SURVIVORS (crime thriller books)

by T. J. Brearton

  As he pondered, an image drifted into his mind; a picture of Argon’s parents emerged as if out of a Scottish fog, and they stood there in the winter of 1982, and they watched him from the past.

  Sloane came back and sat down across from him.

  “I need to use a pay phone,” Brendan said to her. “Get the check for us, okay?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE / Monday, 2:44 PM

  She banged on the door and yelled for help. Her muscles trembled so hard she could see her skin tremble. For three hours now, she had intermittently pounded and yelled – she’d just about lost her voice. She would cough, and sputter, and then grow angry, and pound again. Someone was out there. Not once now, but twice – the last time just fifteen minutes ago – she’d heard an elevator hauled up through a shaft and large doors open with a slam. Probably a freight elevator, with doors that opened up and down. Someone was out there in the hallway. They were just on the other side of the door. She knew it. She could feel them – a few times she heard the scuff of a foot. They were just standing there, listening to her scream.

  “I’m in here! I’m a federal agent! My name is Jennifer Aiken and I work for the Department of Justice. I’m being held here against my will. I’ve been poisoned. Please, call the police. Call emergency services.”

  She knew it was futile. Whoever was out there wasn’t going to help her. Whoever was out there was one of Staryles’ men, a guard posted while she wailed and screamed and her body and mind broke down.

  She turned, threw her back against the door, and then slid down. She sat in a heap in front of the door, her forearms propped up on her knees, her hands dangling, her chin dropped to her chest. It was warm in here, and she was sweating. She breathed, and her mind quieted, and she gave up. There was nothing left.

  She thought she heard something, like wheezing. Then, with a sinking feeling that settled into the pit of her stomach like spoiled milk, she realized that she was hearing laughter.

  “Okay, lady,” came a voice, muffled by the thick doorway in between them. “That’s good. Take it easy now.”

  Who are you? Why are you doing this?

  They were silly questions, ones she didn’t even bother to vocalize. Obviously she’d come too close to something major. But she never really thought it would actually turn on her and have teeth, now did she? A person could read things in all sorts of books, listen to lectures, even give lectures, about all of it, about the total collapse of a functioning civilization, and at the end of the day go home, flip on the TV, and watch the latest New Girl. She’d spent three months so far making a case in order to get the full weight of the Justice Department behind her, and to fully activate the task force, all the while suspecting that the world she was uncovering was one her own Attorney General felt ill-equipped to handle. That the subject of her prosecution was ultimately un-indictable. Too big, too powerful, too diffuse, too entrenched within all of society, a global society now.

  You could talk, even write on the net or in print, you could rant and rave your head off, and nobody gave a damn. But when you actually started to take action, when you put something in motion that held any real threat, you gambled with your life.

  She wondered if the man on the other side of the door was the one who’d thrown the bag over her head and tossed her in the van. If what Staryles had said was true, that he had control of the building – there were probably security positions everywhere. Armed men all over the place. Even if she was able to somehow break out of the room, the possibility of escape was small.

  It suddenly struck her how archetypal her situation was. A damsel in distress high up in a castle? Could this really be her life? Could this be actually happening?

  The tingling sensation in her arms confirmed that it was. The sense of a mild electrical current running through her limbs had begun just a little while ago, not a result of all the physical activity – it was something else. She’d tried to ignore it. As the sensation grew more acute, she could no longer pretend it wasn’t happening.

  She’d read about the effects of thallous sulfate. They were, in a word, horrific. Left untreated, her body and mind would gradually, then quickly, deteriorate, and the pain would becoming excruciating. The tingling in her arms would grow until it felt like her bones were being mashed in giant gears. Her hands would curl into claws, gnarled and flaring with pain like the most nightmarish case of arthritis. In less than a day, her hair would fall out. She wouldn’t be able to walk on her mangled, twisted feet. Say nothing of the fact that she had no water and would become terribly dehydrated, her stomach unbearably nauseous as the poison snaked its way through her veins.

  “How could you do this?” Her voice was low, barely audible. There was no response from the man on the other side of the door. But it wasn’t the man there who she was really asking. It was Alexander Heilshorn. His directing all this was the only scenario which made any sense. She had been taking a look at him – a hard look. She’d subpoenaed his financial records, and if she found evidence that he was involved in black markets then she would expose him. And he knew it. So he’d had her removed from the equation.

  Whose idea had the poison been? Was it Heilshorn’s? Or the creepy Jeremy Staryles? Where had he gotten it? What dark corner of the deep web sold such hideous poison?

  She tried to stem the rising despair.

  But there was a world of darkness out there. Silk Road hadn’t been the only drug bazaar in existence when the FBI took it down. The Czech-based Sheep Marketplace, before it tanked, and others, had rivaled Silk Road as a marketplace for drugs, contract killers, and human slaves. XList was the competitor in the human traffic sector which Weston and others had sourced as the first to originate in the United States – in California. XList groomed women for the sex trade via pornographic videos. For a few thousand bucks or less, the women would do an “Interview Video,” where a man whose face was blurred-out would bring them into an office and proceed to have sex with them, sodomize them, and make them perform any number of other degrading acts.

  What was astonishing was how many of the girls seemed to go willingly into the arms of XList. They responded to the dollar like everyone else, willing to exchange their integrity, their bodies – maybe even their souls – for a few bucks. But Rebecca Heilshorn had not fit that profile. There had been something else driving her.

  Maybe she’d wanted to expose her father. If his own daughter had tried to bring him down, how might a powerful, ultra-wealthy man like Alexander “Bops” Heilshorn have responded? He’d have snuffed out the threat.

  The whole case tied into a tanking economy built on illusory credit and where people more and more were turning to digital, untraceable currencies like bitcoin, with the added benefit that they could fund whatever illicit activities they wanted to.

  “Let me out,” she said, her mind returning to the present. There was no energy behind it. She felt drained; already she was exhausted, and she knew the worst was yet to come.

  “Let me out,” she repeated. “I’ll give you anything you want.” Again, there was no heart to her words.

  And then, something occurred to her, inspired, if you could really call it that, by her analysis of the case.

  Jennifer’s eyes opened a little wider. She felt some life returning to her body. She stood up, supporting herself against the wall, feeling the weakness in her legs, the soreness in her knees. It felt like she was aging rapidly. There was no time to lose.

  * * *

  She rapped softly on the door with one knuckle. She licked her lips, barely able to believe what she was about to say, but somehow confident in her tactic.

  “Hey,” she said. “You there?”

  Nothing. She thought she could detect maybe the slightest suggestion of sound – breathing, perhaps. The rustle of clothing.

  If this was Hell, then it was time to get with the program.

  “Why don’t you come in here? You can fuck me if you want.”

  She waited. She pressed her ear to the do
or. Her heart was beating fast. She felt that prickly sensation all over her body now, though she suspected that for the moment it was more adrenaline than anything else.

  “You remember seeing me? When you grabbed me out there in the park? I just have this little jogging outfit on. These tight pants. All you have to do is slide them down my legs.” She licked her lips again. Her throat was dry. She had no idea how to do this, she imagined how someone would talk dirty on a phone sex line.

  “Come on in,” she said. “Take my clothes off. You can feel my breasts through my thin t-shirt. You can take me from behind. You can slip right into me.”

  She bit her lip after this last remark. Despite everything, despite being in what was unquestionably the worst, most terrifying situation of her life, Jennifer had to stifle a laugh. This was without a doubt one of the most absurd things she had ever done. And, probably, it wasn’t even going to work.

  The she heard movement from the other side of the door. Light footfalls. When he spoke, Jennifer could tell that the man was very close on the other side of the door.

  “You try anything and I’ll kill you,” he said.

  Her sense of giddiness vanished instantly. The fact that this was working horrified her. She could never go through with it. The girls who went willingly onto the casting couch and opened themselves to the strange men with blurred faces, they were different, or had been taught to be.

  By men like John Rascher, but worse. He hadn’t beaten her, but he had been rough at times. Abusive in multiple ways. He was angry, an activist, a freedom fighter with a bad temper. She’d gone along with him for too long.

  She watched with horror as the doorknob rotated. She started to back away.

  CHAPTER THIRTY / Monday, 3:08 PM

  The nightclub owner had olive skin and raccoon eyes. He was short, heavy set, and he smelled of mothballs. When he smiled, his gold-capped teeth glinted.

  The club was empty. The barstools were upside down along the long, copper-plated bar.

  After their lunch at the diner, Brendan tried to return Sloane home, but she wasn’t having it. He reminded her about the tracker. If anything would, questioning the one witness to Argon’s death would trigger the attention of whoever was watching. But Sloane was insistent. She reminded Brendan of her involvement – Taber was her father, and wherever this thing led, it would affect her, too.

  It wasn’t exactly this logic which convinced Brendan, more that she might be safer with him. If someone was going to pop out of the woodwork, it would be any time now. What could he do? Get her into some form of protective custody? You didn’t just call up the police and demand police protection, particularly if your story was a circumstantial mess straight out of a soap opera. Instead he’d keep her safe by his side.

  It was what Argon would have done.

  The club owner was willing to talk, but he was busy at the till behind the bar, his back turned to Brendan and Sloane. He cracked open rolls of quarters and wrote numbers down on a clipboard. The place smelled like grease and stale vomit.

  “I’ve told the story a dozen times,” he said irritably. “I hear a crash, it’s about four thirty in the morning, I’m just closing up. Lots to do around here to close up. You’ve got to check all your inventory, marry all your liquors – I do that at night; some do it the next day, but I do it after the last shift because it tells me how many giveaways my liberal, free-spirited bartenders think is ‘appropriate’.” His back still turned, Brendan saw the club owner hook his fingers in the air to hang quotation marks around the word. “I’m not running a saloon, here. This isn’t the Wild West. Some guys come in with burners. It happens. My bouncer may miss a concealed carry because he wants some chick out there to put her feet on his rug, you know what I’m saying? But it’s not often. One time . . .”

  “You heard a crash, you were saying.”

  “Yeah, right. So I hear a crash – you know, sound of screeching tires, smash – there’s breaking glass – the whole works. So, I go out there.”

  “Who else was with you in the club?”

  “Huh? Oh. Josephine. She was the bar-back that night. Bartenders think they wear white gloves. My guy, he split around four. Fucking prima donnas. And there was Kenny. He’s my night guy; does the toilets and all that jazz. Josephine, she puts up the chairs and sweeps up and helps me with the inventory.”

  Brendan glanced round the place. There were maybe fifteen tables, all round tops, with two or three chairs turned over. Against the back wall were booths. There was a small dance floor, a raised platform, and a pole. Running lights adorned the edge of the platform. A stripper stage. The entire place seemed coated with a sticky layer of grime, the air was tangy with bleach that didn’t quite cover the other odors.

  Around the corner of the bar, with its wall of mirrors, was another section, making the whole layout an L-shape. The owner, who’d introduced himself as “Shortcake,” didn’t consider his place a strip joint. No, it was a nightclub, a gentlemen’s club. Chances were he didn’t have the proper licensing, or zoning permits.

  “So it’s just the three of you – and only you went outside? Did either of them?”

  “Like I told the cops,” Shortcake said, throwing a glance over his shoulder at Brendan and Sloane, “I wasn’t going to leave thousands of dollars out with no one around to keep an eye on it. No, I went outside myself. What did I know? Sounded like a traffic accident. Big deal – we got one a week.”

  “Do you always go outside and check them out?”

  “What am I, a paramedic? First of all, I’m here sixteen hours a day. I got to have a life. So I take Mondays and Tuesdays off – the club is closed. This was Friday night. Well, Saturday morning. So, I go outside. Okay? I see the two cars, all smashed up, over on the corner there, on Central and Main. Central is a rough road, you know. Lots of accidents. But then I seen the cop car, so I dialed 911, and I told them that there was a police car in a crash.”

  “Did you approach the cars?”

  “No, I didn’t. What am I gonna do – mouth to mouth? Look, I’m a good neighbor. Everybody says so. Elmsford, you know, it’s a small community. Conservative. So I keep the peace with everybody. They put their hats on and go to church on Sundays, and they come and kick their heels here on Friday and Saturday. You get what I’m saying?”

  “I do. Did you see the driver of the civilian vehicle, though? Did you see either driver?”

  “He was dead. That’s what I heard. They both were. There wouldn’t have been much to see. I’m sure they both died on impact. Is that what they said?”

  Shortcake twisted at the waist to look at Brendan. Brendan could see the guilt in the man’s face. Despite his tough talk, the man had been leery of approaching a nasty car accident, but he couldn’t help but wonder – if he had, could he have saved a life? He’d never know, Brendan thought. Just like Brendan would never know whether if he’d taken his wife and daughter home that night, they’d still be alive.

  The thought soured his mood.

  “Yes, they both died. That’s what we’re told. Maybe they would’ve survived, but, we can’t go back and find out,” Brendan said.

  Shortcake looked like he’d been hollowed out. He slowly turned back to face the cash register.

  Sloane gave Brendan’s arm a squeeze. The gesture was both consoling, but also an indication that she was going to speak, and that Brendan should let her.

  “Sir, we’re almost done, okay? Thank you for answering our questions. I know what an ordeal it must have been. Accidents like that are scary,” she said.

  His head still lowered and back turned, Shortcake mumbled back. “I don’t know about scary, it just took me by surprise, that’s all.”

  Brendan was grateful to Sloane. He’d let his emotions get a hold of him. He picked up where Sloane left off, feeling more in control. “Who was the first to arrive on the scene? Was it the police, or was it the EMTs?”

  “Neither.”

  “Neither?”

  “Anot
her car pulled up. That’s why I didn’t go over, okay? Because somebody else was right there, and I had my business to take care of.”

  “We understand,” Brendan said, taking Sloane’s lead. “Do you remember the car, or who may have gotten out?”

  “Yeah, I remember. Told the cops this, too.”

  “You told the cops? The person who stopped wasn’t still there when the police arrived?”

  “I don’t know. Like I said, I came back fucking-inside, okay?”

  “Okay. What did you see before you came back fucking-inside?”

  Shortcake jerked his head around. Brendan had deliberately agitated him a bit. Forget empathy. He was done with empathy. Something about Shortcake made him angry, and that was that.

  “I saw a car, okay? One of the classics – dark blue, maybe a Town Car or a Cutlass. Just like I told the police. Okay? Guy got out, young guy, business-type, clean cut. I figured he was the guy for the job. And so I came cowering back inside. That alright with you, Sherlock?”

  The club owner was livid now, his eyes bulging and spittle flying. “The fuck are you two, anyway?” Those eyes, yellow around the irises, rolled over to look at Sloane. “You banging him? He’s old enough to be your father. You’d fit right in here. Why don’t you come dance for me? Suck a little cock – be more than you’re making now, I can promise you that.”

  “Okay, Shortcake,” Brendan said. “Enough now, thank you.”

  He held his arms out and ushered Sloane away from the bar. He expected her to resist – to at least snap something back at Shortcake, but she didn’t. She went willingly towards the front door, up the stairs, and out onto the street.

  “I see you back in here you’re going to get your teeth kicked in,” Shortcake shouted at their backs.

  Brendan had yet to get all the way up the stairs. He turned and walked slowly back down into the dank, dark club, his head pounding with blood.