Clint Murdock - Naked Nikki

That idea put another interesting thought into her head. What the hell… maybe she'd blow his balls off first, then kill him!

Nikki was about halfway to Howard Freidman's apartment when she realized that she couldn't do it.

She pulled over to the side of the street, shut off the engine, and cried some more bitter tears. God knew the filthy bastard deserved it, but she didn't have what it took to kill somebody over something like this. Not that it wasn't important-it was goddam important to her! It was her career, for Christ's sake; it was the break she'd been waiting, and hoping, and praying for!

And not only that, it was humiliating, too! It was a slimy, dirty, rotten trick, and the sorry bastard deserved to have something done to him… But she couldn't do it. And she couldn't afford to hire somebody else to beat him up or something, either.

Still, she supposed it wasn't really very important in the great, grand scheme of things. Besides, what did she want to do-spend the rest of her life with a bunch of bull-dyke lezzies in some fucking jail somewhere? Nikki thought briefly of using the gun on herself, but that thought was erased by another that popped into her head, seemingly out of thin air.

Suddenly she remembered something Amanda Trafalgar had said in the course of their conversation. The famous model had felt pretty sorry for her, and in an effort to soothe Nikki's obviously crushed emotions, she had said perhaps more than she should have.

Nikki had been in a total daze at the time, feeling like a safe had been dropped on her from the moment she heard they'd already finished the shoot. But now she recalled Amanda saying that she was a nice-looking girl and suggesting that she give Franco Finnelli a try on her own, adding that he was in town at that very moment.

"They'll tell you he isn't, of course," she said, "but in fact he's spending a week at his townhouse over in Windhaven Heights."

Nikki had hardly paid any attention, shell-shocked as she was, and doubting whether she could believe Amanda anyway. Her sole thought had been to get the hell out of there and hide her humiliation before she broke down and went completely to pieces before a total stranger. But now, as she thought back on it, she felt that Amanda had been telling the truth.

What the hell, Nikki thought as she started the car, she couldn't be in any worse shape, basically, than she was right now with her career. So if Finnelli wasn't really in residence, who cared? How much trouble could she get in for checking, anyway? And with the mood she was in, even if she'd decided not to shoot Friedman, nobody was going to give her very much grief about anything or they'd end up with a.32 snub nose shoved up their ass, she'd guarantee them that!

It was a long trip over to the Windhaven Heights tower, and Nikki used the time to formulate her course of action. Finnelli wasn't expecting her and he wouldn't be glad to see her-he didn't know anything about the way Howard Friedman had screwed her, and if he did, Nikki was sure he wouldn't give a shit. So she had to approach this right. And if Amanda Trafalgai's building had security in the lobby, it was a foregone conclusion that Windhaven Heights did, too. You could bet your rosy red ass on that!

She glanced at her watch. It was after midnight now, and that should help her. Even if these buildings employed more than one security guard during the day, they almost always cut back to a single man at night… Which made a hell of a lot of sense, Nikki, reflected, since most of the break -ins and bullshit that went on in the apartments and condos happened at night! Christ, these security agencies must be run by the fucking government or something…

But it was going to work out dandily for her, because if Windhaven Heights just had one guard on duty after midnight, he wasn't going to stand a fucking chance!

Nikki parked up 'the street from the soaring tower and walked to the revolving doors in the center of the brightly lighted, glass-enclosed lobby. Yeah, there was the guard behind the huge desk next to the tenant intercom switchboard, looking soldierly as hell in his drab gray uniform. Nikki had it all figured out. She opened her vinyl coat as she came in, fluffing her hair and frowning as if reacting to the lobby heat. But as she did so, she gave the guard an excellent chance to watch her big breasts in action through the clinging material of her yellow sweater.

It didn't take long to learn how to use 36-DDs.

She strode straight up to the desk, glancing around and hoping to God the lobby stayed empty for the next minute or two. She looked straight into the guard's eyes and smiled warmly, a single lock of brown hair curling sexily over her forehead.

"Hi, there," she said easily. "I'm supposed to see a Foster, on the thirty-third floor, I think."

The guard eyed her up and down and his lips twisted sardonically. "You're not a working girl, are you, Sweetheart?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact I am!" Nikki returned sharply. "I work for the Freidman, Tasker and Hargill modeling agency, and if I hear one more crack like that, you're gonna be wishing you'd kept your mouth shut!"

The guard retreated visibly in his manner and looked quickly down at his roster book. "And you're looking for who…?"

"Mr. Foster," Nikki said, stepping around beside the desk and peering at the book with him. "I don't know the first name, but I think he's in thirty three-oh-four."

"Nah, our numbers don't run that way," the guard said, sliding his finger quickly down the long line of names. "We have a thirty-three-dee, though… "

Nikki slipped her right hand into her purse and worked her fingers quietly through it while she watched the guard search the list.

"Nope," he announced, "three-three-dee is Blumquist."

"Gosh," Nikki said disappointedly. "Well, do you have the names listed alphabetically?"

"Yeah," the guard replied, flipping to the back of his ledger. "But I'll tell you, dear, I've been here six weeks, and I don't recognize that name… I don't think we have any Foster-"

"No shit, Stupid," Nikki said, and cracked him smartly behind the ear with the barrel of the revolver. He collapsed like a doll on top of the desk, his grey bus driver's cap tumbling to the floor. She took a quick look at his head, twisting her mouth when saw the angry red cut on his ear, already oozing a trickle of blood. Damn, she hoped she hadn't hit the bastard too hard!

Swiftly Nikki whipped the ledger around to the side of the desk, zooming her finger down through the alphabetical list to the Fs. Yep, there it was Finnelli, Franco; 19E. All right! She flipped the roster pages back to the front, to the original list, then slipped the book hurriedly under one of the guard's motionless hands. Glancing quickly around, she stuffed the.32 further into her purse and ran to the elevators, punching every "Up" button she could see.

A car arrived in short order and she hustled inside, heaving a huge sigh of relief as the doors finally dosed in front of her. Wow! She brushed the hair back from her forehead with a hand that trembled just a little, watching the illuminated numbers climb toward 19. The lobby was the one place where she felt she could've really been loused up, so God Almighty, she was glad to get out of there!

The elevator stopped smoothly and opened with a friendly chime. Nikki peered briefly up and down the hall, then set out quickly for Finnelli's door. She strode quickly through the narrow, circular hallway, meeting nobody, hearing no sounds. When she came to "E" she pressed the bell at once, then moved off to one side so he couldn't see her through the security peephole. She looked down at the rich crushed-pile carpet under her boots, then glanced at the expensive modern paintings adorning the walls. And this was just the frigging hallway, she thought. Yeah, rents in this place probably ranged from two to five thousand "a month, depending on what was inside!