by Cap Daniels
Anya grabbed the girl by the throat, forced her back into her chair, and said, “You are fired. Get out now and you will not get hurt.”
The terrified girl ran from the office.
We burst through the door to find Giovani snorting a line of coke from the corner of his desk. Clark and I took positions left and right of the door with our pistols drawn and clearly visible. Giovani reached into his desk drawer for what I’m sure was a pistol, but Anya slammed the drawer on the back of his hand. He probably thought he could shoot his way out of the hell unleashed in his office, but he was sorely mistaken.
Anya jerked his hand from the drawer, twisted it sharply over his shoulder, and forced the man back into his chair. Full of cocaine-strength and fear, he took a swing at her as he landed in the seat, but she struck like a cobra inside his elbow with a blocking punch. The strike sounded like thunder in the small office and got his attention.
He wailed in pain until Anya punched him in the throat, shutting him up and leaving him gasping for air.
She held Skipper’s picture in front of his face. “Where is this girl? You will tell me now and maybe I let you live, or maybe they kill you quickly. If you do not tell me, I will take my time killing you. Is up to you.”
Giovani’s terrified eyes darted in a cocaine-induced dance from the two of us standing by his office door, to Anya’s stern gaze, and back to the picture of Skipper. His mind must’ve been exploding as he tried to process everything seconds after the drugs hit his brain.
Anya must have thought he hesitated a moment too long. “Come put bullet in knee to show we are serious.”
“Okay!” he screamed. “I’ll give you the girl. Everybody needs to chill out and put the guns away. I’m a businessman. It’s just business. It’s not personal.”
I walked around his desk and smelled his cheap cologne mixed with sweat. I forced his hand onto the desk and pressed the muzzle of my pistol into the flesh of his wrist.
“Listen to my voice,” I said. “Don’t I sound calm to you? I could put a bullet through your hand or through your head, and my pulse rate would never get above sixty. You don’t get to tell us when to calm down, and you most certainly don’t get to decide what’s personal.”
I could feel his body trembling, but I didn’t know if it was the cocaine or the fear. It was probably a combination of the two.
“Look, I’ll give you the girl. Just don’t shoot me, man. I’ll give you the girl, all right?”
“She’s not yours to give,” I growled. “What you’ll do is tell me where she is right now. The next time you open your miserable mouth, it better be to give me an address. Anything else gets you a brand-new bullet-sized hole somewhere in your body. Now speak.”
“Okay, look. It’s like this,” he said. “We send the girls out to do shoots all over the place, so it’s impossible for me to know where all of them are, so—”
I pulled the trigger of my suppressed Walther and watched the shock of the bullet pass through his wrist and travel up his arm. Blood sprayed his pressed white shirt. He screamed and grabbed his bloody wrist and his face turned pale.
“Here’s what’s going to happen next,” I said. “You’re going to get light-headed, and then you’re going to pass out. If that happens before you tell me where the girl is, I promise you’ll never wake up. I’ll put two more rounds straight through the top of your head. I’m guessing you have somewhere between thirty and forty-five seconds before the pain is too much and you close your eyes—possibly forever—so let’s hear it. Tick-tock . . . tick-tock.”
Clark pulled a necktie from a hall tree in the corner of the office and fashioned a loose tourniquet around Giovani’s forearm, just below the elbow.
“Give me the address, and we’ll stop the bleeding, and you can get some help. Your only other option is far less appealing. It’s important you understand that I want to put two in your brain. Scum like you doesn’t deserve to live. I’m going to find the girl, with or without you. What you have to decide in the next ten seconds is whether or not she’s worth dying for.”
“She’s on Fourteenth,” he grunted through the pain, “seven blocks off the beach at a rented house on a film shoot. I swear. Now get me some help.”
Clark turned the tourniquet two full twists and the bleeding slowed to a trickle. Giovani leaned back in his chair, moaning while sweat poured from every inch of his body.
I slapped him across his grimy face. “I knew you’d see it our way. Oh, by the way, Giovani, I lied to you.”
“I knew you weren’t going to shoot me again!” he blurted.
“No,” I said. “That part was true. I was going to shoot you in the head. In fact, I was looking forward to that. I lied about you passing out. That’s probably not going to happen. Lucky you. You’re going to stay awake and look at what used to be your wrist until we verify you’re telling the truth about where the girl is. Then, and only then, will you be free to call an ambulance or do another line of coke. Whatever you want.”
I turned to Clark and Anya. “We have to either take him with us, or one of us has to stay with him until we know he’s telling the truth.”
“It’s too messy to take him with us. There’s too much chance of seeing a cop and him screaming like a little bitch,” Clark said. “I’ll babysit him while you and Ana go get the girl.”
“Okay,” I said, “we’ll call you as soon as we have her. If you don’t hear from us in one hour, kill him, and we’ll pick you up at the rally point.”
There was no rally point, but Giovani had no way of knowing that. I had no reason to believe anything Giovani Minelli told me, but if he lied about Skipper’s location, it would be the last lie he’d ever tell.
14
That’s My Girl
As we left the office, we were pleased to see the girl from the front desk gone. She didn’t need to be involved in any of this.
The streets of South Beach weren’t overly crowded, so we took Ocean Drive to Fourteenth and started counting blocks. When we made it to the seventh block, it was obvious which house was our target. The driveway was littered with vans and production equipment.
We drove by the house once to recon for exits and guards. They had one fat guy at the front door who they probably thought could keep out any intruders, but we weren’t just any intruders. There was a garage entrance and back door into a small courtyard behind the house. If we could get inside undetected, we’d have a much better chance of getting Skipper out of the house without hurting or killing anyone. I’d done enough killing on this trip. I was hoping for a quiet resolution, but in my world, such a thing rarely exists.
“Let me out behind the house,” I said. “I’ll go around the east side toward the front door. I want you to get the fat guy off the front porch so I can get in without him seeing me. I’ll find Skipper and get her out of there. You be ready to go when you see us coming out the front door.”
Anya frowned. “This is terrible plan. You are walking into place and do not know how many men or where is girl.”
“It’s a porn set,” I said. “They’ve got one guard on the front door and a bunch of cameramen and light guys inside. They’re not expecting me to show up to snatch one of their girls.”
“You heard Clark say these people are well connected and keep plenty of muscle around.”
“Look, Anya. They have one fat guy on the front door. That’s it. Do what I say, and we’ll be out of here in five minutes.”
I stepped out of the car. Before I closed the door behind me, I heard her say, “You are making big mistake.”
She pulled away, and I headed for the side of the house. I took up a position at the front corner of the house just in time to see Anya bringing the car to a shuttering stop beside the driveway. She stepped from the car and slammed the door, then she yanked open the hood. Positioning herself perfectly for the door guard to see, she bent over the fender and pretended to inspect the engine problem.
I don’t know any man who wouldn’t
leave his post to help Anya in that pose. I silently applauded her performance.
Human nature dictates that when a man walks toward temptation and away from his responsibilities, he often has the briefest moment of indecision and turns back to look at what he’s walking away from. I wondered if the guy was human enough to have that moment. About ten steps from the front door, the walrus of a man checked his watch then glanced back at the front door. It took less than a second for him to decide that Anya would be more fun than playing guard. I quietly strolled through the front door.
Subtlety wasn’t in Anya’s nature, and I was impressed with her little charade to lure the guy away from his post. Before I closed the door behind me, I took one last look outside.
Anya was pointing at the engine and giving the guy her pouty face. The man fell right into her trap. He bent over to look at the engine of my car. Anya reached up, grabbed the hood with both hands and slammed it down onto the man’s head. I watched his knees buckle and his big body fall limp across the fender. She raised the hood and slammed it twice more before rolling his body under a clump of shrubs and palms.
That’s my girl.
I listened for sounds in the house. The marble floor created an echo chamber that carried the slightest sound throughout the first floor. I heard the ice machine in the kitchen and somebody snoring. Snoring on a porn set didn’t seem normal, so I tucked that tidbit away with a plan to investigate it later if I needed to.
I crept into a huge open room in the center of the house, determined not to make a sound. There was a curved staircase against the wall to my right, and in the center of the room was a haphazard arrangement of sofas, bean bags, and overstuffed chairs. That’s where I found the source of the snoring. It was a massive German Shepherd, drooling and snoring and coiled up like a kitten on one of the bean bags.
The dog was a problem, but not a problem I couldn’t handle. I just had to keep him in the back of my mind and be prepared for when he woke up—and he would wake up.
I memorized the layout of the first floor of the house, and the position of the animal. Dividing my attention between the dog and the top of the stairs, I drew my pistol and began my slow, silent ascent. I reached the top of the marble staircase and I glanced back, relieved to see the German Shepherd still sawing logs.
I stepped around a corner and saw a spiderweb of extension cords taped to the floor and leading down a hallway. I paused to listen for movement, but I heard nothing, so I followed the cords. Through a set of closed French doors, I could hear the overacted moans and screams of a woman pretending to be in the throes of passion. I listened closely, trying to determine if the voice was Skipper’s. It had been over two years since I’d seen her, so I wasn’t certain, but it sounded like someone much older.
I drew in a slow, full breath as I prepared to burst through the door and grab Skipper. That’s when someone yelled, “Cut! Nice job, everybody. Now clean this up and get the kid in here.”
A middle-aged, tattooed woman wearing a headset, came through the bedroom door with a clipboard in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I was exposed with nowhere to hide and no chance of getting back to the stairs without the woman seeing me. I raised my pistol close to my chest and waited for her to catch a glimpse of me and start screaming. This whole operation was about to turn into a dumpster fire, and all I could do was pour gas on it.
The woman never glanced my way. She turned right after leaving the bedroom and grabbed a doorknob a few feet down the hall. The knob didn’t turn, so she violently beat on the door and shouted, “Open this fucking door right now or I swear I’ll beat you to death when I get in there.”
She held the knob and threw her body against the door twice. It didn’t budge, but on the third try, the cheap knob and lock surrendered and the door swung open.
I glanced through the partially open bedroom door to make sure no one else was coming out. There were perhaps ten people standing around while two actors, a man and a woman, stood naked beside a raised table smoking cigarettes and ignoring everyone else. I stepped across the cables taped to the floor and followed the tattooed woman into what turned out to be a huge bathroom. Before I made it through the doorway, I heard Skipper’s voice.
“No, please don’t make me go in there. I don’t want to do that. Please! No!”
My pulse raced. I powered through the door with my pistol in one hand and my other hand raised to block the door should the woman decide to slam it in my face. I was too quick, and she never saw me coming. With my free hand firmly on her neck, I forced the woman’s skinny frame through the glass shower enclosure. As she fell through the pane of glass, it exploded around her. She landed in a bloody heap inside the shower, unconscious and surrounded by shards of shattered glass.
Skipper was sitting on the toilet with a bathrobe wrapped around her shoulders. I grabbed her with my left hand and shoved her behind me as I raised my pistol and pointed through the doorway. The sound of the breaking glass still echoed, and I expected to see someone coming to investigate. I could hear Skipper breathing hard behind me, and she was clinging to my waist.
Two gargantuan men stepped through the door, filling the space and blocking any view I had into the hallway. Each of the men was holding a pistol and pointing it straight at me. Skipper gasped, and I could feel her body trembling in fear.
I was in the worst possible position, cornered, with an innocent victim behind me and two armed giants blocking the only exit. I’d been trained for countless scenarios, but this called for some creativity. I could get a bullet into either of the men, but probably not both before they opened fire, killing both Skipper and me. That left me with two options. One, I could take my chances of getting two shots off before taking a round to my chest, or two, surrender and let them take me. I could fight my way out later when my odds were better, but I didn’t want to risk losing Skipper again.
Suddenly, a pink mist exploded from the giant’s face on my left, and the big man melted to the ground. I put two rounds into the second man’s chest and one into his face, and I watched him fall.
Skipper screamed and I spun around, covering her mouth with my hand. Her eyes were wide and full of terror. It took several seconds for recognition to overtake her.
I removed my hand from her mouth.
“Chase? What are you doing here? What—”
I didn’t have time to explain. “Stay behind me and do exactly as I say. I’ll get you out of here.”
She wasn’t moving, obviously terrified.
“Listen to me, Skipper! Stay behind me and do what I say! Do you understand?”
Regaining her senses, she said, “Yeah, okay.”
I held her hand and led her across the two bodies and into the hallway. Anya was standing there with her pistol raised, and smoke was wafting from the muzzle.
I shoved Skipper toward Anya. “Get her to the car! If I’m not out in one minute, leave without me!”
Skipper hesitated and turned back toward me.
“Go with Anya! She’ll get you out of here. You can trust her!”
Skipper ran to Anya and they raced for the stairs. The instant they reached the stairs, another giant of a man came pouncing from the bedroom with his gun raised, focusing on the two fleeing women. He didn’t see me. That was a fatal mistake on his part, but I wasn’t as quick as I needed to be.
My world turned deathly silent and time slowed to a crawl. I watched the muscles in the man’s forearm tighten and the flesh of the back of his hand turn white. I saw the hammer of his pistol rise from the frame of the heavy black weapon. When it fell, an orange flame exploded from the muzzle and the spent shell casing leapt out of the ejector port. I brought my pistol to bear on the gunman’s head and squeezed the trigger twice. The spent shells from my pistol flew out of the slide in immediate succession of his and collided in the air between us. In silence, I watched the sequence play out frame-by-frame.
I turned my head, hoping to see Anya and Skipper descending the stairs, but w
hat I saw sent spears through my soul. Anya’s right shoulder blade had taken the bullet. Her blood sprayed through the air and across the banister. The pistol she’d been holding had fallen to the stairs when she was blown forward by the concussion of the shot.
Skipper reached out for her as Anya’s body tumbled across the banister and began the fall to the marble floor below.
15
Breadcrumbs
I subconsciously put two more rounds into the corpse in front of me as I heard the sickening thud of Anya’s body strike the floor. I made an unthinkable number of mistakes in the coming seconds as some force drew me to Anya. I didn’t think about anything else happening around me.
I had no plan, and no backup if things got worse, but how could things possibly get worse?
I took two galloping strides toward the stairs and leapt, clearing six or seven steps before landing a third of the way down. I grabbed Skipper around the waist and bounded toward the ground floor. When I reached the bottom, to my horror, I saw Anya’s lifeless form sprawled on the marble floor with blood pooling by her head. My chest was on fire and my mind was churning. I ran to her and collapsed to my knees, sliding to a stop inches from her body. As I reached for her neck, praying I’d feel a pulse, I heard a sound that nearly stopped my heart.
In my panic to get to Anya, I’d forgotten about the dog who was now on full alert, barking ferociously, and charging toward me. Reflexively, I drew my pistol and pointed it in the general direction of the advancing canine. I yanked the trigger twice, but nothing happened. I’d foolishly wasted the last remaining rounds from my pistol on the dead gunman who’d shot Anya, and now I was going to pay for that mistake.
Skipper stepped between me and the charging animal. I couldn’t fathom why she’d sacrifice herself to stop the dog. I reached up to grab her, hoping I could throw her out of the way before the dog’s teeth arrived, but I missed by an inch.
She knelt between the advancing dog and Anya’s body. “Harvey! Down!”