Again, Henderson had no answer to the question, so he stuck with his chosen strategy and remained silent.
DeBlanc punched at the call button again with his thumb. He threatened to go back and give Rudenko a piece of his mind, to remind him who was the actual lead in their little financial relationship. Instead, he continued to pace and equivocate as he waited.
When the glass elevator door finally opened, DeBlanc took in a deep breath and then let it out slowly. After entering the elevator, he said calmly, “I’m retiring to my stateroom. Escort Ruby and her sister there immediately.”
“Yes, Mr. DeBlanc,” Henderson said. The glass door closed and the billionaire’s son began to rise like an ascending Napoleon.
After his boss had disappeared into the upper decks, Henderson turned and quickly made his way back down the passageway. He saw McKnight exiting the cabin where the Russians were interrogating their hostage and picked up his pace so he could tell him what he had just learned.
When McKnight caught sight of Henderson rushing toward him, he quickly grabbed his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his face and head. He then gently put his swollen right hand into his front pants pocket to hide it from his partner.
When Henderson reached McKnight, like an excited child with a secret he couldn’t wait to share, he leaned in close to him and whispered conspiratorially into his ear. “Damn, Big Mack. Ol’ Petite Louie is pissed as hell about the Russkis in there doing whatever it is they’re doing to our boy John Wayne. Little fucker’s whining like a bitch about being left out and how he wished his daddy would have never got involved with them.” He pulled away from McKnight briefly to check the passageway to ensure they were alone. “And he mentioned something about a financial relationship. Look dude, when this shit is over, you need to fill me all the way in on what the fuck is going on. Sounds like I might be missing out on some dirty rubles, bro.”
McKnight looked straight ahead, staring at the blank white bulkhead across from him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Happy. There’s nothing going on. And there certainly are no Russians onboard the yacht for anyone to be involved with.” He then turned and looked straight at Henderson. “Copy?”
Henderson raised an eyebrow and looked at his partner skeptically for a moment before putting on a plastic smile and saying, “Sure Mack, whatever you say, big guy. Anyway, I’m on a mission to escort the twins up to the little man’s stateroom. I guess he needs to work out his frustrations on them.” He winked and chucked McKnight on the shoulder as he continued on to complete his task.
When he reached the door to RJ’s cabin, he stopped at it, thinking maybe he should pop in real quick and check to make sure she had gotten herself showered and dressed as she had been told to do. He raised his finger to begin punching in the code to unlock the door, but then thought better of it. As upset as DeBlanc already was, it would probably be in his best interest to not keep the little man waiting for Ruby and her sister any longer than necessary.
✽ ✽ ✽
Had Henderson decided to check in on RJ, he would have found her, clad only in the skimpy thong bikini he had left for her, busy searching the drawers of the nightstand next to the bed for anything she could use as a weapon to defend herself. She had already rifled through all the dresser drawers, the small closet, and under the cabinet of the vanity in the head. Except for some towels and washcloths in the vanity cabinet, she found nothing useful to her needs. There wasn’t even one hanger in the closet.
She sat on the bed, frustrated, cold, hungover, and full of fear. But she had to ignore all those distractions and think. She had to find some way to protect herself. She walked over to the head and picked up the sheet lying on the deck just outside of it and wrapped it around her mostly naked body. She immediately felt a little better, both from its warmth and the protective cover it gave her. Her eyes scanned the room, desperate to find anything that she may have overlooked that she could weaponize.
Finding nothing, she returned to the dresser and angrily slid open each of the drawers once again. Once again, she found them all completely empty. However, when she went to push the bottom drawer back in, it stuck halfway. She tried to shove it in harder, but it was off its track and the additional force seemed to only get the drawer stuck in more of a bind. Her nerves were rattled and instead of taking her time to pull the drawer back out and align it properly on its track, she kicked it in with her foot. There was a loud crack as it was forced back into place.
The cracking of wood. She thought about that sound for a moment and then she knelt and pulled on the drawer to open it once again. Now, it was stuck shut. She pulled hard on it until, with another crack, it came out with a jerk that nearly toppled her back onto her butt. She took the drawer to the bed and sat down. With it upside down on her lap, she found that the wooden guide that ran down the center had a ragged break across its middle, leaving the two broken halves of it barely attached. She first ripped the top half of the broken guide from the drawer, and then the bottom. In her hands she now held two six-inch lengths of wood, both with stiff, jagged points on their ends.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
As soon as Ruby was released from the confinement of the cabin, she took off down the passageway at a pace that a lumbering, too-tall Henderson and a weary, drug-hungry Toni could not keep up with.
“Ms. Black,” Henderson hollered out, “please slow down and wait for us. Mr. DeBlanc instructed me to bring both you and your sister up together.”
Without slowing or turning to look back she said, “Fuck that junkie bitch.”
Instead, it was Toni who slowed, her step becoming uncertain. Henderson, midway between the two sisters, rushed back to Toni afraid she was going to collapse. When he put an arm around her for support, he found that her skin was cold and clammy. Still, just from touching such a beautiful, mostly naked woman, sensations were stirred in him wholly inappropriate for his task at hand. He shook off the X-rated thoughts and looked up from Toni just in time to see Ruby disappear behind a door far ahead on the port side of the passageway.
When Henderson, with Toni in tow, reached the door, he found that it opened up onto a narrow spiral staircase, one that he had no idea existed. He could hear Ruby’s feet on the carpeted stairs as she rose up through the decks. “Guess I should have studied those schematics of the yacht like Mack said I should,” he said under his breath. Knowing both he and the strung-out junkie would never be able to make it up the tight stairway together, he repositioned his hold of his charge, his left hand accidentally grabbing on to her soft left breast, and made a slow way with her forward up the passageway to the elevator.
By the time the two made it to the master stateroom, Toni was almost completely listless and Henderson was covered with sweat from his effort of carrying her along. He propped her up next to the stateroom door and kept her from falling over with his hip. He then began working quickly to square himself away, first by tucking in the loose tail of his blue Oxford shirt. He next took the band off his frazzled ponytail, shook out his long hair, and then slicked it back into place the best he could by wiping the sweat on his face and forehead into it, thankful that at least he didn’t have to wear the hot wool sportscoat while onboard the yacht. Toni sagged against him, moaning constantly of her need for a fix. As he tied his hair back up into a fresh ponytail, he told her that he would make sure she gets her fix if she would stand up straight and stop moaning. Upon hearing this, Toni immediately made a wobbly effort to abide, desperate for the drug.
Just as Henderson knocked on the door, Toni mumbled something to herself. He couldn’t quite make out what she had said, but he thought it sounded something like, I’m gonna kill that little mother fucker.
He grabbed Toni by the shoulders and pinned her up straight against the bulkhead. “What the fuck did you just say?” he demanded in a harsh whisper.
DeBlanc swung the door open and, without a word to either of them, started walking back into the room. “Bring her in,” he s
aid with the wave of the hand. He then dropped himself down on a cream-colored sofa set beneath a large, golden-framed, oil-painted portrait of a young Grandmother DeBlanc in her wedding dress sitting regally on a baroque wooden chair that could have easily passed for a small throne, the dress’s train whirling like cream around its legs.
Henderson couldn’t help marveling at the opulence of the room as he guided Toni in.
DeBlanc patted his hand on the cushion. “Sit her down next to me,” he said.
As Henderson led Toni around the coffee table to set her down next to DeBlanc, he saw that Ruby was balled up on the floor at the end of the couch. She looked up at him from frightened, teary eyes. Mascara ran down her face in black tracks, making it look as if her eyes were melting. Blood seeped from her nose.
“Oh, don’t mind Ruby,” DeBlanc said flippantly. “She’s been disciplined once again for her tendency toward insubordination.” He then opened the lid of a large, ornately carved ivory box that set in the center of the glass coffee table.
Henderson had never seen such an abundance of drugs and drug-related paraphernalia before. From what he could make out, there were syringes – enough to stock a small medical center, the standard thin strap of leather used to stop blood flow, snorting straws, a small plastic package of absorbent cotton balls, countless packs of Juicy Jays rolling paper, a blue mini glass bong, a gold baby spoon, a gold-plated butane torch lighter, and as for the drugs there was a large zip lock plastic bag stuffed full with marijuana, a small plastic sandwich bag partially filled with a white powdered-substance, probably cocaine, a small purple balloon tied off at the top and filled plump with what he assumed to be Black Tar heroin, and an assortment of plastic pill bottles filled with god only knows what drugs. There was also a small, unmarked white plastic bottle buried in there among the ivory box’s cornucopia of drugs. He had no idea what its purpose was, but it looked to him like the type of bottle nasal decongestant sprays came in.
Toni, now sitting on the couch next to DeBlanc, leaned over the coffee table to get a better look at all the wonderful glory held within the ivory box. She stared at it all so long she had to place a hand on the table to keep from losing her balance and falling over into it. After she concluded her careful inventory, she looked at DeBlanc, her eyes wide and expectant, and smiled a palsied half smile. “Is that what I think it is inside that cute little purple balloon?” she asked as she leaned suggestively into him. “You gonna fix me up good with some of that shit, right little man?”
It was obvious by the way his face screwed up that DeBlanc didn’t appreciate being referred to as “little man,” but he let it pass. “No, not yet,” he said pleasantly as he picked out the white plastic bottle from the ivory box. “But I will in time.” He waved the bottle in front of Toni’s disappointed face, trying to get her to focus her eyes on it instead of the purple balloon. “What I have here I can promise is better than any heroin or any other drug you’ve ever taken.”
Toni turned her interest to the bottle.
“Mr... Henderson, is it?” DeBlanc said as he continued waving the bottle in front of Toni’s face as if he were trying to hypnotize her. “Please assist our dear Miss Ruby up on the couch next to her sister.”
As he watched Toni watching the bottle waving before her face, DeBlanc for the first time noticed the bright green of her eyes. As if uncertain what he was seeing, he looked over to compare them with Ruby’s, now sitting reluctantly next to her sister. He then looked back to Toni’s eyes and stared into them deeply. His hand stopped waving the bottle in from of her face and it dropped down unnoticed into his lap. “Ms. Steele,” he said, sounding somewhat mystified. “I believe you have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.” He nodded dismissively toward Ruby. “Much more beautiful than your sister’s.”
Toni wasn’t listening, she was only focused on the white bottle that he now held in his lap.
“Amazing,” DeBlanc said of Toni’s eyes, unable to look away from them. He stared at them so long it was as if he had become hypnotized by them.
Henderson stood off to the side of the couch and tried not to laugh at the odd spectacle the little man was making of himself.
When DeBlanc finally snapped out of it and realized how ridiculous he must have looked staring at his whore’s sister like that, he gathered himself hastily and said, “Okay, my impatient little lovely with the beautiful green eyes, are you ready to experience something truly incredible.”
As Toni’s head nodded in eager affirmation, it looked as if it were about to wobble loose.
DeBlanc started to put the nozzle of the bottle into her left nostril, but then quickly pulled it away. “What’s the magic word?” he said in a childish, playful tone.
Confused, Toni looked from the bottle to DeBlanc. “Magic word?”
“Yes, didn’t your parents teach you the magic word as a child?”
Ruby, her head leaned back to keep her nose from bleeding, said, “The only thing our mama taught us when we were kids was the proper way to suck a john’s co—”
DeBlanc cut her off. “Ruby, dear. This is your last warning. You better play nicely with your sister or else.” He then placed the nozzle of the small plastic bottle into Toni’s left nostril while holding the right nostril closed. “When I say go, I want you to breathe in deeply two times through your nose. Can you do that for me, Ms. Steele?”
Toni still looked confused, but she gave a slight nod of her head.
“Ready… go.” DeBlanc squeezed the bottle two times and Toni twice breathed in its spray. He then switched the bottle to the other nostril and repeated the process.
Sniffling, Toni wiped at her nose. It wasn’t long before her eyes began to clear and her color began to return. She smiled and leaned back into the couch with the look on her face of someone who had just been wrapped within a warm, comfortable blanket of pure love.
DeBlanc observed her, pleased. He looked up and noticed Henderson staring at Toni with a look of awe upon him. “You look so curious, Mr. Henderson. Is there something you want to ask me?” He tossed the bottle to the body guard and nodded toward Ruby, indicating he wanted him to administer the drug to her.
Henderson studied the bottle for a moment. “Well, sir. I guess I’d like to know what’s in here.” He knelt before Ruby and gently lifted her head by the chin so he could give her the drug. She didn’t resist.
“Inside that bottle is pure magic, Mr. Henderson. A magic that will turn even the coldest of bitches into sex-crazed sluts,” the billionaire’s son explained wistfully.
Henderson stepped back from Ruby and looked at the plastic bottle in his hand as if he expected it to transform magically into a butterfly. He then looked at the beautiful identical twins sitting close together on the couch. Both had their eyes closed and both wore a far-away smile as their bodies writhed lustfully as if in rhythm to a seductive tune only they could hear. He then looked at DeBlanc, who was watching the women with a look on his face that said his greatest fantasies were about to be met.
“But, what’s in it, Mr. DeBlanc? The drug?”
DeBlanc had forgotten Henderson was still there. “What?” he said, as if waking from a dream.
“The drug you just gave the girls, sir. I was just wondering what’s in it.”
DeBlanc spoke quickly so he could return all his attention back to the twins as soon as possible. “Oh, it’s a simple solution, really. Most of its nothing more than a liquified mixture of… I forget the medical name of it, but its street name is PT-141. As I’m sure you can tell, it’s a drug that triggers the sex drive. Then there’s some MDMA, of course, to also help get the horns growing. And finally, you know, to get the party started, just a taste of cocaine.”
Henderson nodded his head approvingly as he studied the bottle. But he then looked back to DeBlanc with a worried look on his face. He began to say something but changed his mind.
“What is it now, Henderson?” DeBlanc asked impatiently, having had enough of instructio
nal time.
Remembering that he had thought he had heard Ruby’s sister saying that she wanted to kill DeBlanc, Henderson’s mind race, uncertain whether he should inform DeBlanc about it. But he wasn’t completely sure that was what he heard because she mostly spoke in mumbles. Should he tell him anyway, out of a sense of duty? But then there was the ginger and how amazing she looked in her bikini. Getting DeBlanc all stirred up over nothing might ruin his chance of breaking her in. He stopped fiddling with the white plastic bottle with his hands, studied it a moment as if looking to it for answers. He watched as DeBlanc kissed on Toni’s neck while one hand reached behind her back and untied the top to her bikini, and the other reached over to Ruby and began working its way up her legs. Henderson slipped the bottle into his pants pocket. Why spoil the man’s fun, he concluded at last.
“Well, Mr. DeBlanc,” Henderson said as he headed for the door, “I guess I better head back down to see if McKnight needs any assistance.”
DeBlanc, in the process of losing himself deeper and deeper within the sweet and sacred and naked pleasures now made available to him by the two stoned sisters, hadn’t heard him.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Passed out on the small bed, RJ didn’t hear Henderson as he quietly entered her cabin. She had never been much of a drinker, and she had never once tried illegal drugs, so the effects of the heroin hit her hard. Even though it had been many hours since the last time they had gotten her high, the effects of the drug continued to put her system through hell. However, when the burst of a cold liquid was sprayed into her left nostril, she was quickly pulled free from the dense fog of the lingering high. And by the time the spray hit her right nostril, she was awakened fully and already feeling the rushing sensation of the drug’s twanging, euphoric effect upon her elastic psyche.
The Good Kill Page 35