RJ and Toni, bound and gagged sitting on the floor, were against the back wall. Between them stood Lukos Sabra. He was pointing a pistol against the side of RJ’s head.
“Hello, Mr. Lebon,” Sabra said. “We’ve been expecting you. Please be kind enough to set the gun on the floor and kick it toward the table.”
Killian studied the man pointing the gun at RJ’s head. He wasn’t very tall, nor did he appear to be physically threatening, but Killian could tell by his steady gaze and slight mocking smile that he was not to be reckoned with lightly.
“Please, Mr. Lebon.” Sabra said. “I can assure you it would be in everyone’s best interest, especially the lovely ladies here, for you to follow my instructions.”
The man’s accent puzzled Killian. It sounded Middle Eastern, but it also sounded slightly Slavic. He took his finger from the trigger and slowly set Henderson’s Glock on the floor. He pushed it with his foot toward the table.
“Thank you,” Sabra said. “Please come in and join us, won’t you?”
Killian took a good look at RJ and Toni. He could tell right away something was wrong with them. Their eyes were open, barely, but they were unseeing eyes, eyes unaware of what was going on around them. Still he said with forced confidence, “Everything is going to be okay. RJ, Toni, you hear me? Everything is going to be okay.”
The only response from either of them was the flutter of RJ’s heavy-lidded eyes in an unsuccessful attempt to open them fully.
As Killian stepped away from the door and fully into the room, keeping his focus on the gun pointing at RJ’s head while trying to calculate his next move, the door closed automatically behind him to reveal Larry Hammond. Hammond took a quiet step toward Killian and slammed the butt of a Remington ACR into the back of his head. The hit collapsed Killian to the floor, but it took two more to the temple to knock him out completely. Red-faced and out of breath, Hammond stared down at Killian for only a second before kicking him in the ribs as hard as he could. “That was for McKnight,” he said. He kicked him again. “And that was for Henderson, you piece of shit.”
PART THREE
Where do murderers go, man!
Who’s to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar?
Herman Melville, MOBY DICK
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
When RJ awoke on a strange bed in a strange windowless room knowing only that she was shivering from a deep-set chill and feeling nauseous from a steady rocking sensation that seemed to move over her body in slow, sadistic undulations, her first impulse was to panic. But she fought back hard against that impulse. She wouldn’t panic, not until she at least understood what there was to panic about. And to be able to do that, she first needed to assess her situation the best she could while she was still alone and relatively safe.
She sat up on the bed feeling weak, dehydrated, disgusting. Her stomach lurched and churned from the movement; her head throbbed painfully and began to spin counter to the slow rocking sensation that continued torturing her unabated. She caught a faint, putrid whiff of vomit, followed the smell back to its origin, and found the crusty remnants of her last meal spattered down the front of her flannel shirt. The smell and sight sickened her further, but she contained her nausea and forced herself to focus the best she could.
The room she was in was tight, confining, its walls a polished white. The low ceiling consisted of white fiberglass paneling; a recessed florescent light lay centered in the middle of it and lit up the room in an excessively bright white light, the eye-stinging severity of which she felt would be better served in an operating room. Except for the twin bed on which she was a sitting, a white nightstand setting next to it, and a small, mirrorless dresser, the room was empty. She grabbed the white sheet balled up at the end of the bed, the only covering it offered, and wrapped it around herself in an effort to fight off the pervasive chill she was feeling.
She tried hard to think but could remember nothing of how she got to where she was. The last thing she was able to recall was crashing Killian’s car into a tree and she and Toni being dragged out of it by two unusually large men, one white with a long ponytail, one black, the larger of the two, with a smooth, bald head. Both were dressed alike, dark blue sports coats and dark wraparound sunglasses. She remembered thinking that they looked like thugs straight from the Matrix. Then there was the struggle in the back seat of a car. She struggling with the white guy, Toni struggling with the black guy. That they were matched up in their struggles by their race seemed to RJ to have had a sinister, spiteful balance to it. But it wasn’t much of a struggle regardless. Both she and Toni were quickly pinned down in the back of the car, helpless against the muscle, bulk, and determination of their captors. A quick blast of pain as a needle was jabbed into her arm and whatever the drug was burned its way in through the vein. Then a warmth spreading through her body. Then a wrenching nausea. Then the… What?
Then nothing really… until now.
She continued her survey of the empty, expressionless room. There were three closed white doors. The one nearest the bed was a folding door and probably for a closet. The one in the middle of the wall opposite her looked to be for entering and exiting the room. The one on the wall to her left next to the exit must be for the bathroom. At least she hoped it was. It was getting harder and harder for her to contain her nausea. She was going to be sick. When she stood up from the bed, the rocking sensation that had been waving through her body strengthened. It almost seemed as if the motion was being generated up from the floor. Her weak legs couldn’t manage the swaying and, when trying to walk, they collapsed.
Down on the floor, RJ lifted herself up onto shaky hands and knees. Her unkempt auburn hair hung down pathetically in front of her eyes, a scatter of greasy strands stuck to her face. She began to crawl. Slowly, painfully, she made her way to the bathroom. Self-pitying moans turned into sobs and the forgotten sheet slid from her shoulders and down her back until it at last clung desperately to the blue jeans tight around her butt. She dragged the sheet with her as she crossed the hard, white linoleum floor, a floor which, with its endless rocking and swaying, seemed determine to confound her effort to cross it. But she did cross it; though when she finally reached the door, she was so weakened it was another battle just to get it open.
Like the room itself, the bathroom was all white and confining, not much bigger than one might find in a motorhome or… on a boat. Yes, that was it, she realized with a sudden excited burst of energy. She was on a boat. With the understanding that the rocking motion she had been feeling was real and not a phantom haunting her hangover, it became less threatening to her, less nauseating. Yet she was still quite nauseous. She crawled over to the toilet and allowed herself to finally throw up into it a stringy, burning bile, and she kept throwing it up until her stomach was void of it; and still, despite its emptiness, the stomach continued to heave, its convulsions wracking and contorting her body as it fought maliciously to expel even the nothingness of the void. Tears ran down her cheeks; snot bubbled out of her nostrils; hair hung down into the toilet, mingling with the vomit. When the spasms finally subsided, she curled up into a fetal position on the cold linoleum floor and cried silently.
Henderson entered the cabin unheard and leaned against the doorway to the bathroom. He stared at RJ for a moment before saying, “Damn, girl, you really look like shit.”
RJ was too weak to react to the sudden shock of the intrusion.
Henderson kicked the sheet out of the bathroom and walked over to RJ, staring down at her for a moment as if she were a gift waiting to be unwrapped. He knelt next to her and began gently brushing the wet, matted hair from her face. He then tore some toilet paper off the roll and wiped her nose. After tossing the soiled paper into the bowl and flushing the toilet, he stroked her cheek softly with the back of his hand and said affectionately, “A beautiful thing like you shouldn’t be lying under a toilet with snot running down your nose.”
RJ opened her eyes reluctantly. When sh
e saw that the man touching her was the same man who had abducted her, she screamed and frantically pushed and kicked herself away from him until she became jammed up against the shower door and could go no farther.
Henderson stood up and laughed. “Jesus, lady, take it easy. I come bearing gifts, that’s all.” Hanging off the thumb of his left hand, a wounded hand now wrapped heavily in a black orthopedic cast, he held up a gold metal hanger. From it hung a dainty white string bikini. He hooked the hanger onto the door handle.
“So, here’s the plan,” he said as he turned back to her. “You’re gonna take yourself a much-needed shower and get all cleaned and beautified, and then, before we get you something to eat, we’ll take you up real quick to meet your host. Cool?” He leaned down and opened the cabinet under the sink, allowing RJ to see all the supplies she would have available to attend to herself.
RJ’s eyes darted everywhere, trying to find a means to her escape. “Why am I here? What are you going to do with me?” she demanded.
“All your concerns will be addressed soon enough,” Henderson said as he reached his good hand down to her. “Here, let me help you up. You must be exhausted.”
RJ reached up and grabbed his hand with both of hers. But instead of letting him pull her up with it, she yanked on it with all the strength she could muster and pulled him down toward her. Henderson, not expecting the sudden pull downward, lost his balance and fell headfirst into the sharp fold of the shower door. He instinctively reached out with his broken left hand and braced himself against the corner where the wall and shower met. The quick action took much of the energy away from the fall and prevented him from smashing all the way through the glass door.
Down on the floor now and supporting himself with an elbow, blood from where his head hit the door running down his face and into his eyes, pain from the shock to his injured hand shooting through the hand and all the way up his arm, Henderson’s face was now in alignment with RJ’s. She scooched herself back as tight as she could against the corner of the wall for leverage and then kicked him in the left temple with the heel of the right bare foot as hard as she could. His head snapped to the side and cracked his right cheekbone onto the porcelain edge of the toilet. He collapsed all the way to the floor and began moaning and writhing from the additional pain. She had given him a pretty good hurt, but she didn’t knock him out as she was trying to do.
While Henderson was busy with the pain from the heavy blow she had just laid upon him, RJ quickly scrambled to her knees and crawled over him, his large body consuming much of the floor space in the cramped room. Using the edge of the sink for support, she pulled herself up. But just as she got to her feet and was about to run from the room, Henderson reached out and grabbed her by the left pant leg with his right hand. RJ nearly fell to the floor, but she held tight to the edge of the sink and steadied herself. She at first made an effort to escape Henderson’s grip by trying to kick and pull her leg away from him. When that didn’t work, she shifted her position so she could kick back at his face, hoping the blows would force him to relent his hold. But when she looked back to find her mark, she saw his left hand lying lame on the floor. She allowed Henderson to pull her captured leg to him as if she had given up trying to escape. Once she was able to put both feet back down on the floor, she pivoted and then slammed her free foot down on the cast as if she were trying to break it in two, which of course she was. Henderson released his grip on her and screamed out in pain.
RJ had no idea where she was, she just knew that she had to get away from the asshole on the floor. From the bathroom, she could see the main cabin door was partially opened so she ran to it and swung it open all the way. McKnight’s massive body filled the frame. He immediately grabbed her violently by the throat and picked her up until her bare toes dangled several inches above the floor. Henderson stumbled out of the bathroom cradling the smashed cast against his chest. His right cheek was swollen beneath the blood covering his face. His eyes screamed in anger.
RJ tried desperately to free herself from McKnight’s grip, tearing chunks of flesh from the back of his hands as he carried her by the neck back into the bathroom. He slid open the shower door and threw her into the tight stall. Her head smashed against the wall, just missing the sharp corner of the metal washcloth rack. She slid dizzy to the floor. McKnight once again grabbed her by the neck and picked her up and pinned her against the wall. With his other hand, he ripped off her shirt, and then her bra. He then smacked her across the face and ordered her to take off her pants. When she didn’t move fast enough, he smacked her again. Her head bounced hard off the wall, loosening his grip on her neck enough for her to twist free from it. She then crouched down and ducked under the arm and popped up on the other side of it swinging. She punched him straight in the mouth, a mouth that had recently been wired shut in an effort to heal its previously broken jaw. McKnight raged through clenched teeth. He cocked his right arm back, ready to throw a counter punch, but thought better of it. Instead, he grabbed RJ by the face and threw her down to the shower floor and placed his size sixteen burgundy wingtip on her head and stepped down on it just hard enough to hold her in place.
“Okay, I like your spirit, lady,” McKnight said through his teeth, “but we don’t have time to fool around like this.” Blood dripped from his split lip. “You even twitch a muscle, I’ll step down on that pretty little head of yours and smash it into a bloody fucking pancake, do you understand?” He then looked back to Henderson. “Take this bitch’s pants off, god damn it.”
“With pleasure,” Henderson said as he jammed himself between McKnight’s leg and the narrow opening of the shower door and got to work on the top button of RJ’s jeans with his good hand. He was able to get the button undone and the zipper down, but he was unable to work the pants down her legs with her lying in a fetal position the way she was. After a moment, he pulled himself back out of the shower and looked up at McKnight. “Can’t do it, Mack,” he said, holding up his broken hand in defeat.
“God damn it,” McKnight said. “Hold that bitch down then. Be careful of her fucking claws.”
McKnight took his foot off RJ’s head as Henderson held her down by the neck with his good hand. McKnight almost tripped over Henderson’s foot as he maneuvered his way around his partner so he could get down into the shower and pull RJ’s legs out from the stall. RJ simultaneously tried to kick McKnight in the face while scratching out at Henderson’s eyes.
When they finally had her completely undressed, McKnight dragged her all the way back into the stall and turned the water on, setting the temperature to cold. Henderson took out a bottle of shampoo from the cupboard under the sink and threw it at RJ lying on the shower floor. The bottle hit her hard on her right hip. He then took out a bar of soap and hurled it at her just as hard. RJ had turned on her side and balled herself up as tight as she could to protect her head. The soap struck her on the back, just above the right shoulder blade.
McKnight closed the toilet lid and sat down on it. Still breathing heavily from the effort it took to get RJ undressed, he said, “Look, lady, it’s bad luck that you got yourself swept up in all this shit, but it is what it is. So, listen up. You will cooperate with us from now on or you will die. It’s simple as that.” He reached into the shower stall an turned the nozzle to hot. He held his fingers under the running water and adjusted the temperature until he was satisfied. “I can’t make you any guarantees,” he said in a kind manner, the best he could through his teeth, “but if you do what we ask without giving us any more problems, I’ll see what I can do to get you out of here safely, no questions asked. Okay?”
Henderson gave McKnight a look that said, you got to be fucking kidding me.
RJ remained clutched up in a tight ball and didn’t respond.
“Go ahead and get yourself a shower,” McKnight continued as he scooped up from the floor the clothing they had stripped from RJ, “and get yourself fixed up nice. We’ll take you up to meet Mr. DeBlanc and then after tha
t we’ll see what happens, okay?”
Out in the cabin McKnight closed the door to the head and then tossed RJ’s wad of clothes to Henderson. “Make sure those get disappeared,” he said.
“What do I do with them? I can’t toss them over the side, can I?” Henderson asked as he picked up the underwear that had dropped to the floor.
McKnight opened the cabin door and held it for his partner. “Hell no. There’s an incinerator back in the engine room to burn trash. We can go there now and I’ll show you how to use it.”
Henderson stepped out into the passageway and waited as McKnight punched in the code to lock the door. “That was all bullshit about letting her go, right?” He held up his mangled cast. “I mean look at this shit. Look at the fucking busted lip that bitch gave you.”
McKnight started walking aft and gently dabbed at his fat lip with the back of his hand. “Of course it was all bullshit,” he said. “Hell, DeBlanc doesn’t even want to see the bitch.”
“He doesn’t?” Henderson said. “What does he want to do with her?”
“According to Ham, he has a business associate who has a thing for redheads,” McKnight said. “We need to get her ready for him.”
Henderson couldn’t hide his disappointment. “Lucky fella,” he said as he stared longingly at the underwear. “She’s one fine piece of merchandise.”
“Well, she’s a gift, not a sale. At least that’s what Ham said.”
Henderson shook his head knowingly. “Whoever gets her better be ready. That chick’s got a fiery spirit. I don’t think too many men can handle her.”
“Yeah, well, it’s gonna be your job to break her of that spirit,” McKnight said.
Henderson was intrigued. “And how should I do that? Beat it out of her?”
McKnight nodded thoughtfully. “I keep forgetting that you’re just a rookie. You can get physical, just as long as you do it sparingly. Nothing that can’t be covered by makeup.”
The Good Kill Page 32