by P. K. Abbot
“Through my business, I am protected by bodyguards twenty-four hours a day.” Walker smiled at the judge and shook his head. “Yesterday I was foolish. I slipped away from bodyguards for a few minutes to go outside. That’s when I encountered Mr. Myers. I’ll be sure that doesn’t happen again, your honor.”
“But it’s still a substantial financial commitment on your part, Mr. Walker.”
“I can afford it, your honor. I don’t want to see his family suffer because of him.”
“Very well, Mr. Walker. Make your arrangements with the court clerk, and we will release Mr. Myers, pending trial.”
“Thank you, your honor,” Walker replied.
*****
Two weeks later, when Riley arrived at court for the trial, Sunny Bob Walker was there again. The prosecutor and the public defender were there too. But Lenny Myers was absent.
“Where is your client, counselor?” the judge demanded.
The public defender rose to his feet and answered the judge in a shaky voice. “I have not been in contact with Mr. Myers since the arraignment, your honor. He has not gone home and has not returned to work. He may have fled, your honor.”
The judge glared at the public defender and shook his head. “I am issuing a bench warrant for Mr. Myers’s arrest,” the judge said. “And I am immediately rescinding his bail agreement.”
The judge looked directly at Sunny Bob Walker and said, “I’m sorry, Bob.”
Riley observed all this and smiled to himself. “No good deed goes unpunished,” he thought. “That’s what Walker gets for sticking his neck out.”
Chapter 3
After his surgery, it didn’t take Riley long to call Sunny Bob Walker. By Wednesday of his first week back at work, Riley realized that this new phase of his career was not for him. Sitting at a desk and cataloging files would never be for him. That was when he decided to search for the business card which Walker had slipped into his pocket a year earlier.
When they spoke on the phone, Riley told Walker about his new health issue – about how it upended his career and about how much it now frustrated him. Walker had a simple fix for Riley’s problem. He offered Riley a job in his casino. As a detective. He told Riley that he could start as soon as he wanted. To Riley it seemed too good to be true, but he accepted Sunny Bob’s offer. He decided to risk it.
*****
On the first night of his new job, Riley decided to enter the Shangri-La from its ocean side – just to soak up its ambiance. It was dusk when he arrived on the boardwalk. It had just started to drizzle, and a heavy rain was coming later that night. Riley pushed through a crowd of tourists in front of the casino and ducked inside the building.
He walked out onto the mezzanine which overlooked the casino’s lobby. Surrounded by the casino, the lobby’s atrium extended upward for several stories. Elevator cars in clear tubes encircled the lobby and shuttled guests between the casino and the shows, restaurants, and shops on the floors above. On the far side of the atrium, a broad, cylindrical aquarium rose to the ceiling. Brightly colored tropical fish darted about the aquarium’s coral reef, while barracuda and sharks swam in menacing circles above them.
Riley took the escalator down from the mezzanine. On the lobby floor, the jingling and clinking of slot machines invited passersby to come inside the casino. He headed inside to find the casino’s bar. Sunny Bob Walker had told him that the bartender there would have the paperwork he needed to start work.
On the surface Riley’s new job seemed a lot like his old one. He still apprehended hookers, but there was a difference. There was no moral component in the new job. It was strictly business.
The casino had certain customers which it valued above others. They had more means than most. They enjoyed spending their money in the casino, and they had enough money to continue gambling even in a bad economy. They were the ones who would keep the casino afloat when times turned lean. They were like the great fish that could feed a village through the bleak winter. The casino’s employees called them their whales.
The whales enjoyed spreading their wealth around as long as they got what they wanted. And what they wanted was to be pampered. They wanted plenty of action in the casino. They wanted luxurious accommodations, gourmet meals, and the very best in shopping and entertainment. They were willing to pay for all this pampering, as long as their every desire was fulfilled.
To cater to the whims of its whales, every casino kept its own selection of girls – and guys – inside the casino. The expensive call girls from outside knew better than to waste their time trolling the casino for clients, but the local working girls didn’t.
It was Riley’s job to protect the casino’s whales from the local girls. If a hooker connected with a whale, she might steal from him. She might even have him mugged or harmed. But, worst of all, she might take the whale and his money into a competitor’s casino. In his new job, Riley was no moral crusader. He was like the cop who stopped the hot dog vendor from setting up his cart in front of Delmonico’s.
The local girls would look for their johns in the casino’s bar. That would be where Riley would do most of his hunting.
Riley walked into the bar and sat on the stool closest to the entrance. There he could watch the traffic inside the room. And the local girls could not miss him. In front of him, he set a stack of casino chips – a few hundred dollars’ worth. Alongside the chips, he opened his newspaper. He wore an outdated Members Only jacket, and he had a day’s worth of reddish stubble on his face. He looked disheveled. He looked like he would have to pay to get laid. He had set his trap.
Riley spotted the bartender at the far end of the bar. She had a slender, athletic build, and she was in constant motion. Her ash-blonde hair curled around her neck with her every twist and turn. She had intense, smoky blue eyes, and Riley could see that she knew how to use them. He watched her look at a customer with a smoldering sexuality that must have made the man want to empty his wallet just to keep her near.
The house phone rang and pulled her away from her customer. “Yes?” she said into the phone. She scribbled something onto a memo pad. Then she hung up the phone and pivoted toward a table of attractive young people near the bar. Six women and two men. There was a bored-looking, statuesque blonde. A striking, green-eyed redhead. A voluptuous, olive-skinned brunette. An exquisite oriental. An ebony-skinned beauty. A dark, fiery woman with a studded, leather collar. A handsome Latino with delicate features. And a very muscular man with a shaved head and visible tattoos. They seemed to have little in common, but, as a group, they encompassed a broad range of human sexual preferences. They had to be the casino’s selection of escorts.
She held up the slip of paper from the memo pad and called, “Miss Texas!”
The bored looking blonde got up. She walked toward the bartender and reached out to take the slip of paper from her.
“And take Miss New Jersey with you,” the bartender said.
“Again?” The blonde gave the bartender a disgusted look, but the bartender was having none of it.
“If you don’t want to do your job, Texas, you can work somewhere else. You know that I can arrange that.”
The blonde scowled at the bartender. “Maybe one day I can do the same for you,” she said. She snatched the slip of paper from the bartender and called over her shoulder, “Jersey, come on.”
The woman with the studded leather collar stood up. She followed Texas out of the bar and tucked a riding crop under her arm.
When the bartender turned in Riley’s direction, she saw that he was watching her. She smiled at him and walked toward him.
“What can I get for you?” she asked.
“I’m the new house detective. I think you have a packet for me?”
She reached under the bar, extracted a large envelope, and handed it to him. Then she smiled broadly at him.
“My name is Céline. Céline Tremblay. I run the bar at night.” She held out her hand to him, and he took it.
“Raphael Riley,” he said. “RAY-feel” is how he said it. There were no sophisticated inflections in the way he said it. Just the earthy speech of the Philly-Irish laborers from Kensington and Fishtown. “All my friends call me Riley,” he smiled.
“Raphael,” she said. “But I do like the name.”
Riley just smiled at her then asked, “What’s going on between the two girls?”
“Do you know what they do for the casino?”
“I think so,” he grinned.
“Well, when Texas and Jersey work together, it usually means that the customer wants to watch the girls interact. One of them – Texas – will come back with welts on her bottom. She doesn’t like it.”
He chuckled at her explanation.
“But what about the names? Texas? Miss New Jersey?” he asked.
“It helps the pit bosses when they’re ordering girls for their players. We have different girls each night, but the names describe the general type of girl. Texas does everything big – big hair, big smile, big personality, big everything. And Jersey is a hard-as-nails dominatrix.”
“There will always be a Miss Texas or a Miss New Jersey in their hearts,” he laughed.
“Something like that,” she said. She grinned at him. “Do you know that you and I have a mutual friend?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Sergeant Olshevsky.”
“Harold?”
“Yes. He said we are lucky to have you. You hold the all-time arrest record.”
“The record for arresting prostitutes. It helps when you look like you need to pay to get laid,” he said.
She chuckled when he said it. Then she looked directly into his eyes.
“That’s funny,” she said, “…but it isn’t true.”
“No?”
“No. You have kind eyes. That’s why you’re so successful. You look approachable. I can see how a woman would feel that she could trust you. That you wouldn’t harm her. It was just her bad luck that you were in the wrong profession. The wrong profession for her.”
For a moment there was an awkward silence between them as her words hung in the air.
“But what about you?” he finally said. “You have a slight accent. French?”
“Quebecoise. I’m from Montréal.”
“What did you do there?”
“In Montréal I owned a restaurant and bar with my husband. He was an excellent chef. He cooked while I ran the front of the house and the bar.”
“And how did you end up here?”
Her eyes began to tear. “He died suddenly.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“But why didn’t you continue with the restaurant?”
She started to giggle through her tear-filled eyes and said, “If you had ever eaten my cooking, you’d know how ridiculous you are. I’m a terrible cook. Even my little boy hates my cooking. I could never run a kitchen.”
“Then you sold the restaurant?”
“I did.”
“But why didn’t you stay in Montréal?”
“There were too many painful memories in Montréal. We left two years ago. We needed a new start. I needed a new start.”
“How has that worked out?”
“Mr. Walker has been very generous to me. – plus, there’s something about a man who knows how to tie a bow tie that makes me weak in the knees.” She smiled at Riley and laughed. “I can’t complain,” she added, but she hesitated as if she didn’t really believe her answer.
“But what’s missing?” he asked.
“The pain is still there. I don’t think it ever goes away, does it?”
“I think it becomes bearable at some point. But, no, I don’t think it ever goes away completely.”
There were tears in her smoky blue eyes, but then she sniffled and laughed to herself.
“Harold told me I should be careful around you,” she said. “He said I’m your type. What did he mean by that?”
“Nothing.” Riley grew quiet and stared at his hands.
She watched with amusement as a blush started to creep over Riley’s face. She smiled at him.
“Come on. Tell me. What did he mean?”
“The women I date are like you.”
“How?”
“They’re single.”
“You mean widows?”
“Some. Most are divorced.”
“Any unmarried ones?” she asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I just want a simple relationship. No complications.”
“No commitment then,” she said.
“That’s right.”
“So, this is just for sex, then,” she said.
Riley did not answer her.
“Do they have kids?”
He just stared at his hands.
“Oh, that’s just too much!” she said.
“I don’t mislead any of them though. From the beginning they all know what to expect. There’s no commitment from either of us. The arrangement is for our mutual pleasure only. It’s just for sex. Friends with benefits,” he said.
“Friends with benefits? How many friends are there?”
Riley did not answer.
“Jesus,” she said. Her smoky blue eyes had now turned cold and steely.
“Riley,” she said, “don’t you think that one friend gets much more from the arrangement than all the others get?”
“I told you I was honest with them from the beginning.”
“Yeah. But come on, Riley. They all have kids. Don’t you think that a few of them may be sleeping with you and hoping that you’ll want something more? That maybe one day you’ll want to build a life with her and her kids? You’re better than this, Riley.”
“I’ve been up front with them.”
“So, there’s not one who would like to have something more with you?”
“No. No commitment. No expectations.”
She laid a paper cocktail napkin in front of him and forced a pen into his hand.
“Okay,” she said. “Write down the names of the women who would turn you down flat.”
He stared blankly at her.
“Do you need more paper?” she asked. She started dealing out more napkins until there were a half dozen in front of him.
He tossed the pen on top of the napkins.
“It doesn’t matter any longer,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I haven’t been able to hook up with any of them since I had my operation.”
“What operation?”
“I have heart problems. I have a defibrillator in my chest.”
“Can’t you have sex?”
“I can – as long as I don’t push myself into tachycardia. If I take it slow, I should be fine.”
She did not say anything in reply.
“I think they’re afraid of getting an electric shock from me,” he said.
A smile crept into her eyes. Then the corner of her mouth came up till she was grinning at him. “Electrocution?” she asked. “You mean… like a… a sexecution?!” She was laughing openly at him now. “You’re just a special kind of stupid, aren’t you, Riley?” she laughed.
“Why?”
“There’s not one of those women who’s concerned about that.”
“No?”
“No. She’s worried about what she’s going to tell her kids about the dead guy in her bedroom.”
Riley stared at her with a blank look on his face. “Huh” is all that he could manage to say.
“Sexecution,” she laughed. She was still laughing at him as she walked away to attend to another customer.
When she returned minutes later, Riley was reading his newspaper. She pointed to the headline of the lead story.
ANOTHER BOY TAKEN
“When I read these stories, I’m afraid. I’m so afraid,” Céline said.
She walked over to the sink and started cleaning bar glasses. “My son, Nathaniel
, is such a fun-loving, mischievious little guy. I can’t think about what would happen if this monster ever took him. He wouldn’t survive. – I wouldn’t survive.” He heard her sniffle quietly and saw her wipe the corner of her eye.
When she turned back toward Riley, there were tears welling in her smokey blue eyes. “I’m so torn with guilt,” she said. Then she looked directly at Riley and asked, “Should I have ever brought Nathaniel here? Did I do the right thing, Riley?”
Chapter 4
I am just waiting now for the boy to revive from the drug. I have taken him to my special place and stripped him naked while he’s unconscious.
His limbs are splayed out like those of a starfish. His ankles are chained to the rough, planked floor, while his upper body is pulled forward by his wrists, which are shackled to the two forward posts at six feet above the floor. His torso rests on the narrow wooden bench which is bolted to the flooring planks.
I grasp him by the hair and shake his head to wake him.
“Let me go,” he finally yells. “I’m gonna kill you when I get loose.”
I laugh at him.
“You’re wrong, boy. You’re very wrong. You won’t get loose, and you won’t be the one doing the killing tonight.”
He spits at me.
I grasp him by the hair again and pull his head back to open his mouth. I force the padded bit between his teeth and fasten it tightly behind his head.
In front of him now, I smile at him and hold the dental extractor where he can see it.
“I want you to appreciate what is going to happen to you,” I say.
I wrap my arm around his forehead and clamp the extractor onto one of his eyeteeth. Muffled curses come out of his mouth until at last I wrench the tooth free from his gums. Now he is moaning and crying as blood drips from his mouth and spatters onto the rough floor.
I set his bloody tooth on a shelf in front of him where he can see it. I pull his head back again and clamp the extractor onto the second eyetooth.
“You’re going to have a long night,” I say.