Chapter Seven

At first, I knocked politely on the door but after waiting for ten minutes without anybody answering, I started to knock a little harder.

A little while later, I was banging on the door while wondering if anybody was actually inside of the apartment. I was about yo give up and come back at some other time when the door was opened just a crack and I saw a sliver of a face.

The face was barely visible but even though I could barely see what the person looked like, my mouth moved involuntarily and I said, "Vanessa?"

The cold blue eyes peering at me through the crack suddenly narrowed, "Who are you? How do you know my name?"

I was at a loss on how I was supposed to answer her questions, I had assumed that whoever was on the other side of the door would recognize me but then I remembered that I didn't look any thing like Alex Mercer at the moment so it was only natural she didn't recognize me.

I quickly rearranged my thoughts and said, "Does the name Alex Mercer mean anything to you?"

"Are you a cop?"

"No."

"Are you one of his suppliers?"

Suppliers? Suppliers of what? I had no idea what she was talking about but it sounded like it was my best bet to get some information so I said, "Yes. Is Mr Mercer here?"

The woman behind the door seemed to relax when she heard that. I heard her remove the chain holding the door and she opened the door wide affording me my first clear look at the woman.

She was a tall skinny woman. She was wearing nothing but a towel and it barely reached her thighs leaving her long legs bare. She might have been pretty at some point but that point was in the past. Currently her face was almost emaciated, her eyes were sunken, her hair looked thin and unhealthy and her complexion was sallow.

She noticed me evaluating her appearance and smiled. She moved one of her legs forward provocatively so that I could see even more of it and asked, "Do you like what you see?"

I hadn't even had the chance to answer her when a male voice shouted from inside the apartment, "Hey babe, who are you talking to? Tell them to come back in fifteen minutes, we should be finished by then."

The woman smiled sheepishly then shouted back, "Come here Greg, it is one of Alex's suppliers!"

I heard some rustling and a giant black man appeared behind the woman, also wearing nothing but a towel. When I saw the woman and the man standing together, my head suddenly felt like it was splitting open and memories started flooding into my mind.

The tall woman's name really was Vanessa and she was supposed to be Alex Mercer's girlfriend.

Alex Mercer was an orphan turned criminal. He had been willing to do anything to succeed and drag himself out of poverty. After some years of petty theft, he eventually got into dealing drugs. After selling weed in street corners and working as a runner for other dealers, he found out that he had the Midas touch when it came to distributing.

At the age of twenty one, he had built up enough contacts to break off and start up his own venture. By the age of twenty three he had become wildly successful, so much so that he started to attract the envy and hatred of his fellow dealers but Alex was always careful. He never gave them an opportunity to get him but eventually Alex made a stupid mistake.

He started sleeping with one of his clients, and even worse than that, he started to develop feelings for her. Her name was Vanessa, an orphan just like him and every time she smiled he felt like he was on cloud nine but the drugs she was taking, the drugs he was giving to her were slowly taking away that beautiful smile. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore and Alex decided to cut her off.

Vanessa had stopped working a long time ago and Alex paid for her apartment, clothes, food, and other things. He also provided the drugs she wanted for free so when he cut her off, she couldn't really go to another dealer so he thought that she would eventually straighten out but he had been wrong.

For a few days, everything seemed to be going okay and even her withdrawal symptoms had disappeared so Alex decided to reward her by taking her out on a date. They had dinner and even went shopping. Vanessa really did seem like she had tirned over a new leaf.

Alex usually used a car but it had suddenly broken down the previous day so at the end of their evening, Alex and Vanessa had been waiting for a train to arrive in Grand central station. Alex could hear the sound of the train approaching when he felt a push on his back and he fell onto the rails. He quickly got up to try and escape the oncoming train but it was too late.

The last thing he saw before he died was a smile on Vanessa's face; a smile he had loved , a smile that he had been willing to kill for and in the end ,a smile he had died for.