“If you hear gunshots,” I advised the exile leader, “don’t leave until you see people streaming your way...but, man, if I’m running out in front of ’em, hold up.”
“Si, señor. Do you anticipate trouble?”
“I’m delivering it.”
“...But I am to avoid...” He frowned, calling up a phrase I’d used earlier. “...avoid the deadly force.”
“You got it, Luis. Good luck, amigo.”
“Good luck, my friend.”
Gun still tucked under my arm, I hugged the line of palms at left, moving low and slow. The mission-style mansion had only a few lights on downstairs, but plenty burning on the upper floor. I didn’t see anybody back here patrolling the grounds.
That is, not until I assumed a more normal gait and posture, moving past the empty swimming pool and walking up the concrete steps to a patio devoid of outdoor furniture. Around the mansion to my right came a burly young guy with a short military haircut. Like me, he was in a dark suit, though his was indifferently tailored, making no attempt to conceal the gun under the left armpit of his unbuttoned coat.
“Can I help you, sir?” he said, his voice a no-nonsense baritone. Like a lot of military types, he could frown at you without any wrinkling around the eyes.
“Good evening,” I said, and walked right up to him. “I just stepped out for some air.” I grinned. “Things were gettin’ a little hairy in there, know what I mean?”
But he wasn’t having any of the we’re-just-a-couple-ofregular- guys routine.
“I’ll have to see your invitation, sir.”
“Sure,” I said, and whipped the .45 out, slamming the barrel against the side of his head, catching the edge of his face, opening it up to bleed some. He went down on one side and was either out or damn near, so I risked hauling him by the feet over to some bushes before I removed and tossed away his gun (a Glock) then duck-taped his hands behind him, and his ankles. He was just coming around when I smeared the slab of tape across his mouth.
Then I knelt and whispered in his ear: “You might be able to get to your feet and waddle around like an asshole. But then my friend keeping watch back here would have to shoot you.”
His eyes, which had bulged with indignation as he craned back at me, turned wary—probably as close to fear as this apparent ex-Marine could feel—and his muttering beneath the duck-tape gag ceased.
“You just stay put, catch a little nap. You’re going to have a scar on your face that the ladies will just love.”
I would have left it at that, but the wariness of those eyes turned a nasty shade of cold, so I had to kick him in the head. It wouldn’t kill him, I didn’t think. But it did guarantee that nap I’d suggested.
I went up half a dozen cement steps onto a stoop, then in the unlocked back door into a good-size white ’30s-modern kitchen—the only light on was over the sink. Despite the party underway, this was a kitchen empty of food or any preparation thereof, with the exception of an impressive array of liquor bottles on a counter—back-up supplies, perhaps, for various wet bars around the facilities.
Though I shut the door as silently as I could, another military-trained bouncer type came in from a hallway and asked, “May I help you, sir?”
“Just getting some air.” I gave him a shaggy grin. “You need to see my invitation, I bet.”
I left him in the otherwise empty pantry.
The downstairs and its many rooms of various sizes was vacant—no furniture, no people, a light on in the hall and on the stairs, but nowhere else. I moved through like a ghost haunting the dark, musty house, which wasn’t rundown but really could stand renovation. Like the high ceilings with their vintage light fixtures, the walls were cracked here and there, with occasional nails and faded patches indicating where pictures had once hung, and the dark woodwork had seen better days. The floors were parquet and I was glad my shoes had rubber soles.
I took this tour uninterrupted—the guy who’d met me in the kitchen must have been working the front door, or perhaps somebody was standing outside, checking invitations. I didn’t see the percentage in going out there. Funny, though, for the first floor of this big, grand, if out-of-date house to be such a hollow deserted shell, while the muffled yet distinct soundtrack of jazz bleeding down from upstairs told a different story...
...pulsing, discordant minor key music, unfamiliar to me, heavy on the sax and strip-club percussion, night music with a jungle beat and savage edge.
Just within the front door was a wide stairway that went up to a landing and took a left. I went up and on the landing almost ran into a plump barefoot near-naked bald man coming down. A nationally prominent Miami financier, he was wearing a diaper and a pink baby bonnet.
He nodded at me, said, “Nature calls,” and went on his way.
This meant two things to me.
First, they served a variety of fetishes at this hullabaloo.
Second, since the baby man was unaccompanied, the downstairs (despite the lack of activity) was not off limits—the guests were free to come down to use the john. Fine. That indicated that—as long as I was perceived as just another guest—I wouldn’t get much if any hassle upstairs....
Indeed I didn’t. More security guys with guns under their dark suit coats were stationed in the hallway, off of which were half a dozen closed doors, behind which God knew what was transpiring. I counted four watchdogs, three that seemed to be maintaining their posts, and one who was strolling, just generally keeping an eye on things.
The latter stopped me, when I was about to head down the hallway to the right.
“Help you, sir?”
As it was, I knew right where I was going, thanks to the floor plan Muddy Harris had sold me. Plus, the muffled jungle jazz seemed to emanate from that direction, louder up here.
“Ballroom,” I said, nodding in the direction I’d been heading.
I assumed the ballroom would be a more general entertainment area than the sealed-off bedrooms represented.
Right then, a guy exited one of the latter in a black leather vest and matching leather shorts and shiny-chained ankles that made him hop. He had a red ball gag in his mouth, like he was biting Bozo’s nose, his hands cuffed behind him. A Latin gal in a redheaded wig and a black leather bikini with sheer black tights and very high heels was walking him along by a chain leash. They headed downstairs. I assumed, once there, she would thoughtfully help him use the head. He was, by the way, a nationally syndicated political columnist.
The watchdog said to me, “Ballroom? Double doors at the end of the hall.”
I’d known that, but said, “Thanks, buddy.”
I pushed through the double doors.
The music was almost deafening now, not a live combo, just jazz piped in via strategically positioned loudspeakers, a sax wailing above machine-gunning bongos while a thumping bass made rough love to itself. The combination of bright light and no light made my eyes go blurry for a while, but trying to focus on the spectacle before me would have been a challenge anyway. Cigar and cigarette smoke drifted like fog, and I had an idea maybe one of those dry-ice fog machines was adding to the weird, hazy atmosphere.
Here, bathed in red light, a bouffant blonde in a black corset and black stockings and garters and high heels was tying a redhead in a sheer green negligee to a tall sawhorse, the redhead’s ankles spread and bound by cord to the rough wooden legs, wrists bound to the wood as well, body encased by an elaborately constricting leather harness with a padlock dangling at the crotch, her eyes wild, screaming silently behind a knotted gag.
What this ballroom had been in its day I had no idea, but right now it resembled nothing so much as a television studio, minus the cameramen. The walls were draped in black, and a lighting grid above sent its various beams crisscrossing through the big room to take aim at four platforms, one in each corner, where bondage tableaus were being staged.
There, drenched in blue lighting, a black-haired doll with Bettie Page bangs in a black bra and black latex toreador pant
s was tying a curly-headed brunette wearing sheer black bikini underthings to a prone metal tubular contraption that looked like a bizarre chiropractic table, the victim’s eyes crazed above a red ball-gag, waist roped, wrists roped, ankles roped, to keep her legs wide spread.
These living pageants of pain were being performed for men who either sat in comfortable leather chairs arranged as front-row seating or simply stood for a while and moved on to the next living display, like Stations of the Cross. There was no laughter, no yelling, no taunting or encouragement for the women performing, instead an almost church-like hushed awe came off the glazed, sometimes trembling spectators, prisoners of their obsessions, or perhaps wretched souls merely pummeled into silence by the bongo-driven, sax-screaming jazz.
Across the way, in a flickering strobe, two shapely young women in bra and panties and nylons with garters—one with French maid touches and both with the kind of spike heels that could put an eye out—were wrestling, each holding the other down, then wriggling free, and trading places in taking a prisoner.
These stages were perhaps three feet off the parquet dance floor, straddling the room’s corners, the spotlights perfectly positioned, as no one was up there working them. This was a rehearsed show, well-practiced routines choreographed by a latter-day Marquis de Sade.
Opposite, in a green glow, an elaborate wooden rack with pulleys and ropes with straps held a saucer-eyed Asian beauty by the wide-spread wrists, while her face silently screamed with yet another ball-gag held in place by a head-hugging gizmo that might have come from a demented dentist, ankles held by other straps connecting to the elaborate rope set-up, and she wore nothing but black nylons and high heels, otherwise stark naked, while a German-looking pigtailed beauty in a black bra and panties and sheer black stockings and matching heels methodically went around pulling on and tightening the ropes.
Not my scene.
But I made the rounds anyway, moving from one tableau to another, until I fell in with a guy in a conservative brown suit who had a kind of State Fair demeanor. He was about forty, with a graying crew cut, and looked vaguely like Ozzie Nelson. He noticed me and I smiled, nodded, held up a hand for him to stop. He did.
“I got here late,” I said, having to work to get heard over the blare of raunchy jazz. “What’s the drill?”
“Your number’s on the back of your invitation,” he said.
“It is?”
“Yeah. When you hear it, just go over to the doors.”
“And?”
His face burst into a goofball grin. “That’s when you get your private party.”
So this ballroom was just one big waiting room. A warmup for the real deal. But just as I was thinking that I hadn’t heard any numbers read, a sultry, throaty female voice cut in over the jazz on the loudspeakers: “Number twelve. Number twelve.”
My pal turned to me and his eyes went wide and he was beaming like Christmas. That’s me! his stupid expression said.
And here I was without a number. Hell, without an invitation. What was my next move?
In making the rounds, I had already checked to see if Jaimie Halaquez was among the men waiting at this S & M Baskin Robbins. And there was no sign of him.
Maybe he was off in his private session. Or maybe he’d had it already and gone home, happily humiliated. Worse still, maybe he hadn’t shown up at all, and wouldn’t show, and I’d gone to all this trouble just to crash the kind of sex party that did nothing for me.
There were modest wet bars hugging opposite walls. I was about to order from the pretty little Latin bartender, who was in a black leather bikini outlined in silver studs, when I squinted through the smoky semi-darkness and realized who she was.
“Hiya, Gaita,” I said to her. “What’s a nice girl like you...? Skip it.”
“I have been watching you.” Her lush mouth was painted blood red, a moist glowing thing that surrounded her amused smile. “You do not stay long to look at the women as they play their games.”
“Not my thing,” I said. “I was worried about you, kid. I thought maybe Halaquez or his people had grabbed you.”
She shook her head. She got me a beer without my asking for it, waited on another guest, and when we were alone again said, “No, this is just a job I took.”
That was vague, but I didn’t push it. “Gaita, is he here? Have you spotted him? Is Jaimie Halaquez here?”
But she was looking past me at something else.
Someone else.
“There she is, señor,” she said. “The legend. The living legend.”
I turned and at once I saw her...
...moving through the ballroom with regal grace, floating like a ghost, and yet commanding attention and respect and even subservience, a dominatrix of stunning beauty and power, entirely in black, tall (but then those tightly-laced knee-high gladiator boots with the impossibly high heels contributed to the effect), in a latex gown, floor length but snapped open at the top of her sheer-dark-stockinged thighs, long black latex gloves almost to her bare shoulders, her face concealed by a mask that revealed little more than red lips and chin, with little devil horns, blonde hair spilling out onto her shoulders from under the mask.
The Consummata.
“Christ,” I said admiringly. “She looks like the Catwoman in the old Batman funny books.”
Gaita arched an eyebrow. “They say she has been around forever, señor. But does she look it? No. She is timeless. She is ageless.”
Was Gaita making fun of me? There was something mocking in her tone. Or was there? With that ever-pounding, blaring grindhouse jazz, I couldn’t tell.
My eyes were on the Consummata, who was moving slowly around her kingdom, legs flashing out of the floor-length gown, as she nodded to those subjects who dared to acknowledge her with a glance.
“Never mind her,” I said, and turned my head halfway so Gaita could hear me. “Is he here, doll? Is Halaquez here?”
“He is,” she said. Now her tone was cold. “Not long before you came in, his number came up.”
“His number is up all right,” I said. “Do you know which private room he’s in?”
“No. Only the Consummata does. You will have to deal with her.”
I shrugged. “You know what they say. You want something done, see the top man.”
So I waited till our masked hostess had made her circuit and came near where I stood at the bar, and I stepped behind her. There was enough fog and smoke to conceal the fact that I was holding the point of a very sharp knife to the base of her back.
Because of her heels, we were on the same level when I leaned in to whisper: “Pain as fantasy is one thing, Connie. But you won’t dig the real thing. Take me to Jaimie Halaquez...now.”
The hooded head nodded.
I couldn’t walk behind her like that and not attract attention, so I fell in at her side. She knew I had the knife, which I palmed, and her sideways glance and the resulting up-tilt of her chin made me think she could sense I was truly dangerous.
So together we exited the ballroom, right past a security guy, and were in that hallway off of which the private sessions were conducted behind closed doors. None of the security staff spoke to her, but they all watched her close—she was clearly the boss.
Only the guy guarding the last door on the other end of the hall said anything, when the masked woman reached for the doorknob.
“Mistress,” he said, and it sounded silly because he was another of the burr-headed Marine types, “you do know there is a session in progress.”
She merely nodded, and went on in, and I followed her.
What we saw was the best tableau yet, and the only one that I found really entertaining.
In a fairly small room otherwise stripped bare, Jaimie Halaquez was on his knees on the carpeted floor, wearing only black latex skivvies, and his hands were cuffed behind him and a ball-gag was in his mouth. His back was red and bleeding here and there, laced with maybe a dozen slashes thanks to a thin-lashed metal-tipped w
hip in the hands of a black-corseted young woman with very short dark hair. She had spike heels and sheer dark stockings and the familiar trappings of the Consummata’s craft. But like Gaita, she was a Latin girl.
Apparently Jaimie preferred to be beaten by his own kind.
He looked over his shoulder at us as the Consummata came in first, and swiveled around to gaze up at her like a praying man seeing a vision of the Madonna. He seemed delighted, seeing her, perhaps thinking he’d get special attention now from that fabled dominatrix.
He was half-right.
Then he saw me, and his eyes reflected a level of fear to which those play-acting girls in the ballroom could only aspire.
In her low, throaty tone, the Consummata said to her helper, “You may go,” and the little Latin chick rolled up her whip and vamoosed.
I grabbed Halaquez by the arm and hauled him to his bare feet.
“I’m taking this clown with me,” I said to my reluctant hostess. “It can be messy, or you can walk us out, and nobody gets hurt who didn’t pay to be.”
Halaquez, that big bad man, was shaking like he was freezing. Suddenly being in handcuffs and ankle chains wasn’t a good time.
The eyes in the mask holes narrowed, and the Consummata raised a “shush” finger to her lips. Without asking permission, she went to the door, cracked it open, and—before I could do a damn thing about it—she said, “Turn off machine number six. Right now.”
The security guy out there said, “Yes, mistress.”
She shut the door, turned to me and pulled off the mask. The blonde hair went with it, a wig that was part of the getup. She shook her head and the dark hair fell into place.
And I got it.
I understood.
The Consummata was no one woman, rather a character used in the spy game by our side over the years to entrap sick bastards like Halaquez and to ensnare important people with kinks in their make-up who could be interrogated and blackmailed and generally manipulated, because the hidden cameras feeding video-tape (“Turn off machine number six”) would provide the CIA with leverage the likes of which old J. Edgar Hoover himself might envy.
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