by Jonas Saul
“Whoa, wait a minute. What’s this?” The big man set the bat down and got to his feet. “A text from someone. Listen, it says, Why don’t you want the money? It could really help your situation. It’s yours—no strings attached. Make the payment and save your life. You don’t want the alternative. And it is a reply from a text sent from this phone that says, don’t do it—keep the money.” He stood over Mark’s head, looking down at him. “Who you be telling to keep the money? It sure looks like from their reply that they be willing to give it to you. Are you a stupid motherfucker? I mean, seriously?”
“I can explain that.”
“Oh yeah, sure you can. Go ahead.” He waved at the rest of the men. “I’m sure we all want to hear this one.”
“Some chick walked up off the street and ordered me to send that first text. After I left her and jumped in the cab to go to the airport, I received the other text. The one you just read.”
“Some chick, huh?”
“I swear. She had long brown hair and a biker jacket of some kind. On any other day, she was quite the looker. When I refused, she pulled a gun and made me send that text.”
“Do you know how crazy you sound?”
“I swear on my life, man. That is exactly what happened.”
“You’re saying a random chick walked up to you on the street, pulled a gun and made you send a text to someone?”
“Exactly.”
The men assembled around all laughed.
“And you don’t know who you texted?”
“No. I have no idea who that is.”
“Wow, I’ve heard some crazy shit before, but that’s insane.”
“It’s true,” Mark pleaded.
“Yeah, of course it’s true. I have girls walk up to me, pull guns and make me text things all the time.”
The big guy stepped away from Mark’s head and handed the phone off to another man. “Find out who owns that phone number. Triangulate it. Call your buddy at the phone company. I want a name and location within the hour. If this guy has Maxwell’s money and Mark is too stupid to accept it, I want the fucking money. Now go.”
The big man turned back to Mark as the other guy ran off with his cell phone.
“Now, what to do with you.” He rubbed his chin in an exaggerated expression of thought. “Guys, take his clothes off. Do it now.”
Mark writhed under their hands as his shirt was torn from him. His jeans wouldn’t rip as easily, so one of the men used a knife to slice them off. Then they tore his underwear from him. Mark cried and pleaded. He begged for mercy. He swore he could get the money. They just had to give him a chance.
“I’m not a money manager,” the big guy said. “Look at me. Do you think I manage money for other people?”
Mark shook his head frantically.
“Right. I was hired to do a job and that job was to collect a debt from Tyrone Percy and Mark Stead. Tyrone didn’t have it in cash, so he paid a heavier price. You have some cash, so you won’t lose your eyes or tongue, but I can tell you this, your payment involves a broom handle and a lot of problems with shitting for the next month. And I’m not just talking about the tip of the handle.” He looked around at the men. “Hey guys, you think he can manage the whole thing?” The men all agreed Mark could handle it all.
“Great. Get me the broom.”
In that moment, Mark wished he was dead. He mentally called out to God and asked for mercy.
“While we wait, start whipping him again. But not just the feet. Whip his legs, chest and face. When I go to the movies, I want to see blood. Tonight is a special presentation of gore and violation.” He clapped his hands together, madness behind his eyes. “Ohhh, I’m going to enjoy this.”
The whip came down across his thighs and then stomach before he even got the first long scream out.
Chapter 8
Kristi Raine paid the cab driver and started the long walk into the trailer park. She was so happy with herself, so happy that she had managed to make a deal that would get her and Tyrone out from under Maxwell’s world that she gave the cab driver a hundred-dollar tip.
She giggled because he probably thought she was a dancer or a street walker the way she was dressed. The cash she pulled out of the envelope while in the backseat had to be the most she had ever seen in her entire life. She hadn’t opened Jake Collins’ wallet yet. That was for later when they were together. That way Tyrone would be able to let her know what credit cards he would use and what to throw away.
After pulling all that cash out in the taxi, in case the driver had seen it, she had asked him to drop her off at the road. That way he would never know what trailer she lived in. They would probably be out by tomorrow night and long gone, but she still wanted to be cautious and not take any chances. Vegas was a tough town. In the restaurant she used to work, she had learned of a taxi-cab scam that once played out. Dozens of drivers were arrested. At least that’s what she remembered.
You can’t trust no one.
She picked up her step and skipped past darkened trailers, turned a corner, and started down the row that led to hers. Tonight’s score would probably top most of what Tyrone had done in the past year.
He had better be happy about this.
She only hoped he wasn’t passed out or drunk. He should be awake and waiting for her so she could share in the good news.
Tomorrow night they would get the rest of the money from Jake and they could leave Las Vegas. Just like Tyrone had promised.
A dog barked somewhere in the trailer park. Someone’s TV blared out an open window. The air was still, already warmer than earlier when it rained. Small puddles were all that remained of the rain.
A light was on in their living room.
Good, he’s still up.
This was one of the few times she had done something for him. Since they had been together, Tyrone had been running for Big John and then borrowing from Maxwell so he could gamble. In the past few weeks, everything had crashed around them. The threat of violence became a reality. Tyrone received his last warning. He had set a meet-up to pay Maxwell an installment, but Tyrone didn’t have it.
Mark Stead was supposed to come up with enough to cover the both of them. They had worked together in the past. She knew they were connected as far back as high school or something, but now none of that mattered. Not with the money she had on her. They could make the payment to Maxwell if Tyrone wanted or they could leave Vegas behind and forget about Maxwell Ramsey forever.
Whatever Ty decided to do, she was game. They would have to wait until tomorrow night to do it, though. Jake was bringing them a lot more money—get-set-up-in-a-new-town money.
She hopped up the steps and pulled out her key, then stopped, the door to the trailer ajar. Light seeped through the small opening.
“Ty?” she called as she pushed the door open. “Ty, you here?”
Nothing looked amiss, except of course the garbage all over the place. The pizza boxes and empty beer cans were still scattered everywhere. The TV was on mute, a car chase on the screen.
She stepped all the way in and shut the door behind her.
“Tyrone, you here?”
It would really piss her off if he had gone somewhere. After all she went through tonight, he had better be home and waiting for the good news.
She looked down the hall and saw from under the door that the bathroom light was on. Ty hated to talk when he was in there.
“Sorry, baby. I didn’t know.”
She pulled out all the cash and walked over to the coffee table. She brushed the contents off the table to the floor and then fanned out all the hundreds, making a pretty picture for Ty when he came out of the bathroom.
Then she set Jake’s wallet on the kitchen counter. Once Tyrone counted the cash, she would show him the wallet.
Perfect.
She walked past the bathroom door and into the small bedroom. It was time to get ready for a night of hard, rough sex. That much money would make Ty very horny.
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She slipped off her shoes and tossed them in the corner. Her arm still hurt too much to get to the zipper on her dress, so she decided to pull it over her head. Halfway up it got stuck. She wrenched on it and heard it rip somewhere.
“Fuck.”
She grabbed the hem, gripped it tight, and yanked hard. It flipped off her head, pulling her hair a bit, but it was off.
A quick flick of the wrist and she tossed it in the far corner of the messy bedroom. She could get another favorite dress now. They were no longer broke.
“Hey, Ty, how long you gonna be? I gotta nice surprise for you.”
Her figure in the dresser’s mirror still looked good. Standing in her small lace panties, she moved her hips back and forth.
Baby-making hips, she thought. Maybe Tyrone will want to settle down now—start a family.
It occurred to her that she hadn’t heard a single noise from the bathroom. No shower or flush of the toilet. And why had the front door been open? She understood if he was going to be in there a long time he wouldn’t want her to have use her key, but now she was getting worried.
She moved to the bathroom door quietly and placed her ear against it. The sound of running water was loud and clear.
She ran her hands down her near-naked body and swayed her hips again.
“Hey, Ty, come on out. I’ve got money and some pussy for you.”
After a moment and no response, she knocked on the door.
“Ty, at least say something. You okay in there?”
Nothing.
“Ty?”
She tried the door. It opened. Cautiously, so that she didn’t see anything that would embarrass him, she eased the door open and peeked inside. Her foot stepped in thick red liquid on the tile floor. Before she could stop, she slipped and fell, banging her knee on the porcelain toilet bowl.
“Ah, fuck, that hurts.”
She breathed in and gagged.
“What the hell is that smell?”
The floor was covered, the red liquid coming from the shower stall. The curtain was closed, but the water still ran slowly.
“Ty, you’re scaring me. Is this … blood?”
She brought her hands to her nose and gagged again, the slickness smeared over her skin where she had fallen and rolled in it, wearing only her panties.
Carefully, she got to her feet and stepped closer to the shower stall, holding her breath the whole time.
“Ty?” she asked loud enough to be heard.
She pulled the shower curtain back and screamed.
Tyrone wasn’t in the form of a human body anymore. He was chunked up in pieces, his head sitting atop the mutilated body. In the second that image entered her consciousness, she knew it would never leave. Whoever had done this had left the water running to help move the body’s liquids down the drain, but part of his abdomen covered the drainage hole and blood had seeped over the stall’s small lip.
She covered her mouth, cutting the scream off as she backed away. Her shoulder blades bumped the wall and she jumped as if someone was behind her. In that moment, she spun and tried to run out the door, but lost her balance on the slick floor, landed on her side hard, rolling in Tyrone’s blood. She screamed as loud as she could, trying to keep her sanity contained, but failing.
She crawled from the bathroom, made it into the living room and pulled herself up with the side of the kitchen counter. A couple of steps and she was at the door.
It never occurred to her to use the phone to call for help. Instead, she ran outside in her panties to get as far away from the trailer as possible.
As she ran through the trailer park, Tyrone’s blood dripping from her, she screamed hysterically until she collapsed near the road.
Chapter 9
“Why would he run like that?” Mara asked.
Bruce moved away from the elevator and watched the lights. After the floors displayed stopped on three different ones, he not only didn’t know what floor his brother was staying on, he knew that his brother didn’t want him to know.
What the fuck is Jake up to?
Russell’s warning came back to him. If he didn’t do what Sarah Roberts asked him to, his brother was in trouble. At least that was how he remembered it. He hadn’t written it down or memorized it, but message or no message, however he looked at it, Jake Collins was in trouble. This wasn’t normal behavior for his brother.
“Follow me,” Bruce said.
“Where to?” Mara asked.
“Just come on.”
Bruce moved out into the casino area, turned to the right and headed to the main desk. People converged in a row at the counter waiting to check in, luggage behind them.
Bruce flashed his badge at the side of the counter and then moved to an empty wicket. The attendants were always well dressed at Vegas hotels. A young woman with a ponytail nodded at them and stepped up to greet them.
“I’m Detective Bruce Collins and this is Detective Mara Munro. We’re looking for one of your guests. A man named Jake Collins.”
“And you know he’s staying with us?” she asked as she turned and typed on a keyboard in front of a computer.
“Yes.” A short, clipped answer.
She stopped typing, rested a hand on her hip and turned to face Bruce. “We have a strict policy of privacy here. I would love to help the police out, but I would need a warrant of some kind to release any information about our guests.”
Bruce saw through her stance and recognized how nervous she was. It might be in the company manual to be discreet about the guests, but the company manual wouldn’t help when faced with the police and having to deny them.
“I understand. All I’m looking for is what room my brother is staying in. You saw my ID. Jake is my brother. I want to surprise him—”
“Susan, everything okay here?”
A tall woman with hair forced back into a bun so tight the skin on her face was taut stepped up behind the clerk.
“Everything’s fine, Rose. They were just asking—”
“I got this,” Rose said and edged her way in front of Susan who moved away and slipped through a door, disappearing into the back.
“Now, how can I help you?” Rose asked.
“I just saw my brother in the casino. He used the elevators by Gallagher’s and went up to his room. I just want his room number so I can surprise him.”
“And your name is?”
“Detective Bruce Collins. This is Detective Mara Munro.”
“Can I see some ID please?”
Bruce tried not to show his impatience when he pulled his ID out. Rose examined them as if she was looking for a typo in the text.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “We can’t help you.”
“Excuse me?” Bruce asked.
“Is this official police business?”
Bruce snuck a glance at Mara and then back at Rose. “No, it isn’t.”
“Then I can’t help you. Was there anything else?”
“All we want is his room number …” Bruce said.
“Let me record your badge numbers. Isn’t it the law I can ask for them and you have to give them to me?”
“Why the cold shoulder?” Bruce asked.
“You come in here and announce that you’re a detective. When I ask if this official police business, does it involve a crime or do you have a search warrant, you said no. Since this is unofficial, why say you’re a detective? Are you trying to use, or should I say, misuse your title of detective to get what you want?”
“Holy shit, woman. Overreact much?”
She leaned in close. “My ex-husband was a cop. He did it all the time. I know the laws and I will not bend over because you say you’re a cop.” She pulled back. “Now, if you don’t want me to file an official complaint with your department, move along. Our privacy standards protect our guests. You will have to call your family member and locate him through other channels. Private channels. You’re a detective, right?”
Rose looked away and start
ed typing on a computer.
Bruce grabbed Munro’s arm and walked her out of earshot.
“What the fuck was that?” he asked.
“I’m just happy you didn’t smack her. Just our luck to get Medusa after her marriage broke down to Satan’s brother.” She shrugged. “What are we going to do now?”