Noble Man

by William Miller

  Two of the girls gravitated over to him. Both were young and beautiful and, judging by the track marks on their arms, addicted to heroin. It was a common practice in the brothels. Club owners shoot farm girls full of smack. Most people are addicted after the first hit. After that the girls will do whatever it takes to get the next fix.

  Lately, a lot of Filipino pimps were making the switch to meth. It’s cheaper, just as addictive, and can be cooked up in a bathtub. Apparently Shiva wasn’t keeping up with the trends.

  One of the girls ran a nail over Noble’s earlobe, while the other slipped a finger between the buttons on his shirt. “You strong man,” she said, probing his abdominal muscles.

  Her touch caused him exquisite pain, but Noble forced a smile onto his face. He chose one of the girls at random and put an arm around her waist.

  Her name was Paquita. Price negotiations were short. He hedged just enough to make the interaction believable. She took him by the hand and led him upstairs. Noble did his best to keep his mind on the mission and off her swaying hips. It wasn’t easy.

  The affectation and refinery was reserved for the first floor. The second floor had all the charm of an hourly motel. Noble followed Paquita along an uncarpeted hall with bare bulbs overhead and peeling wallpaper. The girls had attempted to personalize their doors with construction paper and magic markers. Paquita’s door had pink hearts and her name in blue. Her room had a twin mattress on a cheap metal frame and a small bedside table with a lamp.

  “Ladies first,” Noble said.

  She bared her teeth in what was supposed to be a smile. Noble let her get just inside the room and then put her in a chokehold. He kicked the door closed with his heel.

  Paquita bucked widely in an attempt to escape his grasp. She clawed his arm with her fingernails. The sport coat took most of the damage. When that didn’t work, she tried to claw his face. Noble craned his head to the left to avoid her talons.

  Her eyes bulged from their sockets. Her mouth opened wide for a scream. A soft whisper escaped. She stomped down with her heel. Noble moved his foot in time, and she missed. The impact rattled the lamp on the bedside table and the light flickered. Noble doubted anyone downstairs would pay attention. They probably heard thumps and bangs all night long.

  The tension drained from her limbs as she used up the last of her oxygen supply. Her eyes rolled up. Her fingers lost their strength, and her feet stopped kicking. Noble tossed her limp body onto the bed. She fell in an unconscious sprawl with her hair spread across the mattress in a black fan.

  She wouldn’t stay out long. Certainly not long enough for him to sneak upstairs and deal with Shiva. He needed to make sure she stayed under for another ten minutes at least.

  Most of the girls lived at the house and needed someplace to keep their meager belongings. Noble checked under the bed. There was a battered suitcase. Inside he found miniskirts, tank tops, lingerie, and three pairs of shoes. He also found her kit. It was a tin lunch box with Charlie Brown and Lucy on the lid. Lucy had swiped the football again. Charlie was in mid-air, a look of surprise on his face, about to come down on his back.

  Inside the lunch box, Paquita had a spoon, lighter, syringe, a length of hollow tube and enough brown powder in a small Ziploc baggie to put her out of action for a while.

  She moaned. The toes on her left foot, spread, curled, and relaxed. Oxygen was returning to her brain. Her fingers and toes were probably feeling like pins and needles.

  Working fast, Noble shook some of the heroin into the charred and blackened spoon, and then flicked the lighter. In a few moments he had a bubbling witch’s brew. He siphoned it into the syringe as Paquita was coming around. One skinny arm waved drunkenly in the air like she was fighting off an unseen attacker.

  Noble grabbed the other arm just above the elbow and pinched. Her veins bulged. He jabbed the needle in and pressed the plunger. Heroin goes to work almost immediately. By the time she swam up from unconsciousness, the smack had taken effect. She giggled. Her head lolled from side to side like her neck muscles were made of rubber. Her eyelids fluttered open, and her pupils dilated. She stared at the ceiling and giggled again.

  Noble patted her cheek. “Sweet dreams, kid.”

  34

  Samantha’s fear of Lady Shiva was replaced by a morbid curiosity. She strained forward in her seat in order to study the infamous Madam. It was like looking at Bati, only twenty years older. Now that she had seen it, she couldn’t unsee it like one of those pictures with an image hidden inside a seemingly meaningless geometric pattern.

  “How did it happen?” Sam asked.

  “How does it always happen?” Shiva said without looking up from her sketch.

  “I meant how is it possible? Mr. Ramos is a good man. He campaigns against human trafficking. He gave us the money to start the shelter.”

  “Tell me all about this good man.” Shiva flashed Samantha a baleful look. “Who do you think bought me like cattle when I was nine? He raped me. Forced me into prostitution. He did things to me that would send you screaming back to your ivory towers and mocha lattes.”

  Sam swallowed a knot in her throat. She didn’t need Shiva to spell out the details. She had heard the horror stories from the girls passing through the shelters. Some had started even younger than Shiva, sold into slavery by uncaring fathers and abused by countless men before being discarded like trash.

  “Then I had Bati,” Lady Shiva said. A sad smile flashed across her face. She rummaged through the trolley full of art supplies until she found a sharpener. She gave the pencil an angry twist, peeling off a perfect curl of wood. It dropped to the floor. “She was a beautiful little baby girl, and the only good thing that ever happened in my life. And that black-hearted bastard stole her from me.”

  She gave a bitter laugh and waved a hand to indicate the room around them. “This was his idea of compensation. He set me up as a madam to make up for destroying my life and stealing my baby girl.”

  ...

  Noble left Paquita in a heroin-induced slumber, locked the door behind him, and hurried to the end of the hall. A battered and scarred door led to the back staircase. He pressed his ear to the hollow core and listened. He heard only silence on the other side. He couldn’t risk hanging around on the second-floor landing too long. Sooner or later one of the girls would finish up with a customer and emerge from her room. She would want to know what he was doing there. He wouldn’t have a good reason for snooping around the back staircase so he held his breath and turned the knob.

  The stairs were empty. He caught the distant noise of the football match on the television. The crowd cheered as the home team scored, and the thin sound floated up from the kitchen. Noble eased the door shut, drew his pistol, and took the steps two at a time to the third floor.

  If Oscar had been telling the truth then the only muscle left in the building was downstairs watching the Manila Nomads. But Noble couldn’t afford any unnecessary risk so he searched the top floor starting with Oscar’s gym. He threw open the door, swept the room with his pistol, found it empty, and moved on.

  The next door led to Lady Shiva’s bedroom. It had more real estate than Oscar’s gym and better furnishings. The soft scent of lavender immediately enveloped him. The leather pouch with the insulin shots lay on the dresser along with the extra magazines for Noble’s weapon. He pocketed the kit and the mags and spotted a framed sketch of Oscar on the bedside table.

  The picture gave Noble valuable insight into Lady Shiva. Despite her treatment of Oscar, he was more than hired muscle—more like family. Noble couldn’t be sure how that might play out over the next few minutes, but he was suddenly glad he had spared Oscar’s life.

  He stepped back into the hall, paused in front of the last door, and heard voices. He could make out Lady Shiva’s menacing purr followed by the occasional response from Samantha. The conversation was muffled and indistinct. Noble threw open the door and entered with his gun up, looking for threats.

  Dozens of
canvases were propped against the walls, overlapping one another. Samantha was still duct-taped into the chair. Shiva stood in front of a wooden easel with a charcoal pencil in one hand. She moved with the speed of a hunting tigress. She swept the easel out of her way with one arm. The canvas landed with a flat smack on the hardwood floor. Shiva leapt behind Samantha, using the girl as a shield, and pressed the point of the pencil into Sam’s neck. She hunkered down until Noble could only see one heavy lidded eye peeking over Samantha’s shoulder.

  “One more step and I’ll stab this pencil into her carotid artery,” Shiva said.

  “Go ahead,” Noble told her. He centered the front sight on Shiva’s exposed eye. “She’s not mission vital.”

  Shiva showed her teeth. She dimpled Samantha’s flesh with the graphite point. “I don’t believe that for a second, Mr. Noble. Now put that gun down or I’ll scream.”

  Noble turned his attention to the doorframe. He rapped the wood with his knuckle and made an approving face. “It’s sturdy enough to stop a few bullets. Go ahead and call your men. I’ll shoot them as they come up the steps.” He put his shoulder against the molding and aimed down the hall to the stairs, then looked over his shoulder at Shiva. “Where does that leave you?”

  “With a pencil in your girlfriend’s neck,” she said.

  He shrugged. “Make up your mind quick. I’ve got to go to Hong Kong and save Bati. That’s what we both want, right? It will be a lot easier if I don’t have to shoot my way out of here.”

  Her jungle cat grin faltered. “You would walk out of here with the girl and leave me in peace?”

  Noble jerked his head forward. “That’s what I’m saying. Let the girl go, and we walk. Call for your men and I knock down the whole house of cards. The choice is yours.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Oscar?”

  “He’s alive,” Noble told her. “He’ll have to take a rain check on that fight.”

  Shiva slowly straightened up to her full height. Her eyes never left Noble’s. He let her sort through her options. It was a short list. He had her in a tight corner. Her only real choice was to let Noble walk out with Samantha and then try to relocate her headquarters before he could put Manila branch onto the club. Shiva took her time about it but finally removed the pencil from Samantha’s neck.

  Sam slumped in the chair and made a noise like air escaping a balloon.

  As a sign of good will, Shiva took a small pair of scissors buried amid the supplies on the cart and cut through the duct tape. Sam peeled her wrists free, sprang out of the chair, and ran to Noble’s side.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said.

  Noble held up a hand. “What do you want with Bati?”

  It was Samantha who answered. “She’s Bati’s mother.”

  Noble watched Shiva’s reaction. She didn’t deny the accusation. She replaced the scissors on the cart and calmly returned his gaze. Noble tried to wrap his head around the implications.

  “And Bakonawa Ramos is the father?” he asked.

  Shiva nodded. She picked up the easel and reset the legs. She replaced the canvas. Samantha’s face had begun to take shape in black charcoal lines against the white background. One eye was still a blank orb with no pupil, and her nose needed nostrils, but the resemblance was there. Shiva took up her pencil, gave it three quick turns in the sharpener, and went back to drawing.

  Noble stood there a moment longer, his gun trained at the floor. Ramos had an illegitimate love child with a prostitute. The information was a hell of a bargaining chip for anyone who knew. Ramos had to be worth a few million, and a scandal like that could ruin him.

  “How did you find her?” Noble asked.

  “I kept tabs on her for years,” Shiva admitted. “It wasn’t hard when her father was always in the spotlight. Then two years ago, she fell off the radar. I searched everywhere.”

  Shiva stopped long enough to look at Samantha and then filled in the missing eye. “I nearly gave up hope,” she said. “Then one day I learned through sources that Ramos was bankrolling a Christian shelter for women. My connections in the police department put the place under surveillance. Imagine my surprise. Bati was right here in Manila, under the last name Ramirez.”

  Noble filled in the rest. “So you struck a deal with Diego. You’d pay off his gambling debt, and he would make sure Bati was outside the shelter at a certain time. Then you sent a couple of heavies to kidnap her.”

  “That’s right,” Shiva said.

  “What happened?” Noble asked. “Eric Tsang bought off your men?”

  “It would appear so,” Shiva admitted.

  Noble grinned. “It’s hard to find good help.” He grabbed Samantha’s arm and steered her out the door.

  “Mr. Noble?”

  He paused in the doorframe.

  “Will you tell your handler where to find me?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “How long have I got?”

  “Hard to say. A few hours at most.”

  Shiva acknowledged that with the barest of nods.

  Noble left her in the art studio working on a sketch of Samantha while he escorted the real thing down to the second floor.

  35

  Noble steered Samantha down the back staircase to the second floor. The door to Paquita’s room was still closed. By the time she came up from her heroin nap, local law would be swarming all over this place. Hopefully she would be placed in a hospital where she could rehab and, maybe, straighten out her life. Noble ushered Samantha down the main staircase to the first-floor salon. They were halfway to the door before one of the girls spotted the sleek black pistol in Noble’s grip. She gave a shout and pressed herself up against a wall. It took another moment before anyone else realized what had upset her. Then everyone scrambled for cover.

  Noble hurried Samantha outside.

  The barker was still on the sidewalk, calling out to people passing by. He turned, saw Noble, and smiled. “Hey, my friend, you done already?”

  Noble stuck the gun in the kid’s face.

  He raised both hands straight in the air.

  “Find a new job,” Noble told him.

  The kid turned and took off down the sidewalk at a sprint.

  Noble tucked the .45 in his waistband and hailed a passing taxi. He gave the driver the address to a motel in Tondo where he had gone in the past to lie low. The cabbie pulled into traffic. Noble didn’t relax until the lights of club LUSH had dwindled in the rearview. He let out a breath and slouched into the seatback.

  Samantha sat against the passenger side door, as far from him as possible, staring pointedly out the window. Noble was expecting gratitude. A tight hug and a kiss would be nice. But he would have settled for a simple thank you. Instead he got the silent treatment.

  “Something troubling you?” he asked.

  She fumed in silence for another block and then said, “You were bluffing, right? When you said I wasn’t mission critical?”

  Noble laughed. “I risked my life going back for you. I could have taken the first flight to Honk Kong and left you at the tender mercies of Lady Shiva.”

  She closed her eyes and nodded. “I’m sorry. It’s just… I was so scared.”

  “Everyone gets scared,” Noble told her. “It’s what you do with it that makes the difference. And you did well.”

  “You didn’t seem scared,” Samantha said. “Even when they were beating on you.”

  “I was,” he assured her. “I just channeled that fear into something more important.”

  “What?”

  “Keeping you alive,” Noble said.

  She reached across the seat and took his hand. He almost pulled away. Falling for her had nearly gotten them both killed. She was young and pretty and cool under pressure, but Noble knew he had to walk away. They were two totally different people thrown together by circumstance. She ran a shelter for abused women. He was a hired gun, not to mention a decade older. But knowing the truth and acting on it are two different things.


  He gave her hand a little squeeze.

  The neon sign out front of the motel said “the Highstreet,” but it could just as easily have been called the Last Resort. It was the type of place that rented by the hour, took cash, and didn’t ask for an ID. Noble paid for the whole night. The room was on the second floor with a window overlooking the street. The carpeting was worn through in places. A poster on the back of the door advertised X-rated movies. The bed sheets smelled like mold and mothballs.

  Samantha raised her eyebrows. “You really know how to treat a girl.”

  “That’s me,” Noble said. “A regular Casanova.” He tossed the key with the orange plastic fob on the TV stand, went to the window, and checked the street.

  Samantha turned on the bedside lamp.

  Noble drew back from the window. “Turn that off.”

  “Sorry,” Samantha muttered.

  She pulled the chain, plunging the room back into semi-darkness. Noble went back to watching the street. He stood there several minutes until he was sure they had not been followed. Then he went around unplugging the television, phone, lamp, and anything else that had a cord.

  Before Samantha could ask, Noble said, “Remote listening devices require a power source. If an intelligence agency wants to bug a room, they piggy back the microphone onto a lamp, a telephone, anything with an electric cord.”

  “So unplugging all the electronics would cut the power to the listening device as well.”

  Noble made a gun with his thumb and forefinger. “You are a quick study, Samantha.”

  “My friends call me Sam,” she said.

  “Okay, Sam.”

  “How about you?” she asked. “Do your friends call you Jake, or Jacob?”

  “I don’t have friends.” He brought out one of the phones he had collected from Shiva’s henchmen and dialed.

  Manny picked up after a dozen rings.

  “It’s me,” Noble said.

  Manny cleared his throat. It took him a moment, but he finally managed to form words. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”