Passion's Wicked Torment

by Melissa Hepburne

  “Are you?” He looked at her sternly.

  She had to make her reply convincing. She bent forward and kissed him on the lips, a full, languorous kiss. Then she backed away and stared at him with an expression that said: Does that answer your question?

  “Dallas always was a little bit crazy,” Ironman confided. “Not what you’d call your typical hood. But if he’s crazy enough to throw away someone like you, he don’t deserve you.” His eyes became excited. “But I do!”

  He came forward and grasped her shoulders, pulling her toward him. He kissed her hungrily. His beefy hands pawed all over her body greedily, ripping open her blouse, caressing and squeezing her breasts. He was not gentle, and despite the pretense of refinement he aspired to, he was nothing more than the brutal savage the newspaper headlines made him out to be. Only now Kristin was experiencing his roughness firsthand, rather than reading about tales of how he had beaten or killed men who stood in his way.

  He did not unbutton or unfasten any of her clothing; he ripped everything off. When she tried to move inside, back into the penthouse, he grabbed her wrist and stopped her. He pushed her down onto the warm artificial grass covering of the patio and made love to her right there. She stared up, past his shoulder, to the blue sky and white clouds, her eyes wide, stunned by the quickness with which this was all happening. Ironman was inside her, his hard, virile, stocky body pressing down on top of her, his flesh searing her flesh.

  After a few minutes, he did something that had never been done to her before. He flipped her over onto her stomach, and despite her cries he came into her sex from behind, reentering her womanhood, which by now had become excruciatingly sensitive. She tried to resist, feeling panic at the unfamiliarity of this new position. But he had her pinned to the warm patio surface, his arms circling around her from behind to clasp her breasts in his hands.

  He kept snapping himself into her sex, squeezing her breasts. Then, finally, he grunted deep in his throat. He moved off of her. Surprisingly, he took her wrist and helped raise her to her feet. He was smiling at her. But she cast down her eyes. He took his robe and put it over her shoulders now. Kristin pulled it tightly around herself. It felt pleasant. She discovered that she liked the feel of expensive silk against her skin, despite the fact that most of her mind was dwelling on the terrible incident she had just been through.

  “I don’t want you to see Hunter anymore,” Ironman said. “You and me, we’re going to get along fine. I’ll treat you right. First class all the way. You won’t be wasted on me, doll. I promise you that.” He pointed sharply with his finger. “But don’t you go seeing Hunter again. Ever. That’s an order.”

  “I don’t have any desire to see him again,” she said in a subdued voice.

  He grunted his approval. Then he tapped her lightly on the behind and said, “You go in and shower. Then I'll take you to the snazziest eatery you ever laid eyes on. You and me, doll, we’re going to be a team. We’re going to be one hell of a good-looking couple.”

  As she turned to go back into the penthouse, Ironman made one last comment in a very casual, nonchalant voice. “It’s good you don’t want to see Hunter anymore. Because if I ever get the impression you still care for him even a little bit—I’ll kill him.”

  CHAPTER 13

  After Ironman took Kristin to dinner that night, he dropped her off at his hotel and told her to go up to the penthouse and wait for him. He had to take care of some business. It would only take a short while, he assured her.

  Then he had his driver take him to a secret location in the basement of an abandoned illegal drug factory. He was let in by Ladislas Terry, one of the men on his payroll.

  Ironman did not waste time on words. “Has he talked yet?” he asked.

  Ladislas Terry shook his head. “He’s a tough one, Ironman. Doesn’t look like he’s going to talk.”

  Ironman grimaced angrily and stared across the room at the bound-but-not-bowed figure against the far wall: Chad Fleming. Fleming’s white shirt was stained with drops of dried blood from the many times he had been beaten. Bruises marked his face, closing one eye completely. Chad returned Ironman’s stare, forcing a grin onto his bruised lips. “Well, well,” Chad said in a taunting voice, “the big cheese himself.”

  “Shut up, you,” said Ironman, removing his kidskin gloves and stuffing them into the pockets of his expensive Chesterfield coat. “I want to hear just one thing from you: the name of the federal agent who’s infiltrated my organization.”

  “Sure, Gianelli. I’ll tell you who it is: Santa Claus. Now will you let me go?”

  Ironman did not smile. He looked accusingly at Terry, who held his hands out helplessly. “He won’t crack,” said Terry defensively. “I’ve beaten the hell out of him, and he still won’t crack. The guy’s tough, I tell you.”

  “What are you, a pussycat? I thought I was getting more for my money.”

  “Ironman,” Terry said, straightening up, showing by his tone that he would respect Ironman’s authority but would not let himself be unfairly insulted, “I’m not some kind of flower. I’m one of the best there is at getting information out of a man. But some men just won’t talk. I can go further, if you want. But if I do, he’ll just end up dead. There isn’t much more I can do that I haven’t done already.”

  Ironman said nothing, just continued staring at Chad Fleming. The tough gangster was feeling bitter frustration. “The best bet,” said Terry, “is that strategy you were working on. Finding his sister. That would do the trick.” “You leave my sister out of this, you bastards!” shouted Chad from across the long, narrow basement room.

  “Yeah,” said Ironman, “that would do the trick. If we could work her over, in front of him, he’d tell us what we want to know. But the bitch disappeared into thin air.”

  “She’s a teacher, isn’t that right?”

  “Yeah, yeah. But she quit her school, saying she was going to California to stay with relatives. I’ve got people scouring that state from one end to the other, and I still can’t find her. I even had people checking the hotel registers for this Molly Fleming—that’s her name, Molly K. Fleming—and still no luck.”

  “So that’s why you’ve been keeping me alive this long,” Chad called from across the basement, realization dawning. “You were trying to bring my sister in, thinking that that would make me crack. It won’t work, Gianelli! Nothing will work. You might as well kill me now. I won’t tell you what you want to know.”

  Ironman started across the basement toward him. Terry was walking at his side. “It’s all the fault of that damn T.J.,” Ironman said, shaking his head bitterly.

  “He made the stupid mistake of not grabbing the girl at the same time as he grabbed the reporter here. T.J. was the only one who got a good look at her, and now he’s dead. Rooney’s men got him during the warehouse raid.”

  They stopped in front of Chad. His wrists were tied behind him, his left ankle tied to a plumbing pipe that ran along the bottom of the wall.

  “You going to tell us who the infiltrator is, kid?” Ironman asked him.

  “What infiltrator?” echoed Chad harshly.

  “You going to tell us the address of your grandparents in California where your sister is staying?”

  “What grandparents? What sister?” Chad glared at Ironman.“What state of California? Never heard of it.” Ironman slugged him. Chad winced at the blow, but then, after the pain receded a bit, he stared back at Ironman, defiantly.

  “At least he stopped denying that he knows who the infiltrator is,” Terry said.

  Big deal!” said Ironman. “He had to. He knows we saw that report he made to his editor, where he says he discovered there’s a T-man working undercover in our organization. And that he knows who he is.” Ironman turned to Chad. “Why didn’t you say who the fed was in your report? You could have saved us all this trouble. And yourself all this pain.”

  “Here’s why, Gianelli: Because I know you’ve got eyes and ears throughout the pape
r, just like you do throughout the city government and throughout the police force. And I knew that if the man’s name got out, his life wouldn’t be worth a plugged nickel. There’re corrupt people everywhere, ready to spill their guts for a bribe. I didn’t tell my editor the man’s name. And I’m not going to tell you either.”

  “You want to die, kid?” asked Ironman with a look of false concern for Chad’s welfare. “Maybe you just don’t realize how important it is for me to weed out this bastard, whoever he is. Let me enlighten you. My organization is being completely disrupted because I don’t know who I can trust. I can’t even let my accountant handle the full ledger anymore because I don’t know for sure that he’s not the fed. I have to get receipts and reports from my different section heads, then put them into the big book all by myself. I have to do all this, kid—and I hate it!”

  “Tough,” said Chad.

  “I have to watch who I talk to. Who I give assignments to. I have to be careful twenty-four hours a day.” Suddenly Ironman’s face turned red with rage, and he screamed, “You’re ruining my life, kid! And I’m going to make you pay! Now tell me who the damn infiltrator is so I can get the son of a bitch out of my hide and get back to work! Huh!”

  “Go to hell,” said Chad.

  Ironman lost control. He picked up the first thing his eyes lit on, a heavy plaster vase on a table, and smashed it down across Chad’s brow. Chad instantly crumpled to the wooden floor and lay there, unmoving.

  Terry knelt down and looked him over, frowning hard. “Now you did it,” he said. He put his ear to Chad’s chest, listening for a heartbeat.

  “Did I kill him?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation. “No. He’s alive. But I don’t know if he’ll stay that way. You probably scrambled his brains with that vase.” Terry looked reluctant to say anything further, but finally he spoke, chastising his boss slightly. “Hell, if you wanted him dead, I could have done that. I thought you wanted to get info out of him.”

  Ironman threw the vase against the wall, shattering it. “Ahh,” he said disgustedly. “I didn’t intend to hit him like that. He drove me to it. It’s just . . . hell, I never planned to keep him here this long. This thing is dragging out too damn long! I thought I’d pick him up off the street, rough him up a bit, and he’d tell us what we want to know. Most reporters are softies. How’d I know we’d get a tough one. ‘Mad Dog’ Fleming, that’s what they called him during the war. Did you know that?”

  Terry was still on his knees before Chad’s unmoving body, listening to his heartbeat. “All I know is, he’s going to be in bad shape, even if he does live. And we can’t keep him here much longer, anyway. This place is getting too hot. The cops ain’t looking for him, but the feds are. Why don’t we just dump him into the lake, Ironman?”

  “I need that name!” roared Ironman. “I got to weed out that infiltrator! Every day he stays in my organization, he’s a day closer to getting the goods on me. Soon he’ll have enough for the feds to arrest me.” He looked at Terry suspiciously, with feverish, paranoid eyes. “Why are you so anxious to have him done in? You wouldn’t be the man I’m looking for, would you now?”

  Terry scoffed at the foolishness of the question. “Boss, I’m the one who’s been beating him silly every day! You think he’d risk his neck to protect me if I was the fed?”

  “All right. All right. So I’m getting jumpy. I just want to find this infiltrator and get him taken care of.”

  “Meantime, what do we do with him? We can’t keep him here.”

  “I’ll come up with some other place to move him to. I’ll let you know soon. When he regains consciousness—”

  “If,” Terry corrected.

  “When! That bastard better not die on me now, after all the time I’ve wasted on him. When he regains consciousness, you keep drilling him for that name. And I’ll keep trying to locate his sister, this Molly K. Fleming gal.”

  As Ironman started to leave, Chad groaned loudly on the floor. Ironman turned back just as Chad opened his eyes and sat up. He blinked several times at Ironman, who was staring at him with a furled brow.

  “Who are you?” Chad Fleming said in a subdued voice, squinting hard, his eyes narrow slits.

  “Nice try, kid. But it won’t work.” Ironman turned on his heel and left. As he walked back to his limousine in the darkened alleyway, he had only one thought to console him amidst all the frustrations and mounting anguishes of his life: At least he had that beautiful young girl waiting for him at home.

  “Kristin Seagrave,” he said aloud, taking comfort even from the lovely sound of her name. He pulled on his gloves, entered his car and let himself savor the pleasures that awaited him back at the hotel for tonight and many nights to come.

  CHAPTER 14

  After living with Ironman for two weeks, Kristin finally learned the first bit of information about Chad. Out of discouragement, she had almost been ready to force the issue. She had decided to hint around the subject, to try to get Ironman to talk about whether he had ever abducted anyone and what he did with them. She knew that by asking this, she would be taking her life in her hands, risking divulging her true purpose. It would have meant almost certain death, she realized afterward, if she had taken that course. Fortunately, it had not been necessary.

  They were in Ironman’s penthouse. Kristin was wearing a silk robe and an elaborate diamond necklace. Ironman liked seeing her wearing the expensive jewelry or mink stoles he gave her, even when she was only lounging in front of the fireplace, reading, as she was doing now.

  Ironman was at the grand piano, trying to play a popular show tune. In a few hours they would have to begin dressing for the big party Ironman was hosting at the Savory ballroom, but for now they were just killing time.

  Kristin winced at Ironman’s piano playing. He was absolutely terrible. And the worst of it was, he did not realize it. He thought he was a gifted musician, and he often spoke to her about how, if he had not gone into his present line of work, he might have become a famous pianist. Kristin did not argue. She never mentioned to him the fact that he was so tone-deaf, he did not even realize it when he struck horribly wrong notes.None of his men said anything about this either, realizing how sensitive their boss was to the subject.

  The phone rang, and she answered it. It was Riggio calling from downstairs in the lobby. “Tell the boss that Teal is on his way up.” She relayed the message. When the bell rang, Ironman had Kristin let the man in. Arthur Teal stood about nervously as Ironman finished the piece he was playing, then looked up at him and Kristin for approval. Teal was so dumbfounded by the horrible playing, he did not know if the boss was joking with him or not. He looked nervous. Kristin saved him by showing him the way. “It was wonderful,” she said gently, looking at Ironman, then Teal.

  Teal swallowed. “Yeah, boss. Really what you’d call a hot piece of playing.”

  Ironman smiled indulgently, pleased. “Nothing. George Gershwin couldn’t do,” he said, only half jokingly. He stood up from the piano and came over to the wet bar, where he poured himself and Teal a shot of whiskey. He glanced at Kristin out of politeness, but knew she would shake her head no, as she did.

  “Thanks, boss,” said Teal, taking his drink and gulping it down. He looked upset and harried, as if he wanted to say something but did not know how to phrase it without getting himself in trouble.

  One of Ironman’s positive traits was that he had a sixth sense about his own people. He could usually tell what was going through their minds. Part of the reason for this, Kristin believed, was that most of his men were so simple-minded, they could be read like a book. Ironman sipped at his whiskey for a moment, then said:

  “All right, Arthur. Spit it out. What’s on your mind?”

  Teal looked agonized. It seemed that he was about to mention a subject Ironman had already decided on, and Teal was about to question the wisdom of the decision. Finally he made himself speak, blurting it out after gulping down another shot of whiskey. “Boss, h
ow much longer do we have to keep that damn reporter?” Kristin’s ears perked up, She felt so alert, it was as if a bolt of lightning had struck her. She did not look up from her magazine, though, which she had returned to reading on the sofa.

  There was a moment of dead silence. Then Ironman said, “Kristin, honey, why don’t you go into the bedroom.” The sternness in his voice was due to his displeasure with Teal, she knew, not with her.

  She looked up casually, as if she were so absorbed in what she was reading that she had not been aware of what was said. “Why, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing, honey. You just go and make yourself comfortable. Then you can come here again a little later.”

  She was almost on the verge of arguing with him or trying some ploy such as asking if he didn’t trust her. But she restrained herself, knowing it might tip her hand unduly. She shrugged and wandered off into the bedroom, holding the Collier’s magazine in front of her as she walked, as if still reading.

  “And close the door, honey.”

  She did so. And then, instantly, she dove down to the floor near the heater grating, which had an outlet on both sides of the wall. She had discovered this means of eavesdropping a while ago and had used it on other occasions. It was not very good though. She now put her ear right against the cold metal grille, thankful that Ironman preferred the fireplace for warmth rather than the heater. If the heater had been on, she would not have been able to get near enough to the grille to hear anything.

  Ironman’s voice was deep and gruff as usual. Part of what he said was lost in the grille, coming out as muffled, undecipherable sounds. She heard enough of the conversation to piece it together though.

  “Arthur,” Ironman was saying, “why do you question my judgment? I told you it’s good business to keep him alive. You think maybe you should be running the mob?”

  “No, boss, no! That’s not it at all! It’s just . . . well, he ain’t gonna talk, boss. Me and Terry, we think he’s lost his memory just like he’s making out that he has. We think the way you hit him last time—”