by Wesley Lewis
She reached the closed door at the end of the hallway, placed a hand on the knob, and hesitated. From somewhere far behind her, she heard the toadlike little American barking orders at Crocker and Larry as he led them to the basement.
She shuddered to think what might be in the basement. Still, she wished she were going with them.
A hand settled onto her right shoulder. She almost screamed.
“It’s unlocked,” said Dudka.
She turned the knob, and the door opened to a tastefully adorned but horribly unkempt master bedroom. Everything in this house needed a good scrubbing.
As she took a step forward, she glanced over her shoulder at Dudka.
“On the bed, please,” he said.
In the center of the room, a king-size bed with a wrought iron frame was topped by a tangle of soiled sheets.
Soiled with what? she thought as she approached the foul mess.
She saw a small love seat across from the bed and pointed to it. “Couldn’t I just sit on—”
“The bed,” he repeated.
She walked to the bed, placed a steadying hand on the ornate iron footboard, and turned toward Dudka as she sat.
He pointed to the center of the bed and said, “Lie down.”
She thought briefly about lunging forward and running at him with all her strength. If he was slow to react, she might knock him to the ground and make it into the hallway. But would she make it past the two goons cleaning machine guns? Who else might she encounter before she found an open door?
She thought about screaming. She might attract the attention of a neighbor, but how long would Dudka let her scream before striking her or . . . worse?
Her arms shaking, she pushed herself back onto the bed. As she slid across the sheets, which she now saw were stained with blood and any number of unidentified bodily fluids, her eyes came to rest on the footboard. She froze.
Dangling from the ornate metalwork were two pairs of handcuffs, spaced roughly three feet apart.
She tried to think of something to say—a plea she could make, a deal she could offer, anything that might persuade her captor to change course.
As the wheels turned inside her head, she watched Dudka walk to the edge of the bed.
You can’t let him cuff you, she told herself.
His left hand reached out and grabbed her right leg.
If you let him chain you to the bed, you’ll be out of options. You’ll have no chance of escape.
His right hand found the nearest handcuff.
Whatever you’re going to do, you have to do it n—
The cuff sounded like a gunshot as it snapped shut around her ankle.
She stared at the second cuff, three feet to the left, and realized there was no longer any point in resisting. No matter how hard she fought, she’d never break free of that first handcuff. She glanced over her shoulder and, as she expected, saw a pair of handcuffs hanging from each corner of the headboard.
Conceding defeat, she placed her left foot in front of the second cuff and said, “Please don’t fasten this one quite so tight.”
Dudka chuckled.
Of course, she thought. Making the cuffs too tight is part of the fun.
With a smile, he said, “I appreciate your cooperation, Ms. Williams, but I really don’t think there is any need for the other cuffs.” He pointed to her shackled ankle. “This should keep you from going anywhere.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Crocker leaned against the narrow support column and waited patiently as the squat little American with the sandpaper voice cuffed his hands behind him. A few feet to his left, Larry stood against an identical column, his hands already cuffed behind him.
We look like we’re awaiting a firing squad, thought Crocker.
Of course, there was no firing squad before him, just a middle-aged gangster resting at the foot of the stairs. Even lounging against the basement steps, Ilya looked as alert as ever. He wore the same thousand-yard stare Crocker had seen a dozen or so times over the years. Something in those eyes suggested Ilya might have actually been part of a firing squad or two.
Crocker felt a chill along his spine and reassured himself that Dudka’s goons wouldn’t touch him until he’d stolen—or at least tried to steal—the money from the tournament.
And Jennifer? Will they extend her the same courtesy?
He did his best to push the thought from his mind. Focusing on the what-ifs wasn’t going to get him out of this basement, and it wasn’t going to help Jennifer or Larry. He needed a plan.
Behind him, the fat American finished with the handcuffs. Crocker caught a strong whiff of cigarettes and body odor as the unpleasant little man, now breathing heavily, passed by and disappeared up the stairs. A few seconds later, the door at the top of the stairs slammed shut.
Crocker glanced over his shoulder at Larry, then back at Ilya. Nobody spoke. The basement was eerily quiet. He slid down the support column and lowered himself into a sitting position. A moment later, he heard Larry do the same.
The concrete floor and cinder-block walls, coupled with the dim lighting, created a dungeonlike atmosphere. It occurred to Crocker that the basement might be soundproof. Another chill ran down his spine.
Stop psyching yourself out, and concentrate on what you know, he thought. What do I know?
He knew that basements were not and had never been a common feature in Southern Nevada homes. He’d seen only three or four in all his years in the area.
He knew that, despite the half-hour drive from the Prickly Pear, they’d traveled no more than fifteen or twenty miles in the van. His intense focus on the number and direction of turns had failed him somewhere along the route—according to his mental map, they should have been in the middle of the desert, nowhere near the type of tract home in which he now found himself—but he distinctly remembered one stretch in which they’d made three lefts, four rights, and three lefts, in that order. The driver had gone to a lot of trouble to disguise a couple of right turns.
They hadn’t traveled very far, and they hadn’t started up any mountain passes—the incline would have been unmistakable. That meant they were in one of the few basements in the Pahrump Valley. If he could pass a message to one of the other security guards at the tournament, this information would give the authorities a starting point for a search. He thought it might be possible for the FBI to search all the Pahrump basements in a matter of hours.
The plan had only one flaw.
Once I hand over the stolen money, we’ll be dead in a matter of minutes.
♦ ♦ ♦
The lock on the bedroom door made two loud clicking noises. Jennifer had just enough time to stop fiddling with her shackled foot and lie back before the door swung open. Dudka entered carrying a small tray of food.
“It seems,” he said, “that my men haven’t been to the market in quite some time, but I found a few items that look as though they’re probably safe to eat.” He set the tray, which was loaded with crackers, cubes of cheese, slices of some sort of dry salami, and two small Dixie cups of what appeared to be tap water, on the corner of the bed. “I’m sure this no more lives up to your standards than it does mine, but perhaps we can make do for now.”
His mock congeniality made the hair stand up on the back of Jennifer’s neck. She wanted to tell the patronizing son of a bitch to go fuck himself, but instead, she forced herself to mutter a soft, “Thank you.”
He set about piling a cracker with meat and cheese. “What kind of host would I be if I didn’t feed you?”
It occurred to Jennifer that she hadn’t had a real meal in well over twenty-four hours. Aside from a few bites of the sandwich Vegas had brought her, she hadn’t eaten anything since leaving the fancy steak house where she and the rest of the New Wave
staff had gorged themselves at the company’s expense. She recalled Bryan’s toast—congratulating everyone on a productive first day—and the way he’d winked at her as everyone clinked glasses. Now she was sitting across from the man who’d had him killed.
“Aren’t you hungry?” asked Dudka.
Jennifer realized he was holding out a cracker loaded with salami and cubes of cheese. She reached forward and took it. “Thank you.”
“I really do apologize for the meager spread,” he said as she took a bite of the cracker. “My men are not particularly domestic, as you can probably tell from the state of this room.”
Jennifer looked around as she chewed. Her gaze fell on the stained sheets, and she gagged, almost choking on the bite of cracker. She grabbed one of the Dixie cups and drained half the liquid in one swallow. The drink succeeded in washing down the bite of cracker but burned her throat in a way she hadn’t expected. She coughed up a mouthful of what smelled like nail polish remover.
Dudka patted her on the back like a concerned friend. “My dear, I’m so sorry. I should have warned you it’s vodka—some of Russia’s best, though I fear the quality may have been lost on you.”
She waved him off and, as she got the coughing under control, said, “It’s fine. I just wasn’t expecting it.”
Dudka stood. “Let me see if I can find you some water.”
Jennifer nodded, still trying to catch her breath. “I’d appreciate that.”
He exited through the door. She heard him lock it behind him.
She glanced at the cup in her hand. She was in a bad place with bad people, and she needed something to steady her nerves. She swallowed the rest of the ice-cold vodka and set the empty paper cup on the tray.
Feeling less shaky, she returned her attention to the handcuff shackled to her right leg. It looked like the real deal, not some novelty item from a sex shop. It wasn’t something she could pick with a hairpin.
She looked at the unused handcuff a few feet to the left and at the two hanging from the corners of the headboard. She imagined that with all four cuffs in use, her limbs would be pulled taut, holding her spread-eagled on her back. She looked once again at the stains on the sheets and mustered all her willpower to swallow the scream welling inside her.
Somewhere deep in the Nevada desert, she’d stumbled into the seventh level of hell.
She heard the turning of the dead bolt and tried to regain her composure as the door opened.
Dudka entered carrying a soda can. “My men seem to be out of bottled water. Would you settle for a Coca-Cola?”
She debated asking for tap water but decided not to press her luck. “Sure. That’ll be fine.”
Dudka handed her the Coke and took a seat on the corner of the bed.
Jennifer sipped the soda. When she’d washed the taste of vodka from her mouth, she lowered the can. “I take it you don’t spend much time here?”
“Not when I can help it.” He chuckled. “My men are lousy housekeepers, and the fringe benefits aren’t to my liking.”
Without pausing to consider her words or the possible repercussions, Jennifer replied, “Really? Who doesn’t enjoy a little rape every now and then?”
Dudka stared deep into her eyes. “You judge something you couldn’t possibly understand. You’ve lived your whole life in one tiny, affluent corner of the globe, yet you presume to know how the world works.”
“I know how sex trafficking works. I know how this bed is meant to work. When you and your men are too broke or too lazy to pay for sex—because God knows no woman would give it to you for free—you drag in some poor girl from the Second or Third World and prove what big men you are by chaining her to this bed and—”
“Ms. Williams,” Dudka interrupted, “I won’t pretend that my employees are gentlemen, but the demands of their work require that I allow them a bit of latitude. Like a wine distributor who overlooks the occasional opened case, I turn a blind eye when, from time to time, my men wish to sample the merchandise.”
The callousness of his words left Jennifer speechless.
“But,” he continued, “don’t confuse me with my men. I was a dedicated soldier until the West corrupted the Soviet way of life, and I fought for the new Russia until I was betrayed by ambitious comrades whom I mistook for friends. Now I am a simple rancher. I buy livestock from poor countries and sell it to rich countries.”
Jennifer’s eyes widened.
Dudka said, “You come from Texas. You must have seen cattle grazing.”
Still processing the fact that Dudka knew where she was from, Jennifer gave a slow nod.
Dudka continued, “Those cattle have more promising futures than do the women we find in the squalor of places you couldn’t point to on a map—countries that have been forgotten by the United Nations, regions the Red Cross planes won’t even fly over. So we offer those women something better. And they come willingly.”
Jennifer shook her shackled foot, rattling the handcuff. “You call this ‘willing’?”
“Sometimes they have buyer’s remorse. Sometimes they have to be taught how the game is played. But there is no turning back. They entered a binding agreement the moment they stepped into a truck or a train car with one of our recruiters. My investors incur considerable expense bringing the women to this country, and the men who serve me here have no tolerance for a whore who waits until her feet touch the land of the free to suddenly have second thoughts about holding up her end of the bargain.”
Jennifer shuddered at the realization that Dudka believed what he was saying. “And what about Ashley? What about the twenty-three-year-old American girl you kidnapped? She wasn’t from some Third World slum. She didn’t come willingly. How does your warped mind justify that?”
“The same way I’ll justify what I do to you if Mr. Crocker doesn’t come through for us.” Dudka’s tone lacked even a hint of emotion. “In the end, this business, like any other, is all about the bottom line.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Crocker sat with his eyes closed, retracing the van’s path in his mind, trying to figure out where his calculations had gone wrong. The creak of a door and the sound of footsteps interrupted his train of thought.
He opened his eyes just as Sasha and Scarlett reached the bottom of the stairs. Ilya rose to his feet and let them pass. Against the gloom of the empty basement, Scarlett’s pink jogging suit and red hair stood out like a pair of road flares.
“Hiya, guys,” she said with a grin. “Miss me?”
Neither Crocker nor Larry responded.
Ilya whispered something into Sasha’s ear, then disappeared up the stairs.
Sasha stepped forward and inspected the two prisoners. “It seems,” he said in his thick Russian accent, “that Scarlett and I are to be your babysitters for the time being. I trust we will all get along.” He leaned down so that his face was only a couple of feet from Crocker’s. “No heroics from you, mister hero. Okay? Not unless you want me to pay a visit to your girlfriend upstairs. Understand?”
Crocker nodded.
“Good.” Sasha walked to the staircase and took Ilya’s vacated seat on the first step. “We will be like happy family.”
Despite himself, Crocker replied, “And all happy families are alike—right, Sasha?”
Sasha and Scarlett stared blankly.
Larry snorted—almost a laugh but not quite. “Wrong crowd, Crocker.”
Scarlett took a step closer to the two hostages. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” replied Larry, “that if Crocker’s joke had been any farther over your head, they would have seen it upstairs.”
Her face grew angry. “What joke?”
Crocker hoped that Larry would just let it go. Save the jilted-lover routine until you’re not handcuffed to a colum
n.
Larry laughed out loud. “You wouldn’t get it even if I explained it. It’s a reference to a book that doesn’t have any pictures.”
Crocker saw the fire in her eyes and wished Larry would shut up. He thought Larry was about to catch a slap across the face, but instead, Scarlett turned and walked to Sasha. She leaned down and whispered in the Russian’s ear.
Sasha laughed and nodded.
As the young gangster rose to his feet, Scarlett turned and smiled at the two hostages. “You two don’t mind if Sasha and I kill a little time while we wait for Ilya, do you?”
Crocker saw where this was going. What Scarlett had in mind was intended to sting Larry worse than a slap across the face. In one swift motion, she dropped her pink sweatpants to the ground and stepped out of them. Crocker was certain no one in the room was surprised to see she wasn’t wearing underwear.
She turned and leaned forward against the stair railing, her bare ass glistening in the dim basement light. As the Russian fumbled with his belt, the pretty redhead smiled back over her shoulder and winked at Larry.
♦ ♦ ♦
Jennifer choked down another bite. Old salami and cheese sandwiched between stale crackers wasn’t one of her favorite meals, but she was feeling light-headed and hoped the food might help.
A loud knock at the door made her jump and almost knock over the tray.
Beside her, Dudka turned his gaze to the door. “What is it?”
The door opened, and Ilya waved to him from the hallway.
Dudka turned back to Jennifer. “Excuse me. This will only take a moment.”