by Karl Tutt
Chapter 14
When I woke up, I felt like shit. I glanced at the mirror and confirmed it. I was shit. My hair was oily and my skin had a greasy look to it. My mouth was dry and it tasted like I had been eating some dead thing. I forced myself into the shower and scrubbed every part I could reach. It was better, but not much. I made some coffee and doused it with Jameson. It was early, but what the hell? In some perverted way I guess I had earned it. So what to do next?
I pulled out my notebook and gripped my trusty ballpoint, but no words came. At least I had Ev, and as long as she stayed cool and rational, that was a plus. But I knew she was in agony over Ricky. Hell . . . she loved the man. I did, too. She might just crack and I just might join her. We seemed so damned helpless.
My mind went to S. I hadn’t heard from him since our “little talk.” I thought about calling, but it wasn’t the time. I had a longing that stuck in my gut, hollowed me out, and permeated my entire being. I wanted him to hold me, rock me like a child and whisper it would all be all right. Wishful thinking. Maybe it was time to grow up. Good old Dee, she sure knew how to run them off. I guess I had done it again. Under normal circumstances, that would have been okay as long as I got laid regularly and in a proper fashion. But not with Sterling. Insipid clichés crowded my consciousness. “This is different.” Oh yeah . . . and pigs can fly. “Quit your whining, bitch,” I told myself. Time to get over this ‘love’ thing. No purple pansies and picket fences for Diabla. Sorry, that’s the way it is for tough bitches. Get used to it and swallow the tears.
I went to the office. Nothing had changed. I tried to get busy and I still had to make the rent. When my cell rang, I snatched it. No caller ID, but I knew the voice.
“I so sorry your visit last night prove unfruitful. We all need our beauty sleep.”
“Where’s Ricky, you bastard?”
“Ah . . . wit de names again. It does not flatter a lovely lady such as yurself. Yur mother would not be proud. Perhaps a bit more courtesy and some patience wud serve you well. Bijet know things you wish to know.”
“Where is Ricky?” I demanded.
“Yu are classic case of de right place at de wrong time. Visit us again in de morning, but remember. Yu haf safe passage. No need of the .38. Not so yur lady frien’. Yu come . . . only yu, and he is yurs. We be watching . . . any signs of others, you no see yur partner again ‘cept maybe at de morgue”
He hung up. I was scared shitless. Only a fool would go back to that warehouse alone. He said I had ‘safe passage’, but in the past I’d made a strict policy never to trust a psychopath. So far I was still breathing. Nevertheless, if Ricky was there, I couldn’t leave him. After listening to Bijet, I couldn’t call Ev. I couldn’t put her in that murky swamp that I was about to wade into up to my neck. It was me. I told myself to be a big girl, but I sure didn’t feel like it. I would play their game if I had any chance to get Ricky, even it meant leaving myself naked before those bastards. And the .38, tough shit. It was just like the insurance commercial . . . “don’t leave home without it.”
I didn’t sleep . . . finally crawled out of the v berth around 4 A.M. Covered my body with an old running suit and packed the S and W in the leg holster. It might not help, but the feel of the cold steel against my calf gave me a temporary reprieve from my churning guts. I wanted to be at the warehouse a little before dawn. I drove past the site one last time and decided to park in front. Hell, they knew I was here. If they wanted to take me out, hopefully it would be quick, if not painless.
The gate we had entered a couple of nights ago was open and so was the warehouse door. There were plenty of footprints in the dust leading in and out. I examined the marks . . . $200 Nikes, no doubt. I gripped the .38 and went in without a sound. No sign of anything living in the empty space . . . except for Ricky.
He was duct taped to a scarred wooden chair, his head resting on his chest. No movement, but as I got closer I could see his chest heaving in silent rhythm. He looked up and tried to speak, but the tape held his lips fast. One more quick scan with the .38 and I was stripping the gray adhesive from his entire body. He got up quickly and pointed to the door. I tried to put my arm around his waist, but he held it off.
“I can walk.”
We made it into the pale light of morning and got into the car. I glanced at his face. A few spots of dried blood, mostly around his temple and his mouth, but not much swelling and no deep cuts visible. He looked pretty damned good for a guy who had been kidnapped and, I guessed, released to deliver a message. One that involved death.
“I don’t know why, but they went easy on me. Hell, they could have beat me to a pulp . . . even killed me and dumped my corpse in the river. How is Henri?”
I told him about Ev and our meeting with Henri and Grace. That Henri was now a Ju Ju D.
He coughed and a little more blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. I handed him a Kleenex and related a little more of the story, our previous visit to the warehouse, Sterling, Captain Sullivan and anything else that seemed pertinent. It was all out of order and I was still kind of freaked out, but he seemed to follow every bit and even asked some key questions.
He didn’t seem surprised when he heard about our discredited Secret Service Agent. I guess Evelyn had already shared that tale of woe. He made a crooked smile when I told him how Ev had refused to let me handle things alone. It was the love being reignited in his breast . . . yeah, like that fire had ever gone out. Then he got real quiet. I looked over at him and I could see the furrows deepening in his brow.
“So Ricky. What else? There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Okay . . . there is . . . The two buffaloes started at me. Believe me, those boys are full of enthusiasm, but Bijet called them off. They were highly disappointed. I honestly didn’t understand it. I figured if they didn’t kill me, at least they’d want a very damaged product to display as a warning to anyone who messed with them. I was taped to the chair, couldn’t move. They could do whatever they wanted. He smiled and came over to me. Stuck his face right in front of mine.”
“I love yu, Ricky. Yu are brave and loyal. I wish it was different. I cud haf used a man like yu. But it was not smart to come into de territory of Big Ju Ju. Dis neighborhood and all its people belong to me. I speak . . . dey listen . . . and dey pay. It is de way of de world. The meek will never inherit the earth. Dat is bullshit. It is ruled by de strong and de rutless. Dat wud be me.”
Ricky paused, and coughed with a labored breath. Then he went on with Bijet’s words.
“I wud kiss yu, but it is not manly. So I will render yu my affections in a liddle bit different manner.”
Ricky forced the words out of his mouth, “He smiled. Then he spit into his hand and placed it on the spot here.” He pointed to the dried blood on his temple. “Then again to my bleeding lip.”
“Then he backed up and smiled. ‘I have given yu my gift,’ he said. They left and I sat taped to this chair in the dust and the darkness.”
My skin was crawling. It was Bijet’s “Kiss of Death” . . . maybe a different form, but the intent was clear.