Frisky Business: A Gripping Thriller and Suspense Detective Novel (T. J. O'Sullivan Thrillers Book 4) by Larry Darter

Author:Larry Darter [Darter, Larry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fedora Press
Published: 2022-02-07T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

After a while, Koroleva came back and gestured for me to follow. We followed the corridor to the door of another office. He opened the door and bid me enter. We walked into an office that had everything in it but an infinity pool. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves took up a lot of wall space. There was lots of smoked glass and chrome furniture, including a massive desk that commanded the room. A separate seating area with a couch and several high-backed upholstered chairs occupied one side. There was even a shiny, black-lacquered Steinway Grand piano in a corner. Seated behind the desk was a broad-shouldered, muscular man in his late fifties to early sixties. He had a square face with an aquiline nose and wore a tight-lipped frown. His medium-length, light brown hair, parted on the left, was thin on top and graying at the temples. The man wore a dark gray suit and a white shirt with a maroon tie. One of the brown papered cigarettes hung between his fingers, curling a tiny wisp of smoke.

“This is O’Sullivan, Mr. Petrosa.”

“What do you want?” Petrosa growled. His accent was more pronounced than Koroleva’s was.

I said nothing.

“Mr. Petrosa asked you a question,” Koroleva said harshly. “He doesn’t have all day.”

Nobody said anything for almost a full minute.

“Leave us, Luka,” Petrosa said with a wave of dismissal.

Koroleva shot me a hateful stare. “Why don’t I just throw her out, boss?”

“Beat it,” Petrosa said without looking at Koroleva.

“Okay, boss,” Koroleva said, withdrawing reluctantly, but not before giving me a last angry stare.

“What are you selling?” Petrosa asked, fixing me with piercing blue eyes.

I sat down in one of the upholstered chairs in front of the desk without an invitation.

“You don’t want to buy anything,” I said.

“Go on,” he said.

“You look intelligent enough to know you couldn’t buy anything like what I mentioned to Koroleva and feel confident it would stay bought.”

“How much are you thinking of asking?” Ms. O’Sullivan.

“For what?”

“All the prints in your possession and the digital media card.”

“One million sounds like a good, round number,” I said, watching his mouth. The frown changed into a thin smile.

“You’ve got balls,” Petrosa said. “I’ll give you that. But photos must have context. What makes you think I’d pay anything for them. They aren’t disastrous to the reputation of my client necessarily. I assume that is what you have in mind.”

I grinned. “You can’t buy anything for the million, anyway. I could have hundreds of copies made and dozens of copies of the memory card.”

“That’s not very persuasive sales talk for a blackmailer.”

“I know they do it, but I’ve never understood why people pay blackmailers,” I said. “They buy nothing, really. Yet they pay, usually over and over again. And in the end, they are still where they started.”

“The fear of today,” Petrosa said. “It always overcomes the fear of tomorrow. Emotion is always the part greater than the whole. If emotions didn’t defeat reason, there would be little drama in life.”

“That’s true, I guess.

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