“Go for Jack,” Jennifer said. “Tell him we’ve got orders to move and we’re to rendezvous here.”
“Okay. I checked on Ferrito. He’s still aboard.”
“Nasty—”
“Shut up.” Jennifer yanked Polly’s hair, but looked at Art. “This is working, thank God. The boss won’t be handing out any more chances, so don’t fuck up this time.”
Polly’s scalp stung. She searched the room, trying to order her thoughts. She had to get out of here. She had to warn someone, warn Nasty.
Art looked down his nose at Jennifer. “Who fucked up last time?”
The expression on Jennifer’s face didn’t change. “Get going.” She looked at her watch. “The window closes at four.”
“What are you talking about?” Polly kept taking breaths, but her lungs didn’t seem to expand. “What’s happening here?”
“Do me a favor by the time I get back, sis,” Art said, pointing at Polly. “Make sure she doesn’t feel like talking anymore.”
Twenty-eight
“I don’t hate you,” Jennifer said. “I don’t care enough to hate you. Understand?”
Polly understood nothing, not anymore, unless it was that she had to think, and think fast.
“You aren’t important—except to help us get what we want.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you want? What you think I can do for you?”
“I don’t hate you.”
This was a crazy woman, Polly thought. Her stomach clamped down enough to hurt. Somehow she had to get out before Art got back.
“Once you’ve done what I want you to do, you’ll have to go, of course. We couldn’t leave you to tell the cops about us. We’ve got everything ready. They’ll find out we had to go back to Australia for a family emergency. Only we won’t be the Art and Jennifer going to Australia. They’ll be the couple we’ve paid to do it. We’ve got other plans.” Jennifer sniggered. “Y’know how you can be sure you’re going to be offed?”
“Offed?”
Jennifer gave her a cold-eyed stare. “Killed. If someone with all the power and a lot to lose tells you everything that could finish them, you’d better have funeral plans made. It’s a dead giveaway.”
“Is it?” Polly started to get up.
Jennifer pushed her back down. “You could cause me a lot of trouble. You could ruin me, because I’m going to tell you everything. But then you won’t be around to talk about it.”
The woman before her was tall, as tall or taller than most men, and she was strong. “I can’t fight you, Jennifer. And I can’t make deals.” Polly refused to show how terrified she was.
“Right, on both counts,” Jennifer said. “Come on, I want to change.”
“Why me?”
“Why me?” Jennifer undid the belt at the waist of her jeans and stripped it from the loops. “Poor little Polly. Why me? Because you got in the way, you silly bitch. All you had to do was play your part and keep your nose clean, but no, you had to get in the sodding way. Get up.”
Polly didn’t move.
The leather belt sang through the air. She screamed, and threw up her arms. Points on the metal buckle blasted into her head. The strap cracked on the backs of her hands.
Pain shot into her skull.
“Get up,” Jennifer ordered.
Dizzy, Polly pushed to her feet. She crossed her arms, pushed her stinging hands into her armpits.
Jennifer reversed the belt to hold it by the buckle. “Hurry up, pretty Polly.” Using the belt like a whip, she flicked it against Polly’s cheek, then, repeatedly, across her back and buttocks, herding her from the living room into a hallway.
At the door into a bedroom Polly balked. She turned blindly toward her attacker and lunged.
Jennifer’s laugh echoed in Polly’s ears. She laughed, and slammed a fist into the soft flesh beneath Polly’s ribs—and brought the belt down across her shoulders as she doubled over.
Winded, stunned by explosions of pain in her chest and head, on her back, Polly curled up on the floor.
Jennifer kicked her temple, hauled her up, and threw her onto the bedroom floor.
“Stop it!” Polly scrambled upright and stood, swaying, blinking to clear her vision. “What have I done to you?”
“You were born,” Jennifer said through her teeth. “You and millions like you, pretty Polly. And the men look at your pretty face and your helpless little body, and they want to look after you and drool over you—and they don’t care if there’s nothing in your pretty, stupid head.”
“Jennifer—”
“Shut up! Lie on the bed. Go on, lie on the bed.”
Polly couldn’t move.
“You little idiot.” A single, vicious shove sent the door rattling into its jamb. Jennifer shot home a bolt, flipped a hasp closed and snapped a shiny, obviously new, padlock shut. “On the bed. You move, and you’re dead.” Her laughter now was high and jerky. “You don’t move, and you’re still dead. Get it? Move and you’re dead. Don’t move and you’re dead. What you call a no-win situation.”
The unmade bed, a nightstand with a black halogen desk lamp on top, and a row of open, overflowing suitcases comprised the room’s furnishings.
Without warning, Jennifer lowered her head and charged. The force of impact took Polly’s feet off the floor. Folded over Jennifer’s head and back, she traveled backward to slap onto the mattress.
Dry heaves tore at Polly’s belly and throat. The white light from the lamp bored into her brain. Sweat drenched her body.
“Don’t you bloody puke in here,” Jennifer barked. “Stupid bitch. Useless. What would a man like that see in a useless… Ah, it’s not worth it. You can’t get out, so don’t try.”
Tears mixed with sweat and burned Polly’s eyes. Panting, she turned on her side and watched Jennifer go into the bathroom. There wasn’t a phone on the bedside table. Moving gingerly, Polly lifted her head to scan the room.
“Get off the bed, and you’re dead,” Jennifer shouted. She laughed again. “Don’t get off the bed and you’re dead. Get off the bed and you’re dead. Don’t get off the bed and you’re dead. Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah, pretty Polly.”
Two windows. The bedroom had two outside walls at a corner of the house. Ugly brown drapes lined with foam hung unevenly at each window. Polly raised herself a little higher to get an angle on where the drapes didn’t quite come together. If she could make it there, she’d have a chance of climbing out.
“Not if you don’t want to die,” Jennifer sang out, her head protruding from the bathroom. Her thin brown hair hung loose over a visible bare shoulder. “Go for the window, and you die. Don’t go for the window, and you die. Start praying, pretty Polly. This is number four, and death is at your door.”
“You?” Polly whispered. “You made those calls?”
“Only the really good ones,” Jennifer shouted. “After I heard you get one of the heavy breathers. That gave me the idea. This is number one, and the fun will soon be done. God it was so great. Never did get around to number three. Too late now. I heard all about the witch woman. What a laugh. I ought to send her candy for all the help she gave us.”
Polly held herself still.
If she gave in, she was definitely going to die here. A woman she’d worked with, and laughed with—and called friend would kill her tonight,
Hold on. It’s never over till they call time. Fab used to say something like that when they’d been frightened kids in Venus’s unstable days. Frightened kids afraid for their lives whenever Venus and one of her men fought while Polly and Fab held their breath, sick at the thought that their beloved flighty mother would die. Fab would cry, but she’d comfort Polly at the same time, and tell her they just had to hold on.
Polly had cried too, but she wouldn’t give Jennifer the pleasure of seeing her cry tonight.
No one knew she was here.
Squeaky sounds came from the bathroom.
Roman would have found the note by now. Polly thought about
what she’d written. It didn’t say anything. Just told them not to worry—she’d be back. Roman wouldn’t do anything to frighten Bobby and Rose. No, he’d do the sensible thing and wait—just as she’d told him to wait because she’d be with Nasty and there was nothing to worry about.
“Ta da!” Leaping into the bedroom, Jennifer turned a cartwheel without putting her hands down, and landed on the end of the mattress. “Look familiar?”
Wincing at the pain every move brought, Polly scooted as far up the bed as could. “Why are you wearing a wet suit?”
Jennifer’s hand shot out so swiftly Polly didn’t have time to react. The other woman’s fingers tangled in her hair and twisted. “Up, up, up we get. The trampoline’s great. Ever been on a trampoline?”
“No!”
Using Polly’s hair, Jennifer hauled her to her feet, and bounced her. “This is a good start. No, a good end. Hah! Too late for you to learn to use a real trampoline. Bounce, pretty Polly, bounce.”
“Let me go!”
“Beg.”
Polly squeezed her eyes shut. Vomit rose in her throat.
“Bounce!”
Bearing down on the pain, swallowing repeatedly, Polly went limp, allowed herself to hang by her hair until Jennifer let her fall.
“Do as I tell you.”
With her knees hugged to her chest, Polly remained where she was.
“I’m the diver. Don’t you get it? I’m the ducky diver, ducky. We’ve played in a bedroom before—your bedroom. And I took you for a little swim, only you can’t swim. I didn’t think he’d bloody save you. You were supposed to drown that night, but fate smiled on us. He’s too bloody clever for his own boots, that one, but we still need you. So he did us a favor.”
Jennifer Loder was drunk on her own brilliance, and on her own madness. Polly’s silence would inflame the woman more, but if she was going to die here tonight, it wouldn’t be in shame at her own weakness. The window might still be her best bet. Maybe Jennifer would be distracted by something, and Polly could find a way to break the glass.
Releasing her hair, Jennifer pulled up the bottom of Polly’s T-shirt and tore it open across her back. “Ugly,” she said. “Polly’s pretty white skin is all ugly and red.” With her fingernails, she scratched a path up the prominent bones of Polly’s spine.
Breathing through her mouth, willing herself not to cry out, Polly pushed her head between her knees to hold back faintness.
“Really ugly now.” She unhooked Polly’s bra, rammed a fist beneath her chin, and flung her to her back. “Really, really ugly.”
Nausea broke in waves. She would not give up. She would not let this creature win.
“Here.” Jennifer produced a phone from beneath the bed. “Do what I tell you, or you’ll die.” A huge, gaping grin stretched her thin-lipped mouth. “Do what I tell you, or you’ll die. Do what I tell you, and you’ll still die.” She smacked the receiver against Polly’s ear and jaw.
Polly hunched her shoulders and didn’t attempt to hold the phone.
“Ballsy bitch,” Jennifer said softly. “This is what you’re going to do. You’re going to call your sexy dive boy’s number and tell him to stand by.”
“No.” Polly shook her head.
“Yes.” With one sweep, Jennifer stripped her to the waist. “Yes. You’ll call him and tell him to stand by. Tell him something unexpected’s happened, but you can’t talk. You’ll call him back as soon as you can.”
Polly grabbed for the remnants of her shirt, and her bra, but Jennifer tossed them to the floor.
“Make the call.” The phone was ground into her face again.
“I can’t do that.”
“Do it.”
Polly shook her head no. “I’m not making the call.”
Shooting her feet from the bed Jennifer dropped to sit beside Polly. “D’you like women?”
Polly narrowed her eyes to look at her.
“Do you?” Jennifer covered one of Polly’s breasts and squeezed. “Come on. Don’t tell me you’ve never been with a woman before.”
The nausea swelled again, nausea and pure revulsion. The urge to rip Jennifer’s hand away all but overwhelmed Polly. She sat still, stared directly into the other woman’s eyes.
“I can do anything to you. You couldn’t stop me. I think I’m going to see if you scream when you come.”
Polly stared.
Jennifer slapped her face.
Polly forced her eyes open, and stared “Make the call,” Jennifer yelled. “Art’s going to get back with Jack. You’d better have made the call, or I’ll give you over to Art and you’ll wish you had. He’s not a happy boy when things go wrong the way they did last night. And when he’s not happy, he’s mean.
“Art’s been through a lot for me. For us. He had to play along with Mary Reese so we could keep tabs on Jack. Art deserves to get what he wants.”
The next instant Polly heard voices and the sound of the front door opening and closing.
“Shit.” Jennifer dragged a sheet from the mussed bedclothes and tossed it at Polly. “Cover yourself up. I don’t want Jackie boy droolin’ over you.”
From the living room, Art called “Jen?”
“Bedroom,” she called back, and worked the combination on the padlock before unbolting the door.
Gray-faced with sweat rings under the arms of his wrinkled khaki shirt, Jack Spinnel entered the room ahead of Art. He saw Polly and halted. Art gave him a shove from behind and closed them in. He produced a gun from inside his jacket and aimed it at Jack.
Jack’s eyes widened. “What’s the gun for?” He looked at Polly. “What’s she doing here? I thought you said you were giving me the film and taking off. What am I supposed to do about her?”
“Nothing,” Jennifer said causing Jack to swing toward her. “Not a thing, Jacko. She’s going to call Ferrito. He’s going to rush over here to save his lady love. We’ll be ready for him. She dies. You die. We take him to our rendezvous point. The cops find you and pretty Polly and decide they’ve got a lovers’ quarrel gone wrong. Maybe we’ll leave Mary alone after all. We were wise to make sure she never knew about Colombia. When the cops get to her she’ll be singing her guts out about how that louse Jack was boinking his star. All neat and tidy. Art?”
“I like it, sis.”
“You said you’d give me the film,” Jack said his face even paler.
Polly stared at him until he met her eyes. She tried to smile a little, to warn him that whether or not they liked it, they were on the same side. They were all they had.
His wild gaze slid away again. “I’ve done my part,” he said to Art. “Now I get the film and get out.”
“And blow the whistle.”
He waggled his head from side to side. “Honest. No. Not a word ever. I’ll go back to Mary, and I won’t know a thing about anything.”
“No, no, no.” Art brought a sneaker slowly, deliberately down on the toes of Jack’s shiny Ferragamos. He stopped the other man from falling. “Stand up and take it like a man, Jack. You got your exposé, now you’ve got to pay back.”
“And I smuggled all that dope into the States in my equipment. That was the payoff for the documentary.”
“You’ve got it wrong,” Art said as if Jack were a mentally challenged child. “You got a fancy prize for the wonderful documentary. That means you still owe Emilio for not letting on about how you paid for the inside information. Now you’re going to settle the debt.”
Jennifer pushed the phone under the bed and walked behind Jack. She wrapped her arms around him and fondled his crotch. “I think I’m going to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”
These three had all played parts in a horrible scheme, Polly thought. She glanced toward the windows again, and at the lamp, and at the cord to the telephone. Surely someone would come if she threw something hard enough to break the glass.
“I found Ferrito, didn’t I—and I staged a show near him so you’d be in place and above sus
picion when Emilio sent word he was ready”—Jack squirmed and plucked at Jennifer’s hands—“It wasn’t my fault if he got out of your net. You should have had him.
“And I found out where he’d taken Polly for you. You messed up again. He gave Art the slip again.”
“You were supposed to make sure he stayed away from pretty Polly as soon as we smelled trouble there,” Jennifer said and bit his neck. “She made it harder, Jack. Tonight she’s going to make it easier—but only because we’re good at rolling with the punches. She’s wasted a lot of time for us. Emilio’s not happy. He was ready to show his friends he can call the shots across the world whenever he wants to call them. You spoiled his party. Now he’s got to have another one.”
“Let me go,” Jack said. “Give me the film and let me go.”
Art turned to Polly. “He thinks we’ve got a film of him supervising our friends putting certain merchandise into his equipment. For shipment back to the States. Emilio said he’d give him the film if Jack would help us get Mr. Ferrito back. Mr. Ferrito did some terrible things in Bogota. Terrible. He embarrassed Emilio, and he’s just got to go back and say he’s sorry.”
“You want to take him back so they can kill him,” Polly murmured.
Art’s mouth fell open. Waving his gun, he swung from looking at Polly to gape at his sister. “I told you to make sure she didn’t talk anymore. She just talked sis. What are you going to do about it?”
Jennifer unzipped Jack’s pants and slipped her fingers inside the fly. “Depends on what comes up.” She snickered. “I’ll either shut her up quickly, or not so quickly. I’ve got business to attend to here, first. Soon as it’s done, she’s done. Gag her. Call Ferrito and say Jack’s out of his mind. Say he’s always had a thing for her. Tell him Jack grabbed her from that house, but we came to the rescue. She’s here, but she’s asleep. Come and get her, baby! Better yet, Polly can tell him to come and get her. And she can say how good we’ve been to her.”
“I won’t call him.”
“Make her do it, Art.”
“He can’t make me do it.”
“Shut up, fool,” Jack said. He hardly seemed aware that Jennifer was fondling him. “Keep quiet, or they’ll hurt you.”
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