by Bill Stanton
• • •
Oz watched Lucy put the glass of wine down on the coffee table and drift off to sleep in the glow of her laptop. He was actually feeling a little tired himself. It had been an exhausting and not altogether successful week. He was still stewing about his failure to take out Supreme at Roxx. Sloppy work upset him. It was not the way he did things. There were still too many loose ends, too many possibilities for their plans to be disrupted. Ever the loyal soldier, Oz didn’t complain to Brock, but the truth was he was unhappy about having to work this way. Even he occasionally needed rest to be as sharp as possible, and he needed time to properly prepare for these assignments. Failure was not an option, but Brock had continued to put both of them in a difficult, precarious position.
After Chief Fitzgerald had called Brock earlier in the evening, the commissioner decided it was time to regain control of the situation with Frank Bishop and A. J. Ross. So right after directing Fitzgerald to bring his men in, he dispatched Oz to go send a message to “the three fucking stooges.” They had become a serious nuisance, and what better way to intimidate them than to hit the weakest link: A. J.’s assistant, Lucy Chapin.
His directive was simple and to the point. “Scare the fucking daylights out of her. I want her so terrorized that the other two morons get too scared to do anything. Leave no marks, leave no sign you were there, and do not get identified.” Brock had one additional request. He wanted Oz to tape his encounter with Lucy. He wanted to hear her cries for help, the desperate screams, the pleading for her life. He had begun to get excited just giving this last instruction to Oz.
Oz had been with Brock for years, but there were still many things about his boss he didn’t understand. He would never challenge him, but requests like this last one—and it wasn’t the first time he’d asked for something like this—left him puzzled. There was no pleasure or excitement in hurting people for Oz. He did it because he had to do it, because it served the cause. There were no pangs of remorse, no guilt, and he never felt empathy for his victims. He’d decided long ago that it was God’s way, that God had given him the tools to do what he needed to do. Killing, for Oz, was simply the means to achieve his objectives for Allah. Oz wasn’t sure what Brock believed. He had moments when he doubted Brock believed in anything.
• • •
While Bishop waited for the ferry to leave Greenport, he called his guys and left messages detailing what he needed them to accomplish the next day. He wanted to get phone dumps on all the Jafaari family members, as well as the bank statements and the credit card bills of Kevin and Yvette Anderson.
He also tried to reach Lucy, but her phone went straight to voice mail. Just as well, he thought; he didn’t want her to get the idea he was too eager. But the more he thought about her, the more he wondered if he actually had a shot with her. Not at just a couple of meaningless dates, but at a real relationship. It was the kind of thing he’d never thought about before. With Lucy, he found himself wondering not so much about what she’d be like in bed, although that had crossed his mind over and over since they’d met, but more about what it would be like if they went away together. How would they spend a summer weekend on Shelter Island? What kinds of things would they do?
Bishop was snapped out of his reverie as a wave smacked the side of the ferry and water splashed onto the hood of his car. The winds were picking up and the sea was getting choppy as the storm moved in. He could see the Shelter Island dock about two hundred yards ahead; he figured another twenty minutes or so and he’d see Lucy’s irresistible smile.
• • •
Lucy’s eyes fluttered as she slowly began to wake up. She was totally disoriented. It felt like her blood was rushing to her head. It took a couple of moments before she realized she was hanging upside down. She tried to move but felt constricted. It took another moment until she was lucid enough to fully recognize her predicament: she had been duct-taped, naked, to an inversion table. Her feet were in gravity boots and the tape was across her throat, her shoulders, and her thighs. Her hands and wrists had been taped down as well.
• • •
When Lucy had turned the alarm off, she never turned it back on. Oz had easily slipped into the house through a window. Lucy was already asleep, so his job was simple. He didn’t have to subdue her to inject one hundred milligrams of fentanyl into her carotid artery, which guaranteed that she’d be out for at least ten to fifteen minutes. After a quick search of the house to make sure no one else was there, he found the inversion table in the master bedroom. Oz was essentially winging it—he hadn’t had time to formulate a real plan—so the table was, in its way, the answer to his prayers. It was the perfect torture device.
Working quickly, he undressed Lucy, placed her on the inversion table, and put her feet in the gravity boots. To make sure she was completely restrained, he used the duct tape to bind her tightly to the table. Then he turned her naked body upside down. Oz was an observant Muslim. He stripped Lucy to maximize her vulnerability and feelings of helplessness, not for any sexual reasons—though it was impossible not to notice how beautiful she was.
He’d also found a pivoting full-length mirror that he placed directly in front of Lucy. Oz put Lucy and the mirror in the middle of the pitch-black room. Then he placed a flashlight on the floor. It provided just enough illumination for Lucy to see herself taped, naked, and hanging upside down in the dark. This alone was enough to fill the house with her screams. The closest neighbor was about two thousand yards away, and with the storm winds howling off the ocean, Oz was not at all concerned that someone would hear her.
• • •
Bishop had rolled off the ferry and onto the island and was trying to put the address into his GPS, but it wasn’t working. He relied on the device for getting around and it rarely let him down. But now he was only getting Route 114, the island’s main road, and virtually nothing else. Shelter Island was indeed sheltered. He’d have to do what any good PI would do . . . look for the nearest gas station and hope the Pakistani working there knew the neighborhood.
• • •
Lucy was sobbing softly. She could feel whoever did this to her in the room. She tried to stifle her sobs so she could listen, but it was like trying to stop a fit of hiccups. She was breathing hard and the blood pumping in her head was making her ears throb. She was cold and trembling.
Suddenly, from a dark corner of the room she heard a very soft “Sssssh,” almost as if a parent were hushing a baby. Then a breathy male voice, nearly a whisper, said, “Listen.”
• • •
Bishop was driving down Route 114 looking for 76 Winter Street. “How fucking big can this island be?” he muttered. “I gotta find someone to help me out here.” He was barely half a mile down the road when he saw a bar and decided to go in and ask for directions. Since it was the off-season and almost midnight, with a hard rain already starting to come down, it looked like the bartender was getting ready to close, but when Bishop decided to have a shot of Ketel One to take the edge off, the guy served him happily, then wrote down directions to the house where Lucy was staying.
• • •
With Lucy’s chest heaving, she heard the voice from the dark again, this time much closer to her. “Listen very carefully,” he said, close enough now that she could almost taste his scent. She couldn’t see him, but she could feel his index finger touching her now, gently tracing a line from the top of her pubic hair to her belly button, across her stomach, and down and around her breasts. He circled each nipple twice. It was a very light stroke and when he finally reached her neck, his full hand closed around her throat momentarily. Not tight, but just enough to apply a little pressure.
“This is not a game,” he whispered in her ear. “You and your two friends are in the middle of something that’s none of your concern. This all goes away when the three of you go away. If you ignore my suggestion and continue to pursue these matters, the three of you will die. You will also place your families at risk. I assur
e you I am serious. Do not make me prove it.” He had barely started to walk away when Lucy let out a piercing scream.
When she stopped, the room was silent. A few moments later, she heard something from outside the room. She tried to focus and listen carefully, but the blood was still pounding in her ears and she continued to sob. It sounded like her attacker was in the kitchen going through the silverware drawer. Then she heard what she thought was a knife being sharpened. Lucy became hysterical. She was sure she was going to die. Her mind raced. She closed her eyes, which alleviated some of the dizziness from being upside down, and images flashed in her head like a high-speed slide show. Her parents. A. J. Her first dog, Ellroy. Main Street in Telluride. Grace Bay in Turks and Caicos. Summer nights on the beach after high school graduation. She opened her eyes again. The images were far too painful. She’d rather be dizzy. Then she began to do something she hadn’t done since she was a little girl—she started to pray.
• • •
The rain was getting heavier. Bishop tried one last time to call Lucy, but he still wasn’t getting a signal. Then he saw the mailbox and the front gate and realized he was there. Lucy had given him the code, but the gate was open. Strange, he thought as he pulled up to the front of the house. He pulled in behind Lucy’s car, opened his trunk, and quickly grabbed the bottle of Beau Joie.
With the shot of vodka running through him, he felt energized. He walked to the front door and peered through the glass pane of the decorative side panel. He saw the living room with the huge TV screen. There was a movie playing, but he couldn’t tell what it was. Directly across from the living room, he saw the only light on in the house. It looked like the kitchen and he thought he saw Lucy. He decided to go around back and surprise her. He figured he’d better do it quickly, since he was already getting soaked.
As Bishop moved to the side of the house he heard the roar of the waves hitting the seawall of what looked, even on a stormy night, like a beautiful place. He had to remember to check it out come morning. On second thought, he hoped he’d be preoccupied in the morning. He walked up on the deck and approached the glass doors.
He was caught completely off guard by what he saw. He was so stunned that for a moment he wasn’t even sure what the hell he was looking at. As he stood in plain sight facing the kitchen of the lawyer’s multimillion-dollar beach house, he saw the lean figure of a man, approximately five feet eleven inches, dressed all in black, including gloves, and wearing what appeared to be a Casper the Friendly Ghost Halloween mask. He was standing at the counter sharpening a knife.
• • •
Oz had almost finished with Lucy. There wasn’t much more he could do, short of starting to cut her or torture her in a way that would leave marks, and Brock had specifically told him not to do this. She seemed about as terrified as anyone he’d ever worked on. Just to make sure, he decided he’d toy with her a little longer, until she either urinated on herself or screamed so hard she burned out her vocal cords. He was certain sharpening the knife within earshot would get her to do one or the other.
Oz was about to go back into the darkened room when he sensed something behind him. He stopped sharpening the knife, placed it on the counter, and in one fluid movement pulled a SIG Sauer .223 semiautomatic from his waist holster. He spun and was almost as shocked to see Frank Bishop, standing outside with a Champagne bottle in his hand, as Bishop had been to see him. He pointed the SIG and fired three times in rapid succession. The first round shattered the sliding glass door. The second shot shattered the champagne bottle in Bishop’s hand, wiping the last vestige of a grin off his rain-soaked face, while the third shot whizzed by his left ear—all in less than two seconds.
• • •
By the time the third shot narrowly missed him, Bishop was already in a combat stance and firing back, but his target was now on the move. He burst through the shattered glass door into the house, broken shards of glass crunching under his wet shoes. As soon as he got out of the storm, he could hear Lucy’s screams echo throughout the house. Bishop felt like every nerve was on fire as he carefully moved toward the sound.
Whoever was in the house was good and Bishop knew the guy had the advantage. He’d had time to get a sense of the layout and a feel for where things were. Plus he probably had a plan just in case someone showed up. Bishop’s only plan for the evening was seducing Lucy.
It was hard to hear anything over Lucy’s screams. Bishop finally yelled out, “Lucy, its Bishop. Are you okay?” To which Lucy’s crying reply was, “Please, please help me.” He worked his way down the corridor to the master bedroom in a low crouch.
• • •
Oz watched Bishop from a darkened corner of the dining room, his back against the wall. As always, he was completely calm. He felt confident he could take Bishop out if he had to, though he was impressed with the PI’s reaction time. Oz was, however, disappointed with himself. He despised inefficiency and shoddy performance. This was the second time in less than a week that he had fired his weapon to kill someone and missed. He had shot at Bishop from an odd angle, and the heavy glass of the sliding doors further deflected his aim, but there was still no excuse for his failure.
The question was, should he kill Bishop now, if he got the opportunity? Would that put an end to their problems or would it just create new ones? Oz decided not to kill Bishop unless he had to. He’d left no evidence, no proof that he’d been there, and they had no way to identify him. If he got out now, he would have accomplished his mission. He’d made his point: they were all vulnerable. He could get to any one of them at any time. He’d put the fear of God in the woman, and if they were smart, they would get the message.
• • •
Bishop had reached the doorway of the master bedroom. When he saw Lucy naked, bound with duct tape, and hanging upside down, it sent a chill through his body. He was enraged, but there was a touch of fear as well. What kind of sick fuck would do something like this? He fought the urge to run to her. He knew the motherfucker was still in the house. Crouching down, he asked her in a low voice, “Are you hurt?”
Lucy, sobbing softly again, managed to choke out a soft no.
Keeping his gun hand extended in the direction of the doorway, Bishop slowly backed into the bedroom. He reached into his left pocket and pulled out a CRKT pocket blade, which was about the size of a money clip and razor sharp. Without taking his eyes off the door, he pushed the mirror out of the way and brought the inversion table parallel to the floor. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied through choked sobs.
Working quickly, Bishop cut the duct tape around her neck and shoulders and the tape binding her arms and wrists. He reached over to the bed, pulled off the blanket, and covered her. His mind was going at warp speed. Was the intruder still in the house? He gently put the knife in Lucy’s hand and whispered in her ear, “Can you cut yourself out the rest of the way?” She nodded. “Good,” he said, softly stroking her cheek. “Once you’re free, dial 911, and wait in the closet. Hang in there, sweetheart, I’ll be back shortly.”
Not much more than sixty seconds had elapsed from the time Bishop entered the room, cut Lucy’s hands free, gave her instructions, and got himself back to the doorway. Oz started toward the front door. He saw Bishop poke his head out of the bedroom doorway, and he fired to keep him pinned down. Bishop quickly ducked back in. Bishop waited and listened. When he heard the front door opening, he bolted in pursuit. He saw the intruder run down the gravel driveway and disappear into the darkness. He had about a thirty-yard head start.
When Bishop ran after him he was greeted by pelting rain and powerful winds. He realized whoever this guy was, he must’ve parked close by, probably down a side road, and was now racing back to get his car. Bishop decided to cut him off. He fired up the Boxster, threw it into first, and hit the accelerator so hard he kicked rocks up everywhere. The car’s rear end fishtailed violently before he regained control and headed down the driveway. Even with
his high beams and fog lights, he saw nothing but blackness surrounding him and sheets of rain blasting against his windshield.
At the mouth of the driveway, he paused to look for a sign, any sign, of whether to go left or right. He looked to his left and suddenly out of the darkness came a pair of high beams racing directly toward him. He was momentarily blinded as Casper the Friendly Ghost blew past him going at least eighty miles an hour. Taking a long blink to clear his eyes, Bishop slammed down on the accelerator and went after him.
He drove over a slight rise and around a curve and saw Casper’s taillights about a hundred yards ahead. Spotting Bishop behind him and closing ground, he turned off his lights. No headlights, no taillights. Now he was driving in total darkness. Bishop completely lost sight of him and was only able to spot him sporadically, when his brake lights came on briefly. The roads were awful, slippery, narrow, and made nearly invisible by the storm. Bishop had started talking to himself. “Let’s go, motherfucker,” he said loudly. “I own you now.”
By the way the guy was driving, Bishop was pretty sure he had no idea where he was going. He made a series of lefts and rights, then rights and lefts. Bishop wondered what he was thinking. They were back on the main road, Route 114, when the car suddenly spun out. Sensing the opportunity, Bishop accelerated. But just as he picked up speed, five or six deer appeared out of nowhere in his headlights. Bishop cut the wheel hard to the left and spun out himself. He missed the deer but went off the road into a soft muddy quagmire.