Authors: Bill Eidson
The man walked behind the curtain.
Jammer began to whistle between his teeth. He said quietly to Geoff, “Raul might be busy. Might tell us to try another night.”
The bartender came back. The smallest of smiles touched his face. “Buy everybody a drink while you wait.”
Jammer put another hundred down. The bartender began serving and around the room, Geoff felt the animosity go up a few degrees. The drinks were left alone. After a moment, the bartender came back.
“Guess you boys ain’t too popular,” he said, in a southern sheriff drawl.
Jammer laughed it up with everyone else, acting like he was in on the joke instead of the butt. Geoff smiled pleasantly.
A half hour later, a young man came in. He wore black denim jeans, a two-inch fade haircut, and a black leather jacket. On his left hand he wore a gold ring with raised letters spelling “Nike” flanked by two guns. Even though he appeared to be only about twenty, he held himself erect, looked at Jammer and Geoff with open contempt, and said, “Jammer, don’t you know the fuckin’ sixties gone, man? When you gonna cut your hair, walk like a man?”
“Hey, Strike,” Jammer said, fawning. “You ain’t reading your fashion mags. All the models are wearing their hair long now.”
“Your faggot mags,” the kid said. He jerked his head at Geoff. “Who the fuck is he?”
“I’m the guy that’s banking Jammer.”
“Uh-huh. You two homeslices wouldn’t be wasting the man’s time, right? You got what he told you?”
“Yeah.”
“Awright. This is what we be doing. We go out to my Baby Benz. I like what you show me, we go. I’m not happy, I put Lee on your case.”
Inside the little Mercedes a few minutes later, Jammer opened the pouch, let them see the loosely stacked bills.
Lee, a huge black wearing gym warm-ups that barely contained his massive chest and arms, leaned forward and said, “Uh-uh, Strike.”
“That the amount?” Strike said.
“That’s a lot of money, and we’re ready to give it to Raul.”
Strike ignored him. “I said, is that the amount, Jammer? It looks way light to me.”
“It’s fifty. We’ll bring the rest in a day or two.”
“That ain’t what the man
told
you. I heard him.”
“I know.” Jammer looked at Geoff. “But I got a new partner.”
“And before I hand over the balance I want to know who I’m dealing with,” said Geoff.
Strike rolled his eyes. “What you think, Lee?”
“Maybe they figure Raul’s an insurance man, huh?” The big man’s voice was a deep rumble. “Wants to meet him. New partner. Shit.”
Strike nodded as he started the car. He headed off in the direction of the Southeast Expressway. “Okay, man, you want to meet an insurance agent, you’ll meet him.” He grinned back at Lee. “Maybe we’re gonna rewrite these dudes’ life insurance, hey?”
Chapter 21
They drove to Duxtable, on the South Shore. Geoff had never been there before, but even in the dark he could see it was a wealthy coastal town just a short distance from Jansten’s home in Sea Crest. The houses were large, with expansive lawns. “Gotta have a Benz to get in this town,” Strike said. “You should see them looking at us brothers in the daytime.”
They turned down a private drive of crushed sea shells and went about a quarter of a mile toward the shore before coming to an iron gate. Beyond it was a large, modern home. The grounds were lit with bright lamps. A tall metal fence surrounded the property on three sides, down to a small cove. Coils of razor wire shimmered atop the fence. Strike reached into the glove box and opened the front gate with a remote control.
Once inside, they started up a walkway to the front door. Midway there, an overgrown grape arbor formed a narrow path that would force them to go single file. Strike slowed so that Geoff and Jammer would go ahead. Geoff tensed, but continued on.
A gun was put to his head midway through the arbor.
Jammer yelped behind him.
Geoff held his coat open. The gunman took Geoff’s Beretta and patted him down. Behind him, Lee was checking Jammer out as well.
“This one is carrying, Strike,” said the gunman.
“Yeah, he the new hotdog coming to meet Raul. The man still up?”
The gunman grinned, white teeth showing. He was a strong-looking Hispanic man. “He’s got two chicks out on the boat, I’d say he’s still up.” He nodded to Jammer’s backpack. “You check that out? He doesn’t want a flake, you know that, man.”
“Yeah, they’s got cash. Nothing wrong with that.” Strike slapped Jammer’s head. “You tell me, man, you got any personal stash on you? You got so much as a stick of dope, you tell me now. The man don’t allow no drugs on his place.”
“Nothing,” Jammer said.
“Never touch the stuff,” Geoff said.
“He’s the fucking comedian.” Strike shoved Geoff. “Come on, Lee, I’ll be thinking the man’s looking for a laugh tonight.”
Strike opened up the big outboard on the Mako so they were flying along in the dark toward a power yacht anchored at the mouth of the small cove. “Yah!” he cried back at Lee. “Fucker’s fast!”
The yacht was about fifty feet long, with a high bow and wide beam. “Man, crime do pay, don’t it?” Strike said to Lee. “I want to cream in my jeans every time I see this thing.”
He shoved Jammer, in a not totally unfriendly way. “That what you dreaming about, man, you so hot to talk to Raul?”
They climbed the ladder off the yacht’s stern.
Sitting in the sportfishing chair was a young black woman wearing a man’s bathrobe. Even in the poor light, Geoff could see she was naked underneath. She held a handkerchief, dark with blood, up to her nose.
“The man be screwing your brains out, girl?” Strike said.
“Don’t bother him now,” she said, in a small voice. “He’s auditioning Cindy.”
Lee grinned. “What’s the matter, honey, you didn’t pass the screen test?”
“I went limp,” she said. “He just slapped me around, got bored.”
Strike said to Jammer, “Hey, maybe you bargain real good, Raul let you take her, huh? Put her on the street, the man figures she’s no good no more.”
Jammer nodded uncertainly. “Sure.”
Lee and Strike laughed.
They all waited.
Geoff looked over the boat. It was a big sportfisherman, with a tall flybridge. He figured the fifty thousand in the backpack truly wouldn’t mean that much to the man who owned this.
They heard a woman cry out.
“Shit,” the girl in the chair hissed. “That sick bastard.”
“That right?” Strike said. “I tell him you mad at him, girl. Tell him you got a problem with the
director.”
“No.” She laughed, scared. “Don’t do that.”
“Why not? Give me a reason.” He tugged his balls. “Good reason.”
She sighed, then threw the handkerchief away. She knelt in front of Strike and he laughed, looking over his shoulder at the others. “Take me a pause that refreshes, guys.”
Jammer smiled and looked at Geoff. “Little different from where you come, huh?”
Inside the cabin, the woman’s voice cried out again, and Geoff could hear the slap of skin on skin.
“Carly couldn’t walk for a week the time I sent her over to him,” Jammer said. “Starts shaking every time I mention his name.”
Geoff looked at him. “Have you ever sent her back?”
Jammer shook his head. “That was just a few weeks ago. He hasn’t called for her again.”
“But you would have?”
Jammer looked at Geoff as if he were stupid. “That’s what she’s for.”
Lee was chuckling, watching Strike with the woman. “Ooo, ooo,” Lee mimicked.
The kid climaxed minutes later. He patted the woman on the head and said, “Long’s you remember what I remember and service me good like that, you be okay.”
Geoff had begun trembling. He couldn’t figure it, his heart was pumping hard. He was angry, suddenly sick with fury that Carly had been used like that. That she couldn’t walk for a week afterward.
He didn’t think for a second how he was treating Lisa himself.
The emotion surprised him, as did all his feelings for Carly. He had never cared about anyone before and he certainly was under no illusions about Carly.
But Geoff could still see Carly splashing in that stream, thinking in her naive way that it made everything different. And the way she fought back at Jammer, that first time in the Boston Common. So strong on her own, yet so eager to be transformed by what Geoff could teach her. For the past day or so, Geoff had found himself considering following through on his promise and actually taking her along with him. For a while, anyhow.
At that moment, a man came out of the cabin. He had a blond woman by the hair and he dragged her out to Strike and Lee. “Hose this cow off before you send her home. She was boring.”
He was a big man, soft-looking. About forty. His face was pale, with a baby petulance about the mouth. When the first woman helped the blonde away, he grimaced. “Both of you, get out of my sight before I have you drowned. Waste of good skin.” He waved the men below.
The cabin was brightly lit with battery-powered camera lights. A video camera was mounted on a tripod and directed toward a big bed.
Geoff envisioned Carly damaged like the blonde was, with her pretty face ruined by a split lip, perhaps a broken cheekbone and nose. Obviously, Carly hadn’t suffered anything like that kind of damage. But why hadn’t she told him about Raul?
Geoff took a good look at the man. His clothes were casual, conservative. Good quality. His hair was black, short. He didn’t look Hispanic. If anything, he looked like a WASP Harvard Business School grad with about twenty years tacked on top. The shelves behind him were lined with videocassettes. By the titles, Geoff could see mainstream movies ranked alphabetically with hardcore porn interspersed throughout. The top shelf was smaller, with a dozen or more videos facing outward, on display. Cheap, hardcore porn with distinctly violent covers. Rapes, bondage. Several other cassettes were untitled but placed alongside. Geoff could only imagine what those held.
Raul saw him looking and smiled faintly.
“Yours?” Geoff asked.
“Mine. Having a creative outlet passes the time.”
“We brought something,” Jammer said, gesturing to the backpack. “First payment on that thing we talked about.”
Raul sighed and pulled the bag over to peer in. He closed it, puffed on his cigar, and said, “I’ve been looking at bags of cash all my life, and that’s not the amount.”
“No, not the full amount. It’s the first
payment.”
“That’s not what I told you, Jammer.”
The pimp licked his lips. “Well, I got this new partner and he wanted to meet you. We’ll get the rest of it in a few days, a week outside. We got something going to pull the rest of the cash in.”
“How much is this?”
“Fifty.”
Raul let his shoulders slump. “Fifty thousand,” he murmured. “I say come to me when you’ve got two hundred thousand dollars together, and you show up with a partner uninvited and a quarter of the money.”
“I told him you wouldn’t be smiling on that,” Strike said.
Raul sighed. “I’m a busy man.” He turned his attention to Geoff. “So, you wanted to meet me.” He spread his hands wide. “Here I am. You probably expected with a name like Raul to find some little spic, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t know what to expect.”
“Maybe you thought I was some easy, friendly guy? You could trip in here with this piddling amount of money and we’d negotiate some better contract?”
“That must be what he thought.” Strike stood behind Raul, grinning as he warmed up.
“You tell him about my degree from Cornell?”
“Uh-uh. Didn’t tell him nothing.”
“You tell him about me being a bastard kid?”
“Not me,” Strike said.
Geoff watched the two of them carefully. All this had a singsong quality, a routine they had done before.
“Maybe that’s it,” Raul said. “Maybe Jammer found out somehow, told his new ‘partner’ that my venerable old papa nailed the maid down on a vacation in Puerto Rico and I’m the product. He was a good, responsible sort, though, so he made sure I went to the best schools, long as I stayed away from his family.” He gestured to his video on display behind him. “I send him an autographed copy of each one I do. I hear it sends him into a flying rage every time. One day, I figure his heart will give out. Is that the sort of thing you wanted to know, new partner?”
“No,” Geoff said. “Interesting, though. What I had in mind was speeding up the process a little. We’ll be coming through with the cash, but I simply wanted to meet you and be clear on the deal. Jammer and I are new partners, and I wanted to see myself where my money would be going.”
“It’s going right here,” Raul said, touching his chest. He leaned forward, speaking softly. “What you should know when it comes to my business dealings is that it’s very important to me that people do what I tell them. Now understand this. I’m going to show you the absolute limit of my patience by letting you walk out of here on both legs. Because maybe this time, I’ll believe that
you
didn’t know any better.”