Night Life

by Ray Garton

  "So, where are they?"

  "At the moment, they're being held in the Royal Arms Hotel in North Hollywood."

  "The Royal Arms, huh? I suppose you're going to use them in your movies."

  "That's the plan."

  "I don't suppose you'd be willing to help them escape, would you?"

  "No, I'm afraid I can't do that. That would mean trouble for me. There's no way I could do that."

  "I thought so."

  "You could always talk to Mr. Barna, Mrs. Dupassie."

  "That wouldn't do any good. Mr. Barna and I don't get along, the arrogant rat-fuck."

  "Well, I've provided you with all I have," Castlebeck said.

  Mrs. Dupassie thought awhile, then said, "How would you like to lose some of that debt?"

  "That's why I'm calling."

  "Keep an eye on them for me. Try to keep them from harm. Will you do that?"

  "Well... it won't be easy. It will endanger me and my position. I think it's worth at least twenty-five percent."

  "Fifteen percent, take it or leave it. You do a good job and don't fuck it up, I'll knock off another fifteen when you're done."

  "When will I be done?"

  "That remains to be seen. Look, can you hold off using them in one of your movies for awhile?"

  "All that for fifteen percent? I'm afraid not. They go into rotation with the others."

  "You miserable cocksucker," Mrs. Dupassie said. "All right, twenty percent."

  "Twenty percent before and after?" Castlebeck said.

  "No, twenty percent before, fifteen percent after."

  "I'll see what I can do, Mrs. Dupassie."

  "I appreciate that, Castlebeck. So. Twenty percent up front, fifteen after, and you've got... four more months. I expect results for my generosity, Castlebeck. Don't fuck it up." She hung up on him.

  Castlebeck smiled. He had no intention of keeping his promise. He could not wait to get the two women in front of the cameras.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Keoph had fallen asleep on the couch. Davey paced nervously in the kitchen. He had already called Mrs. Dupassie twice to ask if she'd picked anything up yet. She'd assured him she would call immediately when she did.

  Davey had never felt so helpless. He wanted to pull on his hair and scream. His hands had not stopped shaking since the kidnapping in Mrs. Dupassie's apartment.

  He took a bottle of blood from the refrigerator, unscrewed the cap, and drank half of it before stopping. He knew Casey would be getting hungry soon, and he worried that she would not be able to feed.

  His cell phone chirped in his pocket and startled him. He took it out and opened it up.

  "Hello."

  "Davey, it's Mrs. Dupassie."

  "Did you pick up something?" he said, eager and hopeful.

  "Better than that. I got a call from Castlebeck. He knows where they are."

  "Where are they?"

  "Before I tell you, Davey, I want to shatter right now any notion you might have of going to find them. It would not only be dangerous, it would be suicide. They're in the Royal Arms Hotel in North Hollywood. The hotel is owned and operated by brutals. You do not want to go there. It's a fortress."

  "Who stays there?"

  "If you don't know, you don't want to know."

  "I'm asking, Mrs. Dupassie. I need to know."

  "You don't, really. Because you can't go there to get your wife, anyway. You wouldn't survive, and what fucking good would you be to her then?"

  "Please tell me."

  Mrs. Dupassie thought about it awhile. "The hotel houses victims, Davey. Mostly women, but some men. They are fed on there, and between feedings, they're used in pornographic films. They have no will of their own, so they do as they're told."

  Davey's stomach rolled over at the thought of Casey being held there. "Who's in charge? Who's responsible?"

  "You want nothing to do with him, Davey. He is a bad man, but very powerful."

  "Do you know why they're holding Casey and Karen?"

  "No, that's all I know. That they're at the Royal Arms. Don't go, Davey. It'll be the biggest fucking mistake you ever make. You don't use your mental abilities, but they sure as fuck use theirs. You've gotten rusty, while they've gotten strong. You would never survive an attempt to go in there and get her."

  "But I have to do ... something."

  "I'll find out as much as I can from Castlebeck. He'll do his best to keep them from harm, for all the fucking good he'll be, and he'll keep me informed. They can't stay in that hotel forever—they have to come outside sometime, for something. I'll let you know as soon as I hear something.''

  When he finished talking to Mrs. Dupassie, he put his phone back in his pocket, and took his bottle of blood with him to the living room.

  Keoph was awake and sitting up. "Who was that?" he said.

  He relayed the information to Keoph.

  Keoph said, "I take it you don't think it would be wise to go in."

  "Every fiber of my being wants to storm that place and get Casey out. But Mrs. Dupassie's right—it would be suicide. The place is a vampire fortress."

  "Then what do we—" Keoph was interrupted by his cell phone. He took it from his pocket. "Hello? ... Yes, this is he." Keoph frowned suddenly. He held the phone away from his ear and beckoned Davey over to listen.

  Davey walked over to the couch and sat down beside Keoph, who held the phone up between them.

  "I'm calling about your investigation," the male voice said. He had a slight accent. "Stop it, and I might let your women live."

  "We've already stopped the investigation," Keoph said. "We're prepared to walk away from it and forget it ever happened."

  "That wouldn't be very satisfying to me," the voice said. "I don't know whom you've told. I don't know how many people you've talked to. That's the information I hope to extract from Miss Moffett and her friend."

  "We haven't told anyone," Keoph said.

  "Forgive me if I don't believe you. I know you don't exactly have my best interests at heart. If you did, you never would have launched your investigation in the first place. I'm afraid I'm going to have to find out myself, in my own way."

  "Please let them go," Keoph said. "They can't tell you anything."

  "Oh, I won't be letting them go, Mr. Keoph, no matter what happens. The women are mine to keep, to do with as I please. That is the consequence of your investigation. This is not a negotiation, Mr. Keoph. I am simply calling to see to it that your investigation is called off. I appreciate the fact that you've already done that, but it doesn't change anything. The women are mine."

  As he listened, Davey boiled with rage. He clenched his teeth. Whoever it was at the other end of the line, Davey wanted to throttle him, to pound him mercilessly with his fists.

  "Is this Mr. Barna?" Davey said.

  There was a long silence on the line. "My identity is not important. All that's important is how many people you've told. I won't be satisfied till I find out."

  "The investigation is off, Mr. Barna," Davey said. "What's the point in keeping them?"

  "I play for keeps, Mr. Owen."

  A muted click severed the connection

  Davey got up and paced. He finished off his bottle of blood, walked back to the kitchen, and dropped it into the garbage can. He cracked his knuckles one at a time as he walked back to the living room.

  "What do we do?" Keoph said.

  "I'm not sure."

  "I suppose I should call my client and tell him what's happened."

  "You're a private investigator, right?"

  "Right."

  "I think the first thing we should do is find out everything we possibly can about Victor Barna."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Keoph awoke and realized he was sitting at Davey Owen's computer with his face on his arms. He lifted his head and looked around. He was alone. He stretched his arms, then looked at his watch. He'd slept for four hours. It was nine-thirty in the morning, but the room was still
dark because of the black blinds on the windows.

  He'd been able to find very little about Victor Barna online. The man kept a low profile. He was very wealthy and handsome, and the press liked him, but he seemed to avoid them. He was written about in gossip columns that speculated on his romantic life. He sometimes showed up in the society pages, attending parties and dinners, each time with a beautiful woman on his arm. Journalists were so infatuated with Barna's eligibility as a bachelor, they failed to write anything else about him.

  Keoph looked at the picture of Barna currently on the monitor's screen. He seemed ageless—he could be in his twenties or his fifties—and was a favorite of the paparazzi. He had an olive complexion, dark hair combed straight back, an angular face with a firm jaw, and piercing blue eyes. He smiled in none of the pictures Keoph found, and usually wore sunglasses. There was one picture of him standing on a sidewalk with an unidentified woman out in broad daylight, holding an umbrella over his head. The caption read, "Real estate mogul Victor Barna shuns the sun on a hot June day in Los Angeles."

  I know your secret, Keoph thought. No wonder he kept a low profile. He did not want anyone looking too deeply into his life.

  Keoph got up and went downstairs. Davey was stretched out on the couch, eyes closed. As soon as he heard Keoph, he opened his eyes and sat up.

  "I fell asleep and didn't get too far, but there doesn't seem to be much online about Barna," Keoph said. "More gossip about his love life than anything else."

  Davey made a "hmph" sound and said, "If they only knew."

  "I have an idea. I'm going to Karen's office. You need to get some sleep?"

  "Yes, but don't you, too?"

  "I've been asleep at the computer for four hours, I'm fine."

  "Yeah, I think I'll go to bed and get some sleep," Davey said. "How long will you be gone?"

  "I don't know. I'll leave my number—call if you hear anything."

  Driving Karen's car to her office, Keoph got lost three times. He was distracted by the nagging worry that Karen's capture was somehow his fault. He regretted taking Burgess's offer. At the very least, he should have taken Burgess's story more seriously. But who would? It was a ridiculous story—vampires.

  "Who knew?" he muttered as he pulled into the underground parking garage of Karen's building.

  Upstairs in Karen's office, he went to her secretary, Libby, a fortyish woman with short blond hair and glasses.

  "Libby, I'm afraid Miss Moffett is going to be unavailable for awhile," he said. "But she asked me to come here and do a couple things."

  "Sure, Mr. Keoph," she said with a smile. "Miss Moffett said the office was yours. How can I help you?"

  "I need your best searcher."

  "Searcher?"

  "There's one in every office. Someone who's able to find anything on the Internet. Do you have someone like that here? An Internet wizard?"

  "That would be Winona Heath."

  "Could you ask Miss Heath to come to the office, please?"

  "Sure. And it's Mrs. Heath."

  Keoph went back into Karen's office and seated himself at the desk. A couple minutes later, a short, plump woman with dark blond hair and a pleasant face came into the office.

  "Hi, Winona. I'm Gavin. I have a job for you. I need you to find everything you possibly can about Victor Barna."

  Winona took a pad and pen from her pocket and wrote down the name.

  "I did a search online earlier this morning," Keoph said. "All I could find was gossip. I need personal information. I'm not that interested in his business, although I wouldn't mind having some idea just how big this guy is. Mostly, I'm interested in anything personal you can find. Anything besides gossip."

  "How soon do you need this?"

  "As soon as possible." He took a Post-It note from a pad on the desk, wrote his number on the back, and handed it to her. "That's my cell. Call when you're done, unless I'm here. And if you need help, pull a couple other people in and delegate. This comes straight from Karen Moffett, by the way."

  "I'll start right away," Winona said. "Is that all?"

  "That's all. Get to it."

  She left the office.

  Keoph drove to a coffee shop and had breakfast. When he was done, he didn't linger—he left the restaurant and headed into the Valley. He drove to North Hollywood and looked for the Royal Arms Hotel. It wasn't a very big town, and he found it on Newton Street. It was an old blocky grey building that stood five stories. He parked the car and crossed the street to the hotel. In the lobby, he took his wallet from his pocket as he approached the front desk.

  "I'd like to get a room," he said to the skinny young man behind the counter.

  "Sorry, but we're all booked up," the young man said.

  "You're kidding, right?"

  "No, not at all. We have a lot of residents here."

  "Well. Okay." He put his wallet back in his pocket and turned to go. He took in as much as he could—the run-down lobby was a bland room with beige walls and a hideous gold carpet, a couple sofas, a few chairs, none of which matched.

  Outside, Keoph looked up at the building. All the windows were dark.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Karen felt numb. A man she had never met before was anally raping her, but she'd gotten past the pain and had become numb. He pulled her hair from behind as he slammed into her. She was on hands and knees on a couch in one of the rooms in the hotel— that's how she thought of the building she was in, as a hotel—but her arms weakened as she seemed to leave her body and float into a corner to watch.

  The man behind her had shaggy dark hair and a muscular body. He grinned as he sodomized her and pulled her hair, and the cameraman moved around with the camera, going from one angle to another, then another. Suddenly, the man pulled out of her and hurried around to face her. He masturbated until he ejaculated all over her face.

  Karen made a gagging sound and struggled not to vomit.

  "Cut!" the director shouted. "Beautiful, beautiful. Looked like a real rape to me, and that's what we want." He turned to Karen and said, "You, uh, what's your name?"

  "Her name is Candy Starr, with two ‘r’s," a woman said.

  Karen was only vaguely aware of her surroundings. Her arms gave way and she lay forward on the couch, curled up into the fetal position. She looked at the woman through half-closed eyes.

  She was beautiful, tall, with long black hair. She wore a smart black-and-red suit with a short skirt that displayed her long, black-stockinged legs. She had come into the room without anyone noticing. She walked over to the director.

  "What's next on your schedule?" she said.

  "A gang-bang."

  "She should rest a bit."

  "Oh, yeah, sure."

  The woman went over to the couch and sat down on the edge beside Karen.

  "Tell me now the names of those you've told about us, and you won't have to do that again. Otherwise, you've got a gang-bang coming up."

  Karen wanted to cover herself, but had nothing to use. She lay on the couch and shivered, huddled up beside the woman.

  After a couple unsuccessful tries, Karen finally spoke: "Who ... are you?"

  "I'm keeping an eye on you for Mr. Barna. What'll it be?"

  "I didn't tell anyone," Karen said slowly. "Neither of us did."

  "Yes, I understand that's what you said before."

  "Because it's true. We told no one. It was a confidential investigation."

  "You enjoy that gang-bang, Karen," the woman said as she stood.

  Karen sobbed, "No, please, no more. Please."

  "I have no choice, Karen. We need to know. This won't stop until you tell us."

  Crying, Karen said, "Who are you?"

  The woman smiled. "My name is Anya."

  Back in the darkness of her room, Karen pulled the blanket back on the cot and got in.

  "Karen?" Casey said.

  Karen could not talk for awhile, she was sobbing too hard, in too much pain. She had been repeatedly be
aten and sodomized by several men.

  "They're trying to humiliate us, to mortify us, Karen," Casey said. "They're trying to tear us down." Her voice was weak and quavered when she spoke, as if she were shivering.

  "They won't believe me," Karen said. "I've told them again and again that we didn't tell anyone about them, but they won't believe me."

  "You've gotta hold on, Karen," Casey said. "You hear me?"

  "Did they ... do it to you, too?"

  After a moment, Casey said, "Yes. They won't believe me, either. They're doing something... draining me of strength. I tried to fight them, but couldn't. Too weak. I haven't fed. I'm shaking all over."

  Karen curled up on the cot and pulled the blanket up tight to her chin, trying to get warm. "They've got to find us," she said. "They've got to."

  "I've got a feeling, Karen, that if we're going to get out of here, we're going to have to do it ourselves. Davey and Gavin have no clue where we are, and even if they did, how could they get in here?"

  "Are you always so fucking positive about everything?"

  "I'm sorry, I'm just telling you how I see it."

  The lights came on and the sirens sounded. Karen put her hands over her ears. It happened regularly, but it never failed to make her jump. It kept them from sleeping, made them edgy.

  "They've got to find us," Karen whispered when it stopped. "They've got to."

  The door opened and light from the hall fell into the room. Anya came in and closed the door behind her.

  Karen felt the cot sink a little when Anya sat on the edge.

  "Have you thought about it, Karen?" Anya said.

  "Thought about... what?"

  "Are you going to tell me who you've told, or not?"

  "I'm telling you the truth, Anya, please believe me. We talked to no one. We only worked the investigation for two days, then it was called off."

  "If you insist," Anya said, but her voice made Karen jump because it was next to her left ear now.

  A hand gently rested on Karen's chest and Karen experienced a rushing feeling, as if her very life were being drawn out of her. It was a horrifying feeling, made only worse by the fact that it was so erotic, as if she were being touched everywhere. She could not move or speak.