“When we get to my place,” Cherry whispered. “I promise to show you.” With that, she pressed an index finger to her lips with a silent hush and a gestured glance back toward Andrew.
52
Sunland. 5:43 P.M.
The guard instructing her to wash was armed. Before that, when Karrie had found a chance to peek, she hadn’t seen any guns whatsoever. That didn’t mean she hadn’t been scared. Or obedient. The situation alone was enough to crush anybody into compliance. But seeing the butt of his short pistol sticking out of the back pocket of his saggy jeans practically made her pee. As if the seriousness of her circumstances had somehow escalated. Until that very moment, Karrie had instinctively thought she would make it out alive.
After the armed guard swung her door open, he had disappeared for a few seconds and returned with a bucket of cold soapy water, a torn sponge, a half-empty jug of bargain shampoo, and an unopened roll of paper towels.
“Clean up,” he said in a plain and unambiguous American accent. He was slight and like the other guards, had been wearing a nylon stocking over his head to obscure his facial features. Only he had clearly tired of disguising himself and had it pulled up to his forehead, revealing a youthful, clean-shaven face.
Karrie reached for the bucket handle, intending to haul it back into the darkness of her cargo container.
“Nope,” said the guard. “Sorry. But you gotta do it right there.”
Karrie released the bucket and stared back at the guard as if to say, “With you watching me?” The guard withdrew a few steps and answered with a shrug.
“You’re going to a party tonight,” said the guard, practically as an afterthought. “So I’m supposed to remind you to do a good job,”
“Where’s the party?” asked Karrie.
“Just wash up,” he said. “I gotta do all you girls.”
For the first time, Karrie thought about running. Just flat-out barefoot in any direction. Would she find a door? Where was it and would there be more men with guns? How far would she get before she felt a bullet strike her in her back? It was a liberating notion. Somehow, in that flash of time, Karrie imagined death would be better than the humiliation of scrubbing herself clean before an armed thug no more than nineteen-years-old.
Karrie’s feet felt cold and made of stone. She even wondered if her body remembered how to run. Though imprisoned for mere hours, it had already felt like eons.
Karrie modestly turned herself around and began to disrobe, nearly certain that at any moment the guard would order her to turn back around so he could satisfy his eyeballs. Yet no order came. She stripped until she was naked then squatted before the bucket and, using that old sponge, washed herself. The water was cold and smelled of cheap dish soap. Yet something about it felt good. Like progress.
“Don’t forget your hair,” nipped the guard. “Once you got it soaped, I’ll bring you a fresh bucket to rinse with.”
As instructed, Karrie washed her hair last, wetting it then pumping the pink shampoo into one of her palms before rubbing the goo deep into her scalp. It smelled like a mix of bubble gum and mouthwash. And when the suds crept into her eyes, the stinging of it made her mad enough to bark.
“I could use the fucking rinse water,” she snapped.
Her eyes were shut and she was still squatting when she felt him rub next to her and remove the soapy bucket. He was walking away from her. To where? And how far? If there ever was a time to bolt.
But you’re naked, Karrie. With soap in your eyes! You can’t see shit!
“Hey!” she shouted bravely. “I could use some conditioner!”
“What fucking conditioner?” echoed a female voice from inside a distant container.
Tired of resting on her haunches, Karrie decided to sit with her butt against the freezing concrete. It felt like ice. But her burning quads thanked her. Moments later, she heard footsteps and the slopping of a fresh bucket of water placed in front of her. Her hands were reaching forward to find the bucket when she felt her right wrist pulled into a man’s grip.
“Next time ask nicely,” said the guard. He slipped a tube of hair conditioner into her hand. It was smooth and full and felt brand new.
“Thanks,” Karrie said, her voice turned meek but appreciative.
“Get to it,” said the guard. “I got other girls.”
Karrie knelt and used her cupped hands to ladle the clean water into her hair. It was painstaking and she doubted that she’d ever rinse all the cheap shampoo away. Nevertheless, she globbed the cream rinse into both palms and was grateful for the rosy fragrance. She shivered as she rubbed, hoping to reach every follicle. Cold as she was, she realized that she preferred to be seated naked and near freezing on the cement rather than locked inside the stinky container. She massaged her roots slowly, hoping to make the moment last. Karrie didn’t realize the guard had, once again, disappeared.
“You’ll need this,” he said upon his return. In his hand was a gallon-sized Ziploc baggie, containing a plastic hairbrush and a collection of makeup samples cosmetics counters give away at Christmastime. “Pick something to wear out of the box. Make yourself look fuckable, you get to party. If you don’t, it’s back in the container.”
With his foot, the guard slid over a cardboard container overstuffed with trashy clothes. Lingerie, mostly. Some with the tags remaining. There was also a garbage bag laden with random sizes of women’s high heels.
Woo hoo. A party.
He might as well have said they were going to Marie Callender’s for apple pie. What Karrie heard was the chance to exit the warehouse. Leave the container behind. Hope swelled in her. A chance at freedom.
Freedom?
Once she had it again, what the hell would she do with it?
53
Andrew’s medicated slumber lasted the entire ride, all the way to Cherry’s Silver Lake apartment. His snoring had switched into a softer, yet still audible gear. Lucky cracked the windows as if he was leaving a dog in the car and followed Cherry up the steps.
Cherry showed Lucky the shocking photos of the unconscious Karrie. He examined each and the accompanying texts along with the date and time stamps. If his math was correct, it had been less than seventy-two hours since the abduction.
“Can’t let her dad see these,” said Lucky.
“No shit,” said Cherry.
Lucky knew of whiz nuts who could crack the phone, download everything—all data, hidden and otherwise, as well as recorded geolocations. The other options were to wait for his calls to be returned or more proactively, hand the evidence over to units at either the LAPD or the Sheriff’s Department. Lucky could lay out precisely what he knew and hope they moved faster than the bureaucratic behemoths they were. Every option pinging inside his skull took time. Too much time. Precious time. Lucky understood that his next move was…
Critical.
The phone was key. Lucky regarded it as he sat himself on Cherry’s corduroy couch, cradling the item in his left palm as if it might speak and give him the answer.
“Wanna Snapple?” asked Cherry. “Snapple ’n’ water’s pretty much all I got.”
Lucky heard her. But didn’t answer. His next move was right in front of him. Like scrambled letters floating in the air. All he had to do was order them correctly to get his answer.
“What are you going to do?” Cherry finally asked.
“I’m gonna text the SOB,” said Lucky, finger pointed at the phone. “This Jake guy. He doesn’t know Gabe got the shit tortured out of him. Doesn’t know we paid anybody off.”
“You pretend you’re him,” finished Cherry. “You play like you’re the Gabe guy?”
“Like he’s got another honey to sell.” It was as if Lucky was speaking the plan before he was thinking it.
He switched on the phone and pressed the text icon. His fingers hovered above the keyboard, composing his query.
“You liked the last girl?” said Lucky as he tapped out the very same words in the dialogue box
. “I’ve got another one for you.”
Lucky reread the text to himself. Nodded his own approval. He was preparing to send the message when Cherry stepped forward, jazz hands waving.
“Wait!” she said.
“What?”
“Just wait,” she repeated, her head clearly swirling. “You want the guy to respond, yeah?”
“That’s the point,” said Lucky. “Start a dialogue.”
“Then you need to do it like Gabe would.”
“Something wrong with what I wrote?”
“You need more,” said Cherry. “You need something to sell.”
“I just need him to text me back.”
“Then what? They might know each other. How long before he knows you’re not him?”
“I need a shortcut and this is it.”
“You need more,” said Cherry, doing a sudden about-face and heading for her bedroom. “In here.”
Lucky paused, stood, then curiously followed her into a darkened box. Under a window draped with an old quilt was a bed nearly as large as the room itself. To navigate, one needed to crawl over the mattress. Only Cherry wasn’t on her hands and knees. She was standing and stripping off her clothes. Instantly, Lucky wanted say, Whoa or Stop. Instead, he was more straight to the point.
“The hell are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m the picture you’re gonna send with the text.”
“I didn’t ask you—”
“Take my clothes off for tips. I can do it to help you find Karrie.”
As quick as Cherry could strip off her t-shirt, she was pulling down her yoga pants, kicking them away, then bouncing into a horizontal pose reminiscent of the cell phone snaps he’d only just seen of young Karrie. She closed her eyes and parted her lips to appear unconscious.
“Don’t act uncomfortable and weird,” said Cherry.
“I’m just thinking,” said Lucky, unwilling to admit that he was indeed taken aback. The countless list of crazy acts he had witnessed hadn’t quite prepared him for her brazen act of volunteerism.
“C’mon,” she said. “Stop acting like you haven’t seen a naked girl. Cuz you’re a hot cop and women get all wet over that kinda shit.”
It finally clicked for Lucky. Cherry was dead right. The best and most efficient way to elicit a response from Jake—whoever or wherever he was—would be with a series of images just like the last. A drugged girl. Young. Attractive. Just like Cherry who, without makeup, could have passed for seventeen. Younger even if the pitch was just right.
Lucky switched on the phone’s camera function. He climbed onto the bed, kneeling over the motionless and naked girl. He framed the first picture and after pressing the shutter button, a blast of white light blanketed Cherry a split-second before the picture was recorded.
“More,” said Cherry. “And do I look drugged?”
“Maybe some drool,” offered Lucky.
Cherry shifted, worked up some saliva, turned her head back into the previous position and let it drip from the corners of her mouth.
“Good,” said Lucky, snapping a closer shot. “Stay right like that. Don’t move.”
He stood upon the massive mattress, making it sag and squeak, straddling the petite dancer while rotating the phone to get a full body shot.
“One more,” said Lucky, recalling the order of shots Gabe had used on Karrie. Different girl, but the same vibe. Drugged. Alone. Vulnerable as hell.
54
I hate Christmas.
I hate Christmas.
I hate Christmas.
Jake was wondering if he was developing Tourette Syndrome. Because the closer he got to December 25th, the more the three-word phrase would involuntarily repeat like a loop in his head.
Hate’s too strong a word.
In fact, the young father of four had fond memories of Christmas. In Armenian tradition, his mother would clean the house from floor to rafters. They would also put up two trees. One in the more modern American tradition with lights and tinsel and flashy ornaments. And a second in the old-world style decorated with fruit, golden bows, and white doves constructed from papier maché. The same was true for the day itself. December 25th was celebrated as well the Armenian-Orthodox Epiphany on January 6th.
Not many boys he knew were blessed with two Christmases. It made Jake wonder why his opinion of the holiday had fallen so far down his list of likes.
Pushing a shopping cart, Jake worked the aisles of the Canoga Park supermarket, trying not to miss any of the items on Ana Sofia’s list. It was delivered via a smartphone app that made Jake curse the day he’d ever volunteered to do the lion’s share of the grocery shopping. Every other day, around three in the afternoon, his phone would begin to ding with each addition. More carrots. Ding. An extra box of Frosted Mini-Wheats. Ding. Two gallons of non-fat milk. Ding, ding. Jake had actually tried to figure out how to turn off the sound, only to discover it left his phone quiet to all comers—an option he couldn’t afford.
He worked the market west to east. Hoping not to miss something and needing to double back to an aisle he’d already travelled down. That would take more time. And before Jake pointed his car home, he still needed to post two large care packages to relatives back in the old country, stop by the pharmacy and pick up a refill of an allergy prescription, and swing by the pet store for the special cat chow for their fat fucking feline, Galinda.
Jake was leaned over the cart, forearms resting on the handle, rechecking the grocery list as he eased through the frozen foods section, when his phone chirped with a new text. It was from Gabe, his old buddy from his club soccer days. His brain instantly shot backward to the summer between ninth and tenth grade, playing soccer on the Westside, and scrimmaging while high on the weed good ol’ Gabriel would amply supply.
He answered the text and as if his feet had landed in concrete, froze as the first image appeared. Instantly, Jake turned the phone over, straightened, and checked his surroundings for any nosy-nobs hiding over his shoulder. He waited for the polyester-swollen nanny to move beyond the frozen meals before he returned to his screen. He quickly scanned over the photo of the unconscious girl with the purple hair. Swiped through the four additional pictures, as both a matter of habit and judgment, automatically approving of her drugged-appearing attractiveness.
Jake answered: uv been bizy
To which Gabe quickly replied: like what u see?
ur timing sux
is there a prob?
no can do 2day
thought u liked what u see?
i do but not set for incoming product
seriously? she’s here n ready to go
that’s not my prob
make me an offer
A weird chill traced up Jake’s spine. Yet he quickly attributed it to having backed himself up against one of the supermarket’s freezers. It hummed with sub-zero potency. Again he checked his perimeter to make certain that he was unwatched. Or that some security camera wasn’t reading the incriminating texts over his shoulder.
if I can pull it off, Jake texted, u cash back half 2 me.
half? Really?
hey. u txted me. Xmas and i need the $$$. we do each other favor.
There was a pause in the conversation and Jake remembered he was threading a time needle. He pushed on, returning his smartphone’s screen back to the grocery app and the next item on his list: Carnation Instant Hot Cocoa. That’s when his hand vibrated as the text returned.
kk, Gabe had simply written.
Hold tight, Jake tapped out. Chking with my cuz.
Blocking entry to the frozen foods aisle, Jake held up a quick finger to a shrunken old man whose shopping progress was stalled by Jake and his smartphone.
“You young people and your damn devices,” grumbled the old man.
“Really sorry,” monotoned Jake, more out of habit than from actual regret. He finished punching out his text to Ziggy and pushed on. By the time he made the left turn into the next aisle, he had practically for
gotten about the interruption, his old buddy Gabe, and the four incriminating photos of the purple-haired girl that were still open in his text feed.
55
Silver Lake. 5:32 P.M.
Lucky thought about Andrew’s narcotic slumber in the backseat of the borrowed Crown Vic, front windows cracked open as if he were a pet waiting for his owner to return. As Lucky found himself craving the taste of any painkiller, he wondered what Andrew had been prescribed. He was reclining on Cherry’s big bed to ease the throbbing. From his horizontal position, he had sent those faked photos of Cherry and the subsequent texts. Cherry had assisted, propped up on an elbow, reading the stream as the conversation unfolded. She had even suggested a brief stroll through Gabe’s other text conversations as a way to better assume the photographer’s voice. And by all appearances, the ploy had some traction. Jake was running Gabe’s new find up the sex trafficking ladder. All that was left was the waiting.
“I hate Goddamn waiting,” Lucky admitted in a rare confessional moment.
His eyes were tired and shut—trying to blot out the bedroom light, and the pain he was wrestling with. He recalled Cherry’s smoky voice asking questions. Softly. Innocent, but probing. How and why he’d begun talking about his dead brother Tony was beyond him. Lucky had told her about Tony’s dreams to become an LA County Sheriff. The failed tests and academy rejections. Then the move to Kern County where Tony’s application had been accepted. This led to Lucky explaining how he had resigned from his post at Lennox Station and re-upped as a Kern deputy in the hinterlands east of Bakersfield.
Bumfuck, he called it.
“I like that name,” giggled Cherry. “Bumfuck.”
Cherry listened as the backstory took a dark turn. Lucky told of Greg Beem and his refrigerated truckload of stolen blood plasma. The deadly encounter with young Tony on the high-desert two-lane. The subsequent triple murder. Followed by Lucky’s seventy-two-hour odyssey of bloodlust and vengeance.
The Lucky Dey Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (The Lucky Dey Series Boxset) Page 55