anyone alive.

And a lot of it doesn’t make for pretty reading.

At the tender age of twelve, Zinaida was already the headline act in her father’s Brixton strip club, a dive notorious for its edgy back-room S&M shows featuring a whip-wielding Oleg Melikov and caged extremely young girls, usually illegal immigrants. Oleg “the Whip” ran a small bratva clan barely worthy of the name, a few strip clubs and brothels, and a loose affiliation of vicious criminals who specialized in beatings for hire.

When Zinaida was sixteen, the strip club burned to the ground, taking Oleg with it. She is widely believed to have killed him with her own hands before lighting the fire herself.

And not just killed.

According to the file, Zinaida strung Oleg up in his own club, whipped him until he was unrecognizable, then cut off his genitalia and stuffed them in his mouth before using his own whip to strangle him.

A month after she collected the insurance money on the bar, she started her own burlesque club, Pigalle, taking most of her father’s girls with her.

Within two years Zinaida had expanded into elite back-room gambling. It took her less than five years to make Pigalle the hottest name in town, which was when she bought an abandoned theater in the West End and launched Pigalle Soho, a members-only men’s club with a clientele list that is as eclectic as it is exclusive.

Pigalle Mayfair, her club for women, followed soon after, with commensurate success. An ex–British prime minister, the chief commissioner of Scotland Yard, and several high-profile entrepreneurs are all rumored to be members. So secretive most people don’t even know the address, Pigalle Mayfair includes an underground hammam built atop ancient Roman baths, a luxurious day spa, and private dining and gambling rooms.

The real story, however, according to Mak’s brief, is the elite, highly secretive premises known as the Quartier.

And going by the picture he paints, Zinaida might have left her father’s strip club far behind, but it seems she drew an important lesson from those days:those in power will always pay for what they believe is forbidden.

If the Pigalle gaming rooms are for bureaucrats and CEOs, Mak writes,then the Quartier, hidden in the Soho theater behind Pigalle’s facade, is for heads of state and oligarchs.

It’s where the heads of the world’s biggest crime syndicates meet with the presidents of the same countries in which they operate. Where spies talk to diplomats and hedge fund ownersbargain with arms dealers. Where women and men are united by money, power, and debauchery.

Inside the Quartier, Mak ends,reputations are made and destroyed overnight, deals brokered which can save an entire country—or take it down.

Coming from a man known for his brevity, such editorializing is an indication of how seriously Mak regards Zinaida’s flagship club. He’s attached a note reminding me that it is the Quartier where we will be meeting Roman and Dimitry for that drink.

Fucker knows me way too well.

He also adds that entry without him will be impossible.

Ha.I smile to myself.We’ll see about that.

According to the file, memberships to the Quartier open up once a year, when select members of Pigalle’s clubs receive a gold-embossed black invitation to the exclusive Winter Masquerade Ball. The most coveted and exclusive tickets in all of London, they’re rumored to start at over a million pounds per head. The ball is as famous for those who have not made the invitation list as for those who are rumored to be on it. The next ball is in two months’ time.

Zinaida herself is as secretive and elusive as her client list. She doesn’t do profile pieces or media of any kind, and even paparazzi shots of her are few and far between.

Her fact sheet informs me she’s only five feet, four inches tall and weighs 120 pounds.

She’s tiny.