A nasty punch.
The young man spun off the impact and his knees turned to oatmeal. And before the trunk lid had sprung to its full and gaping tensile, the one and only man in Lucky’s range of view had been dropped.
Lurching from his midsection—failing first—then engaging his core muscles until he jackknifed, Lucky threw himself to the trunk’s edge, pistol racked and ready to speak again. Lucky’s target—that young man in the leather jacket, baby face shriveled in agony was sprawled on the concrete floor of a dim warehouse.
“Think that shit hurts?” wheezed Lucky. “Try what I been doin’.”
“Ow ow ow ow!” cried the young man.
“Stop bitchin’,” said Lucky. “Just meat ’n’ bone. Now look at me!”
“I’m shot!” complained the young man.
“Want one more in your melon?” barked Lucky. “Now look me in the eye and tell me who else is here.”
Lucky was met in the eye with the pained and terrified face of a young man no more than twenty-years-old. Most likely of Armenian extraction. If not, then from some other part of the world Lucky liked to call Bumfuckistan.
“Just me,” said the young man.
Gazing out into the dimness, Lucky made out the shapes of cargo containers—maybe eleven or twelve in all—scattered in no particular order.
“Don’t fuckin’ move,” demanded Lucky. He grit his teeth and forced his hips to pivot over the empty trunk. The pain that shot up his spine and into the base of his skull nearly overcame him. He imagined he could have easily blacked out if he wasn’t deathly afraid the young man was going to reach out and take hold of the .45’s muzzle.
Some relief followed as his back unfroze and his hip flexors engaged. On his knees, he threw one leg over the edge of the trunk, uncertain if it would even operate, then balanced on the single peg until he had swung his other leg out.
He wobbled. Dizzy. His face flushed with sweat. Yet he felt relief that so far, no other men had appeared. His only immediate danger seemed to be the man curled up on the deck—a fellow more concerned about the amount of blood slowly leaking onto the concrete.
“I’m dying!” squeaked the young man.
“Shut up,” said Lucky. “What’s in the containers?”
“Girls.”
Not that Lucky hadn’t already guessed. But as his eyes swiveled over to the containers splashed by the Nissan’s headlights, he could make out that each door was wide open.
“And where are the girls?” asked Lucky.
“All gone. Least the ones that were here.”
“When?”
“Just tonight. Maybe half an hour ago. Thought I was done then they just told me to go to the cement place and pick up the car.”
“This car?”
“Yeah.”
“Nobody’s here?”
“Everybody’s gone.”
From his jacket pocket, Lucky produced that dog-eared photo of Karrie Kaarlsen. He lowered it to the young man’s face.
“Her?” Lucky asked. “C’mon! Open your eyes and look at it.”
The young man rolled out of his nearly fetal ball and focused on the tiny photograph. His pained face filled with immediate recognition.
“Yeah,” said the young man.
“She was here?” Lucky confirmed.
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“I dunno.”
Lucky eased lower, aiming his knee into the young man’s ribs while allowing the gun muzzle to make an imprint against his cheek.
“Last time,” hissed Lucky. “Where did she go?”
61
Interstate 405. 9:30 P.M.
The Valley’s Best Service Tire truck crept along the choked thoroughfare. Its diesel engine pinged in low revs as Jake eased on and off the clutch. Traffic was so slow he had stopped checking his watch. He was resigned to be missing the Neighborhood Watch gathering. He toyed with the radio, undecided between playing music or listening to NPR. Whichever he chose, it was about staying awake. It was all he could do not to lean on the steering wheel and close his eyes. He was so damned exhausted and bored he had nearly forgotten about his illicit cargo; that in the box only ten feet behind where he sat were thirteen teenage beauties. Each of them young and tarted-up with heavy makeup in barely-there lingerie.
At least they had stopped with the racket.
Shortly after he had pulled out of the warehouse, one of the girls had started banging on the side panel with both fists, screaming for anybody to help. Most of the others joined in immediately, forcing him to pull over and swing around the backside of the cab to a two-inch ventilation and electrical port. He yelled into the hole for the girls to shut up or risk returning to the cargo containers, where they were promised no food or water for a week. The girls piped down in short order and had remained relatively silent ever since.
Jake checked his GPS device. He had twenty-two more minutes before he arrived at his San Pedro/Port of Los Angeles destination. Then he had to drive back to Woodland Hills to return the truck and drive his own car over to the warehouse so he could tag-team the blue Nissan back to Speedy-K’s. Jake estimated that with a little luck he would get home just shy of midnight.
Oh man, he sparked. That wouldn’t even account for Ziggy wanting him to stick around in San Pedro. Jake saw his job description expanding once again while his cut of the profits remained static.
Come Christmas dinner, he and his cousin were going to have to have a heart to heart on the status of their business relationship.
Karrie was seated at the rear of the dark cargo box on one of the stiff new moving blankets that were draped over stacks of car tires. She had experienced a moment of mild elation as she was finally, but not formally introduced to her fellow kidnappees. Each teenage girl was attractive in her own way, none appearing to be much older than she. They were a mixed bag of ethnicities and types. And some looked almost too thin as if in the beginning ravages of serious drug addiction.
Karrie held hope that as a group, something might be accomplished. Perhaps the overpowering of a guard followed by a stiletto-heeled rush for freedom. Yet closer inspection of the other girls’ eyes revealed a desolation of loss. Almost all their postures screamed defeat. In all those awful, trollop-like outfits, the group looked about as powerful as a bouquet of young but dying roses.
As instructed, no words had passed between them as each had been helped aboard the tire truck. And once the door was rolled down and bolted shut, the darkness they were left in felt as imposing as an armed guard. Wherever they were headed felt like certain death.
That’s when Karrie stood, felt for the wall of the cargo box and started pounding her fists into the sheet metal. The wall rippled and reverberated with each impact, making an awful and obnoxious noise.
“HELP!” she screamed. “WE’RE BEING KIDNAPPED!”
Almost instantaneously, most of the other teenagers joined in. Because of the darkness, she couldn’t tell who. Maybe it was every one of them. Each with her fists pounding like jackhammers against the cargo box. They joined in the screaming, sounding like a ruckus inside an old tin outhouse.
Karrie didn’t even feel the change in direction. The sudden braking. The vehicle stopping entirely on the road’s shoulder. All she could hear was the racket she and her fellow kidnapped teens were making. At least until that booming male voice scared the lace off of them. The man told them to pipe down. Demanding they stop chanting and banging for help. Afterward, Karrie couldn’t even remember the specifics of the threat. Just that it was said and it frightened the piss out of her and the other girls. Once again, silence overtook them and they rode on without incident for a period of what felt like a second lifetime.
Karrie’s imagination was the worst part. She was desperate for any matter of drug that could vanquish her excruciating thoughts. Most had manifested at one time or another while she lay across that smelly mattress inside the cargo container. But sleep would win and she would eventually wake to
discover she was in the same hopeless place.
The physics of it all had changed though. There was movement. And with movement came a destination. And with destination there would be new circumstances beyond her control. That was what scared her. With the bathing and the makeup and the slutty costumes, she could only surmise it would involve sex of some flavor. Forced? Photographed? An epic snuff film, perhaps? Good, she figured. Kiss us all. Put us out of our teenage misery.
Jesus, Karrie. Stop with the dark scenarios.
But stopping wasn’t possible. Not with the box truck inching ever closer to wherever it would land to unload its human payload.
Then she recalled Gabe. She had thought so little of him in the past forty-eight hours; not even assigning him blame for her predicament. Somehow, Karrie wanted to leave him out of the equation. As if he hadn’t slipped that mickey into her mouth and shuffled her off to her current captors. She played back their walk on the beach. She had talked and talked and explained her dreams in lush detail. And he had regaled her with his stories of shooting stills for movies, famous actresses and their superstar demands.
Ninety-nine percent kill.
The words flashed in front of her as if scripted in neon. How had she arrived at that number? Oh yeah, she thought. That would be her superstar demand. Ninety-nine percent control over how she was depicted. What an incredible fantasy. Having an iron grip on nearly every possible outcome. Ninety-nine percent. Wow.
Ninety-nine percent bullshit.
There came a stir from the other girls. Their hushed sounds busted Karrie out of her spell. The truck had shifted direction. It was in a slow reverse. The distinct beep beep beep of the backup warning system droned on for what sounded like forever. The tire truck was inching toward a final destination. That’s when an idea flashed. There were maybe a dozen girls. When the doors opened, if they all charged the exit, they might be able to overrun whatever or whoever was waiting for them. Yet the words to her plan got stuck somewhere between her brain and tongue. She swallowed, feeling only dryness on the back of her palate. What spit she had didn’t have the volume to flow. So she forced a cough, setting off an explosive hacking fit. Her lungs convulsed so bad she feared it would set off a gag reflex. She didn’t want to vomit. She so hated the feeling of her stomach involuntarily emptying. Let alone there. In the dark. On the truck with the other unfortunate teens. She feared if she soiled herself it would mean an instant return to the cargo container.
Then clang!
The sound startled her. And like a fright which scares away the hiccups, Karrie’s hacking was abruptly halted by the metallic clattering of the tire truck’s door rolling upward. A tuxedo’d man stepped up onto the bumper, his arms spread wide as he snapped his fingers.
“Eyes up this way!” demanded the man in the tux, slightly taller than average. He appeared rather young with a clean, trimmed beard to match his equally short hair. A nearby streetlamp reflected off the small bald spot at the peak of his scalp.
This was Jake’s cousin, Ziggy.
“I’m only going to say this once so listen good,” continued Ziggy. “You are going to party. At this party will be powerful and important men who expect to be entertained. So that’s what you will be. Entertaining. Whatever a man wants, you will provide. My people will be close. My people will be listening. If you complain, beg, or cry about your situation, then we will think nothing of cutting your throat and throwing your body overboard. Oh. Did I tell you the party is on a boat?”
Ziggy gestured to Jake, who joined him on the bumper.
“Now, I don’t want any of you getting seasick. So Jakey here is going to give each of you a capsule which we expect you to swallow before you step off the truck.”
“What happens after?” squeaked one of the girls. She was so beautiful, thought Karrie. An ethnic mix that was impossible to decipher. She had teased her inky hair into a spiky display. Her makeup and choice of slutty garb looked almost by design. For a heartbeat, Karrie wanted to have been the girl brave enough to speak up.
“After?” repeated Ziggy. “After you’re done with your work tonight my man here will give each of you two thousand dollars in brand new hundred-dollar bills. But only if you promise to never talk about how you got here and who brought you. Now who’s in for a party? Raise ’em up.”
Initially, not a single girl held up a hand. Then two girls at the rear, weakly lifted their skinny arms. Then three more followed. As did most of the rest. The only holdouts were Karrie and the exotic girl who had asked the question.
“Really?” asked Ziggy. But it was less of a question and gilded by threat. “You either get ’em up or face the consequences.”
Karrie felt tears leak from the corners of her eyes. She was shaking so badly it felt as if she were vibrating. Yet she finally lifted her hand. She never once glanced over to see if the spiky-haired girl had complied. She just wanted the ordeal to end.
Ziggy had the teens form a line. He examined them one by one, working a high-powered pen flashlight up and down. Jake would hand him a capsule that Ziggy would place on a girl’s tongue. After she swallowed, Ziggy would ask her to open wide so he could examine the inside of her mouth to be certain she had swallowed.
Karrie counted. She was seventh in the queue. As she neared the front, she wondered if she would have enough spit in her mouth to get the pill down once it was her turn. She had taken Dramamine many times before when as a family, they went sailing on Lake Michigan. The waters could get rough and Karrie once got sick. Ever since, her mother would keep the box of little yellow tabs in her purse. She would snap them in half before feeding them to Karrie with a sip or two of whatever drink was handy.
Little yellow pills.
As Karrie’s examination neared, she kept glancing at the clear baggy from which Jake was distributing the motion sickness capsules. These were two-tone, red and gray. Nothing at all like the pills her mother used to feed her. Instinct kicked in. The pills, she reasoned, weren’t for preventing sea sickness. They were to ensure compliance. Something designer maybe. Molly or MDMA or something feel-good like Oxy.
Where only moments earlier she was wishing for a drug to take her mind away from the mess, she was now afraid. Terrified that whatever was in the capsule would numb her wits, Karrie wondered what they would do if she refused to swallow.
“Swallow it or I will get someone to shove it up your asshole!” angered Ziggy to a teen just three girls ahead of Karrie.
Jesus, she said to herself. She thought it and he answered it. She was going to be forced to imbibe. Why so hard? By fifteen, she had swallowed all kinds of pills. Always trusting that they would give her some kind of ride. Then came the pill Gabe had offered. She had taken it without the slightest question.
So why not one more, Karrie?
The flashlight beam caught her by surprise. Her turn had come. She was in those ridiculous heels, teetering at the edge of the cargo box like it was some sort of cliff. Six inches below her, on the bumper, stood the man called Ziggy. She could smell his aftershave. Thick and sweet. He seemed to pause when examining her. He even stepped from the bumper and backed up a few feet so he could take in all of her, the flashlight beam crawling across her skin like a spider’s legs.
“Wow, Jakey,” said Ziggy as if she wasn’t even there. “This one’s really somethin’.”
“Too good for the party?” she heard Jake ask.
“No,” said Ziggy. “But some lucky prick’s gonna get way more than his money’s worth.”
Ziggy held out his hand into which Jake dropped one of those red and gray capsules. He climbed back on the bumper.
“Open, close, swallow,” ordered Ziggy.
Karrie opened her mouth and let her tongue slide forward. Ziggy placed the pill on it. Karrie drew her tongue back in and closed her mouth. A wave rolled across her neck as she obediently tried to swallow. But the dryness in her mouth was foiling her.
“Swallow,” demanded Ziggy.
Karrie lifted a
n index finger as if to say, wait one moment, looked to be gathering her last quarter ounce of saliva, then once again forced herself to gulp. She nodded in the affirmative then opened her mouth for examination. Ziggy moved in closer, swept her mouth with the flashlight and gripped her wrist as he guided her off the truck.
The moment her heels hit the pavement, she knew where she was. For the first time in days, Karrie had her bearings. They were at some kind of private wharf or marina. The unmistakable smell of the ocean tickled her nostrils. Beyond, against the sky, stood erector-like cranes decorated in safety lights. One though, had a tiny Christmas tree attached. Complete with the star of hope on top.
Hope.
Yeah, thought Karrie. Whatever the hell hope was, she was quickly running out of it.
She gathered with the other teen girls and they were herded by fishermen in black pea coats down a wooden ramp to the wide stern of a trawler. Their collective heels made the noise of a flamenco troupe out of sync with the music.
Jake and his cousin, Ziggy, hung back.
“Suppose you’re gonna need me here to haul ’em to the usual spot,” said Jake, trying but failing not to sound pained.
“Nope. You’re pretty much done for the night.” Ziggy patted his cousin on the back. “Got a Christmas bonus comin’.”
“The girls aren’t comin’ back here?” Jake wondered.
“Same boat’s gonna pick ’em up,” said Ziggy. “Then they’re gonna meet up with the freighter outside the harbor.”
Jake was curious enough to ask where the freighter was bound. The Emirates? Qatar? Indonesia? But he thought better than to ask his cousin a question Ziggy might feel too compromised to answer. Better Jake play the part of the good soldier and hope his bonus envelope was thicker than last year’s.
The Lucky Dey Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (The Lucky Dey Series Boxset) Page 58