Thankfully, it ended. The five participants inexplicably stood up with big smiles to a roomful of applause. They held hands and took a collective bow as the audience rose for a standing ovation. Then, they hugged and laughed like they had just performed a school play. I hadn’t expected that. It was unnerving.
I turned to look at Jason, who sat with his mouth open, not applauding like me. He looked pale.
“Okay, dude,” he said, “I’ll admit. That was fucked.”
“There’s hope for you yet,” I said.
The “performers” went through the big door and out. The crowd moved toward the exits. Jason and I joined them.
More drinks were served. More mingling. The mood had shifted, though. People were making out all around. Further on up the hall, on a couch, a young naked couple had sex while a group watched.
Jason was oddly quiet, barely touching his new drink.
I milled about, looking for Mistress Tiffany. The performers finally emerged, the Cage Girls still naked but nonchalant about it.
I saw Mistress Tiffany hug Hinraker and his two gown girls. She appeared to be thanking him. What the fuck?
The Cage Girls laughed and clasped hands with an older couple, who appeared to be congratulating them on their “art.” I shook my head. Each of them had just been violated in every way possible by each other in front of a live audience, but now acted like it was just another day at the office.
I moved directly toward them.
“Did you enjoy the show?” said Morton Hinraker, coming at me from the side with a big smile.
“You’re a sick fuck,” I said.
He laughed. “I thought so. Give it some time. Your initial repulsion will give way to an acceptance—then a curiosity—then an arousal. Then, the fun begins.”
“I’d rather eat smoldering charcoal.”
“Well, to each his own. I have nothing to hide. No laws have been broken, Inspector. Everything is consensual. You are free to leave—or stay. Be yourself pleased.”
He smiled and walked away. It was all I could do to hold myself together enough not to knock him down. I drifted over to Mistress Tiffany, who was chatting with a couple in their twenties, gushing over her “talent.” She met my eye. I waited for a break in the conversation.
“Hello,” she said with her hand out and a smile, turning to me like I was just another raving fan.
“Hi, Allie,” I said.
She froze, statue-like, then shook her head. “I’m sorry?”
“My name is Titus. Your mom hired me to find you. Looks like I found you. I need to know that you’re safe and to ask you to call her.”
The small group turned to throw eye-daggers at me. Mistress Tiffany touched my arm and smiled.
“Excuse us, please,” she said as she led me away. We walked off to the side into a less crowded area overlooking a patio. A large sculpture of a ram’s head stood on a marble block. We moved to the other side of it. There were no people here.
She looked at me head-on. The smile was gone, replaced by a nasty petulant expression.
“Who the fuck did you say you are?” she said.
Nice.
“My name is Titus,” I said. “Your mother hired me to find you. She wants to know that you’re safe.”
She laughed. “You’re full of shit. She did not. My ‘mother’ doesn’t give a shit whether I’m alive or not as long as she gets her check. Wait, who did you say hired you?” The mistress voice was gone, replaced by the unmistakable coarseness of a streetwise kid. I could swear I heard a faint New Jersey accent, but that’s impossible.
“I told you,” I said. “Pam Hayes.”
“Ha!” she said with a victorious laugh. “That woman wants me dead. She’s insane. She tried to fucking kill me. I’ll be damned if she’ll come anywhere near me again.”
My mind raced in several different directions, trying to regroup. This is not the reaction I had expected. Maybe a little mother-daughter tension, but not this.
“Allie,” I said, “what’s going on?”
“You’re a cop, right?” she said.
“No. I’m, uh, private.”
“Do you have a badge?”
“No, I’m, uh, super-private.”
“Listen to me, Titus—if that’s your real name, which I doubt—it’s none of your fucking business. I don’t need you to goddamned save me. I’m fucking fine.”
“Doing this?” I said. “Being forced to perform this sick show every night?”
“Nobody’s forcing me to do a goddamned thing. I choose to be here. I actually fucking like this. I came here to get away from that sick world of yachts and country clubs and bullshit fakery. That’s what I was forced to do.”
“Don’t blame you there. But why this?”
“Because I’m real here. I’m free here. I can let loose and be the real me here. This is what I love.”
“This?” I said. “This is the real Allie? That freak show?”
“Look, I don’t expect you to understand. You’re obviously vanilla. This is the BDSM lifestyle. Didn’t you ever fucking read Fifty Shades of Grey? It’s completely consensual. You have no right to judge, and I’m a perfectly legal adult. Go fuck yourself.”
I winced and glanced down at the outdoor patio. Four people were having sex next to the pool.
“Fine,” I said. “I told your mother when she hired me—”
“That woman is—” she said.
“That woman is what?”
“Nothing.”
“When your mother hired me, I said that I couldn’t bring you back. But I will tell her where you are, because that’s what she hired me to do. The rest is up to her and to you.”
“Then if I die,” she said, “it will be your fucking fault, dickwad.”
In that moment, I realized this is one sick family. I feel bad for Pam Hayes that not only does she have to put up with her ridiculous husband, but I have serious doubts about the sanity of her own daughter.
I started away but turned back, moved by something beyond me.
“You think you’ve figured life out, Allie, but you don’t know a goddamned thing,” I said. “This is a dark world you’re in and it will burn you eventually. You’re only nineteen. You don’t know. They will chew you up, spit you out, and ditch the rest in the ‘Glades. Please talk with your mother.”
“My ‘mother’ is none of your goddamned business,” she said through gritted teeth, emphasizing the word mother in an odd way. “Now if you’d be so fucking kind, dear fucking sir, I’d like you to fucking fuck off and leave.”
I nodded and turned. Morton Hinraker had appeared, still smiling. Is he always smiling? He had two large security guards with him.
“I hope you had a nice night, Titus,” he said. “But I think everyone will agree, including yourself, that you don’t belong here.”
A row of expletive-laced insults came to mind, but I held it.
“Call your mother, Allie,” I said while looking into Hinraker’s empty eyes and strode to the door, the guards in lockstep with me.
At the entrance to the house, Jason stood with two other guards. His arms were folded and the look on his face was dour.
We walked out in silence. The Lamborghini had been brought up and the valet held the door open. I didn’t say anything and got in. Jason did the same. No tip this time.
He revved the engine, burned rubber, and slammed us out onto West Star Island Drive.
“You are destroying everything I’ve worked to build,” he said as we crossed the bridge to the MacArthur. “Now I’m on a fucking blacklist ‘cause of you.”
“Sorry, dude,” I said.
He gunned the car left into the merge lane of the causeway, cutting off a semi-trailer who barely missed us and blasted his horn. We then accelerated obscenely and were back at my place in two minutes.
“You’re better off,” I said as I got out.
“Fuck you,” he said. I closed the door and he screeched off.
I
sure know how to make friends, don’t I?
TWENTY
MY ARMS SHOOK AS I EXHALED HARD AND PUSHED THE bar up for my fourth rep.
“One more!” said Luther, his face upside down above me. “You can do one more!”
I inhaled, letting the bar down slow and then exhaled on a push with all my might to get it back up. I felt it float away as Luther guided it to the rests.
I was breathing heavily, and then went into a coughing fit. Luther threw a towel around my neck and handed me a water bottle.
“Good,” he said looking at the 45-pounders on each side of the 25-pound barbell.
I took a swig of water.
“Not good,” I said. “Not good at all. I used to be able to do twice that much in my sleep.”
“First time back, got to be easy on yourself.”
We were at South Beach Boxing on Washington Ave. I hadn’t been in a real gym since Ariel died. It was good to be back. I had never been to this place, but all gyms feel like home.
“One more set,” I said.
“No,” said Luther, “you done for the day. Need to cough up some of that cancer in your lungs, get it out of your system.” On cue, I went into another coughing fit. “How long since your last smoke?”
“Three days. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve coughed up. Even so, my cravings are out of control. Last night I had a dream I was climbing up the outside of a giant cigarette on top of a big hill, trying to light it with a torch.”
“Resist the devil and he will flee from you. James, chapter four, verse seven.”
“He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.”
Luther scowled. “Who said that?”
“I don’t know, it’s up there.” I pointed up at one of the blue steel beams on the ceiling and Luther looked. Each one had an inspirational quote on both sides in yellow block letters. “I just figured I needed a quote too seeing as it’s Quoty-McQuote day.”
“Jackass.”
We moved over to the squat rack. Luther put three hundred pounds on his shoulders and did four sets of twelve reps. If he struggled at all, I couldn’t tell. He didn’t grunt nor breathe heavily. No movement was wasted, no extra effort needed. Easy as buttering bread.
“I normally do more weight,” he said as we took the plates off, “but today is my day off.”
I flipped him off and stood in the squat rack.
Again, I stuck with two 45-pounders. Again, I wheezed and struggled. Luther helped me up on the last rep of each set, racking the bar with about as much effort as if it were made of foam.
“Good job,” he said. “Next time, you do a little more.”
“Thanks, coach,” I said. “Maybe I’ll make the team this year.”
“My my, aren’t we sensitive.” He broke up the word sen-si-tive into three syllables.
“I’ve lifted before, you know.”
“I know, but you been letting whatever burning you up inside feast on you for too long.”
I nodded and drank some more water.
We moved over to the heavy bags. My legs felt like I was wading through wet concrete.
I started in with a handful of combinations, but quickly had to stop. I ended up sitting on the floor against the wall feeling like a dying mule while Luther made the heavy bag dance like a bag of balloons.
“You fight pro?” I said.
“Long time ago,” he said.
“What happened?”
“My career cut short by extenuating circumstances.”
“Ah.”
Three young guys had paused their workout on the other side of the room to watch Luther. Damn, he wasn’t even sweating. He whistled a tune in time to the punches.
“Are you seriously whistling?” I said.
He turned it up, jabbing left and right, footwork perfect. I recognized “Proud Mary.”
“Holy shit,” said one of the guys watching.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
When Luther was done, he turned to me and said, “Lunch?”
“Hell, yeah,” I said.
We showered and walked over to the News Cafe on Ocean Drive and sat at an outdoor table. I had steak, scrambled eggs, and toast. Luther had eggs Benedict. We both drank orange juice, but I was alone with my two cups of coffee.
“Devil’s juice,” he said.
“Coffee is good for you,” I said. “Studies show people who drink coffee are less likely to get Alzheimer’s.”
“Touch not the unclean thing. Second Corinthians, chapter six, verse seventeen.”
“Hello darkness, my old friend. Simon and Garfunkel, ‘The Sound of Silence.’”
We finished our meal. I checked my phone. Still no response from Pam Hayes. I’ve called and texted several times this morning.
“So what spirit move you, Brother Titus?” Luther said. “Last time I saw you, you look like you trying to kill yourself.”
“Since that morning,” I said, “someone stepped up to offer to do it for me.”
“And you saw the light? Just like that?”
“Don’t know. Maybe I’ve changed, found a reason for living.”
“Not that girl from the club, I hope.”
“No, not her.”
I hadn’t told him about the second girl and I’m not going to. I also hadn’t told him about the roused sensation of life I felt whenever I’m near Sofia, seeing as she isn’t his favorite person.
“How go finding the rich college girl?” he said.
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” I said. “I located her last night.”
“You don’t say.”
“Yep. My Super-Sleuth Club membership card should be arriving in the mail any day now.”
“Where was she?”
“At Hinraker’s. Puts on a sick show. She’s a dominatrix who likes space costumes. Oh, and tails up her ass.”
“What you think of our boy Morton?”
“Smart but sick,” I said. “He’s fashioning his own private permanent orgy. Thinks he’s Caligula. Makes Hugh Hefner look like a wide-eyed virgin.”
“You rescue the fair maiden from the dark castle?”
“The fair maiden doesn’t want to be rescued. She escaped a different castle and likes this one better. No yachts and tennis here. The lifestyle she seems to want is this one—whips, chains, pain, that shit.”
“You believe her?”
I mulled that over.
“Strangely,” I said, “I do. Even though I think people who get involved in that shit are running from something. Usually can’t have normal relationships. Usually suffered some sort of sexual abuse.”
“Didn’t know you were a trained psychologist,” he said.
“When I was a cop, I saw some shit.”
“So anyone who into BDSM is mentally ill?”
“We’re all mentally ill, just some more than others. There is no normal.”
“God disagree with you there.”
“He’s free to do so.”
I sipped some coffee.
“Strange thing is Allie seems wise beyond her years,” I said. “And when I say wise, I mean streetwise. I heard it in her voice, the way she looked at me. Where’d she learn that growing up in the lap of luxury?”
“Movies and TV shows,” Luther said.
“No, this was real. You can’t learn it from TV. Comes from hustling in person.”
He nodded. “What you going to do next?”
“Don’t know. Pam Hayes is not responding to me.”
“Odd. She be your boss lady, so to speak.”
“She be. And she put on quite the act that she was concerned about her daughter, but—”
“But what?”
“There was something off about her too. Her words felt, I don’t know, scripted.”
“Now you find dear sweet Allie, but Pam Hayes seem to be done with you. Maybe she found her herself.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe something has happened to her. Rex must have gotten to Pam. Silenced her
somehow.”
“Rex Hayes is a scuzzbucket,” he said.
“Yes, he is.”
“Maybe you should drop in on ol’ Pam. See what the reaction is like.”
“Yeah. I was hired to find Allie Hayes. I found Allie Hayes. I need to report my findings to my client and return the money I didn’t use. Time for a visit to Coral Gables. Gables Estates, actually. Arvida Parkway was the address, I believe she said.”
“Oh my,” Luther said in a marble-mouthed voice that belonged in the Hamptons, “my dear boy, I do believe one needs to be worth ten million just to drive on the pavement over there. Only Rolls-Royces and Mercedes-Benzes allowed.”
I laughed so hard I slapped my hands together in applause, the Brahmin voice so out of place coming out of Luther’s head.
“Have you ever been to Newport?” I said. “That’s exactly how they talk.”
“My dear boy,” he continued in the accent, “don’t insult me. Buffy and I sail our yacht there every year. Perhaps you’ve seen it. It’s called the S.S. Overbearing.”
“That’s twice you’ve sent me into hysterical laughter today. I forget the last person who was able to make me do that.”
He stared at me for a long moment. “Bet she was something.”
The world stopped. Her scent flowed around me, the intoxicating aroma of red-headed bliss as she touched my face and leaned into me.
“What was her name?” he said.
Bastard. He got me to drop my guard and pounced on the moment of weakness he created, fully aware he had struck a nerve that sent me right back into her arms.
“Ariel,” I said, the word echoing into the sky of a thousand lost horizons in my memory.
“What happened to her?” he said.
I forced myself back to the here and now. Staying on that road, even for a few moments, only leads to darkness. I sat up and sipped my coffee.
“I’ll tell you sometime, but right now I’ve got to get over to Coral Gables,” I said.
“I’m painting with DaShawn this afternoon,” Luther said, “but if you want, you can borrow the official Apostolic Rescue Mission Church truck, seeing as you’re automobile-inhibited.”
“Me? Driving a vehicle of God? What if I get in an accident?”
“Then you go to hell instantly, no wait.”
Miami Burn (Titus Book 1) Page 14