Dish Of The Day: The Host
Three women are dead. Spare a thought for the man who organised the event at which they were murdered.
Written for the Milk & Honey Augtober Writing Challenge Week 1: Dread.
Goran Stojanović usually liked the smell of leather. It had always reminded him of all the things he could never have as a child. As a man, he had everything he had ever wanted. Today, it taunted him. Accused him. Honestly, what was wrong with sampling the goods? It was quality control. It wasn't as if he had never bitten or drawn blood from a girl before the event.
He picked up the phone and called Branko for the third time that day. “Have you found out who leaked the video yet?” he asked. “I have cops all over me like flies on rotting meat.”
An unfortunate turn of phrase, though the meat—what was left of it—was still fresh when they threw it overboard after the event. He had personally seen to it. The girls’ belongings followed. He could not afford to leave any traces.
“Not yet, boss,” he replied, “though it seems it might have been one of the Americans. The VPN IP address is the same.”
“Which one?” asked Goran.
“All of them,” said Branko. “It's generic. And some of the others were using it, too.”
“Keep at it,” Goran ordered, adjusting his tie. It was too tight. His shirt was too tight. Everything was too tight. He dropped the phone back into its handset. It was supposed to be encrypted, but that was no guarantee. He felt like a cornered rat.
The phone rang.
He flinched.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Stojanović,” said a pleasant male voice. “Detective Milan Kolesar again. Could I speak to Jane More, please? I understand she works for you.”
“I've told you twice, I've never heard of her,” he snapped.
“That's very strange,” the Detective replied. “We have discovered a bank account connected to a number of websites hosted on a server owned by Stojan Holdings. This company was registered by yourself in September 1998 with you as a director. StarShow is one of those websites.”
“Lots of people use my servers,” Goran groused, wiping the sweat from his briw with the back of his hand. “I can't be held responsible for what they put on them.”
“Don't go anywhere, Mr. Stojanović,” the Detective warned.
Chances were, they were bugging the phone and had already overheard his conversation with that fool Branko. Called himself an IT specialist. Really? Then why were the police calling him and asking questions about his businesses?
He rose from his leather-bound chair and walked over to the aluminium-framed window, looking for a handle. A catch. There was none. “How do you open these things?”
There was no response.
Usually, when he shouted, Irena would bustle in to ask if he needed anything. Where was she?
He strode out of the leather-panelled office into the reception room. Irena was gone. He went to the kitchen. The toilets. He pulled his mobile phone out and called her.
“Hello, Irena here. I'm sorry I am not available to…”
He dropped the call.
The office phone rang twice, then his mobile rang. He picked it up.
“Goran,” said a familiar voice.
“Radin,” he replied. “Give me good news.”
“They found the server,” he replied. “Branko has wiped it, so I don't think they can do much, but if they find the backup, we're cooked.”
Goran nodded. He needed a drink.
“Did he make a backup?” he asked.
“He’s in custody.”
Goran’s heart sank into his boots. He ended the call and went back to the kitchen. Coffee. Damn it, where was that woman?
His office phone rang again, then his mobile rang.
“Goran,” said Bela, his enforcer, “I've been arrested. They have me at the station…”
Goran’s knees wobbled. He had been subject to scrutiny before, but they usually went for the small fry; the people he could afford to give up. Now they had two—maybe three—of his best people.
“They said I could make one call…”
“I’ll get Radin on it,” he promised.
A soft beeping alerted him to another caller.
“Just hang tight, Bela,” he told him. “I have another call coming through.”
He looked at the phone. It was Irena. “The police have burst into my grandmother's house,” she said, her voice strained with worry. “She's had a heart attack. I'm at the hospital.”
Goran slumped into one of the chairs that circled a small round table. His mouth went dry.
“She doesn't even have internet,” she said, her voice catching. “I have no idea why they did that.”
“Do they?” he asked bitterly. Then he remembered that he had registered Stojan Holdings against an address he had chosen from a street map. No, he had used Irena's old address.
“They said it was something to do with those cannibal murders,” she said. “They asked if I knew someone called Jane More. How could I? I'm just your P.A.”
“I'll get Radin on it,” he promised.
“What can a lawyer do about it?” she asked. “She might not be alive tomorrow.”
“What do you want me to do? he demanded.
She ended the call.
He threw his phone across the room with a roar. It broke open when it hit the door. He slammed both hands onto the table.
The office phone rang.
He ran to the office and picked it up on the fifth ring, his heart racing.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Stojanović, Detective Kolesar here.”
“This is harassment!” he shouted, and slammed the phone down.
The smell of old leather assailed his nostrils. It was even on his desk; a thin veneer set in a wooden frame.
He flopped into his chair and ran both hands through his thinning grey hair. He just wanted this to end.
The phone rang again.
“Goran.”
“Viktoria.”
“Some people came to the door to ask about a mole on your back.”
The phone slipped from his grasp and clattered on the desk.
He snatched it up.
“What did you tell them?”
“That it's none of their damn business!”
“Good girl,” he said.
“What is going on, Goran? They said you were involved in violent porn.”
“Do I look like a porn star to you, Viktoria? They're fishing,” he told her. “Tell them nothing. Where are the kids?”
“I sent them to my mother.”
“Good. Just hold on. I will be home soon enough.” He ended the call.
A mole on his back? Was that what got the police on him? It always seemed to come down to skin. A fleeting image of a screaming, bleeding girl disappearing beneath a horde of blood-covered men passed through him, leaving a ghostly coppery tang.
A loud bang turned his head. Uniformed armed men rushed in and surrounded him.
He could feel himself slipping, sinking. He glanced around, wild-eyed and panting. His heart hammered a frantic tattoo against his ribs.
“Goran Stojanović, you are under arrest on suspicion of murder,” said a man in plain clothes.
Goran nodded.
They dragged him to his feet, bent him over, and cuffed him. Two policemen took an arm each and marched him out of the office. That girl whose arms they had twisted so they could bite her back popped into his head. He would no doubt suffer as she had in prison. Well, he wasn't going by himself. He would take as many others as he could down with him.
This story follows Dish Of The Day.