by Neil Russell
She opened the glove box and handed me a roll of three-inch duct tape and a heavy, padded envelope. I tore off a small strip of the silver tape and handed it to her. “Before you come back down, put this on your right headlight, vertically.”
She understood. “So you’ll know it’s me. It’s pitch-black out there. Do you want the flashlight?”
I shook my head. “There’s a footpath that cuts back and forth among the houses.”
She nodded. “The nature trail. It used to be private, but several years ago, they opened it to the public. The homeowners are still screaming.”
“The proletariat’s a bitch. Ask anybody with California beachfront.”
“You’re going to the Silk House, aren’t you?” When I didn’t answer, she said, “I thought so.”
“What can you tell me about the place?”
“They throw loud parties. Somebody complained once, but they got a visit from the Third Bureau.”
“Third Bureau?”
“State Security, Hong Kong Affairs. They keep the dissident herd thinned. They’re the ones who took my parents.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s a big club.” She got back to business. “Stay on the trail. Otherwise, you’ll trip the lights that are supposed to keep people from wandering over the edge.”
I opened the padded envelope. Inside were a new cell phone and a modified Sig Sauer 1911 along with a full clip of ammo. “You said you wanted it noisy,” said Regina. “How do you feel about Rowlands? Hollow point.”
In stopping power and wince-factor, a Rowland round is just this side of a Magnum. The difference is a less violent recoil. At the very least, I would deafen somebody.
“You ever get tired of the Far East, I know a hundred special operators who’d walk barefoot over broken glass to hear you say Rowland.”
She laughed, and I put the phone back in the envelope. “I’ll leave this here. They have a habit of going off at the wrong times.”
Just then a set of headlights broke out of the gloom behind us, turning the interior of the Mas into daylight and us into silhouettes. I quickly grabbed Regina and kissed her passionately. She played her part well, and I felt myself reacting. The car went by. A black Mercedes. Then another and another. Six sets of headlights later, I released her, but it was slightly slower than it should have been.
“Looks like Mr. Kingdom is going to the top for dinner. I’ll do some recon while I’m there.”
“Don’t take any chances.”
Her face got serious, and she reached between the seats and pulled out a 9mm Brazilian-made Taurus, no larger than the palm of her hand. Tiny, but deadly. “There are many of us,” she said. “Young and committed. We may not rid our country of this vermin, but they know we’re here, and they worry. It is what an American would do, isn’t it?”
I had to learn to stop judging people by their age. It hadn’t made any sense when people were doing it to me, and it didn’t make any now.
“It’s exactly what an American would do.”
I reached up, switched off the dome light and got out. I thought about thanking her for our earlier intimacy but didn’t know how to say it. She leaned over, grabbed my wrist, held something to her mouth, kissed it and put it in my hand. It was the gold band that had held her ponytail.
“Yi ri quan li,” she said. “One day, a thousand miles.”
* * * *
The going was rougher than I expected. Trees with thick, twisted limbs grew among dense patches of bamboo and giant thornbushes to create a web of wet vegetation that was nearly impenetrable. Add in the usual nocturnal insects and predatory bats, and I was very happy when I finally reached the trail.
I had hoped the fog would have the same effect here as on the road, but it was more like Central Park. A pair of lovers were strolling hand in hand, followed by a tiny old man who paused every few steps to do a Tai Chi move. Then a bony swarm of joggers panted by. Worse, the path lights were on as far as I could see.
In my dark outfit with a heavy Sig in one pocket and a roll of tape in another, I felt like a walking billboard for the ITT School of Cat Burglary. Nevertheless, no one paid me the slightest attention.
Just before the Silk House, the trail bent right and doubled back on itself to circumvent the property to the rear. Seeing no one nearby, I left the path and made my way into the brush. I knelt and used the charcoal stick to darken my face, then moved silently toward the house.
The grounds were different here. Tended and thinned. Not good. Then I saw the five thin black strands of barbed wire, which, at first glance, didn’t seem strong enough to slow down a determined rabbit. As I got closer, I revised my thinking. The wooden posts that had been visible from the air were dotted with plastic insulators, and the wire had been unprofessionally strung through them. Even from ten feet away, I could feel electricity coming off. I wasn’t up on my protons and ions, but I knew that meant the fence wasn’t grounded properly, which made it unpredictable— and deadly.
While I pondered my next move, I heard someone coming on the other side of the wire. I melted back and into the trees. Shortly, motion lights on the Silk House property blinked on, and a thick-trunked Asian man came into view. His arms were heavily tattooed, which ran up his neck onto his face, and he was leading an enormous reddish brown dog. At least I thought it was a dog. Considering the mane, it could have been the MGM lion. I remembered not paying much attention to Fabian Cañada’s description of the Tibetan Mastiffs of Hu-Wei and made a mental note to be smarter next time my hide was on the line.
When the dog got directly opposite me, it stopped and faced in my direction. My gut said to move deeper into the foliage, but I fought the impulse. The animal already sensed me and almost certainly heard my breathing. As many people as I’d passed on my way here, this wouldn’t have been the first time the dog alerted to a person outside the fence. The smell of fear would be something different. Not knowing the animal’s ability to see in the dark but expecting it was excellent, I waited.
The dog walked to the fence, and the handler kept the lead short and went with it. The mastiff and I locked eyes, and I could feel him sorting through his instinct bank. The man watched his dog watching me, then squinted in my direction, but he was flying blind. I hoped the dog would decide I wasn’t a threat and move on, but its perception equaled its size. I saw its breathing become more rapid. Time to have some fun.
Mage hadn’t just taught me how to hunt boar but also how to call them. In Delta, I’d used the sounds to communicate with my team. Now, I pressed my lips and teeth tightly together and grunted from deep in my throat. Not loudly, but audible to the man and like a thunderclap to the dog. The mastiff exploded toward the fence, and only the handler’s strength prevented the animal from impaling itself on the barbed wire.
I expected a “Cut” command, but none came. Instead, dog and man wrestled each other for supremacy, the mastiff’s eyes never leaving me as he snarled and bit at the air. I grunted again, lower but with more aggression, and the mastiff went wild, throwing himself in all directions.
The fence was down a slight slope from the walkway, and the man’s balance was tenuous. He tried to grab the dog by its mane, but it head-butted him, and he stumbled backward toward the fence. The hum increased as his bulk hit the top wire and broke it. The remaining four strands caught him across the back and legs, and sparks flew in all directions. Somehow the guy’s right arm got tangled in the broken strand, and as he jerked involuntarily with the juice, large chunks of flesh came off. He screamed an inhuman scream. And then his hair caught fire.
As more men came running, the dog ran along the fence, looking at me and barking wildly. Then, inexplicably, he turned and charged one of the new arrivals. The man didn’t hesitate and rammed a Taser against the dog’s nose. It squealed and ran off. Someone shouted a command, and the fence’s hum stopped. While the victim was being dragged off the wire, I circled deeper into the trees then cut back to the fence and crossed. When I
did, I noticed that the driveway was full of cars. Expensive ones.
At the back of the house just beyond the garage, I saw another security type in an open doorway smoking a cigarette. He too had tattoos on his arms and face. I approached him like I belonged there, and by the time he realized I didn’t, I had taken him out with a chop to the neck. The snap told me he wouldn’t be getting up again. I pulled the body behind a hedge, drew my Sig and went inside.
Some less-than-pleasing, extremely loud techno was being piped through an internal sound system. It sounded like the shit we’d used in interrogation school, which after a couple of hours, would make Sister Mary Catherine confess to killing Kennedy. This was cranked up enough to cover a chain saw.
The kitchen was a mess. Open liquor bottles, dirty dishes and food strewn everywhere. A cat sat on a counter, his face buried in a mountain of caviar I could smell from across the room. To my right was a long, dark hallway that I assumed led to bedrooms. I didn’t see any movement, so I pressed my back to the wall and moved on. The smell of drugs cooking burned my nostrils.
The long wall of glass at the back of the house looked out into darkness, but inside, soft pink lighting cast the teak-beamed living room in warm shadows. Low white sofas, faux-stone tables and eccentrically shaped chairs were scattered over a field of Oriental rugs on a dark hardwood floor. I don’t know what I was expecting from something called the Silk House, but what I got were dozens of billowing sheets of white fabric draped from the ceiling that could be pulled around individual pieces of furniture—for privacy, I assumed.
The centerpiece of this Christo mélange was a block of white limestone large enough to have come from the Pyramids, atop which sat a life-sized, dark jade tiger fitted with carved ivory teeth and claws. The animal’s head was tilted playfully, one forefoot elevated as if pawing at some imaginary object. In my less-than-professional opinion, ivory against jade added a gracelessness more appropriate to Tony Montana than tony collectors.
These guests didn’t care either way. Thirty or more men and women were engaged in various sexual encounters or drug use or both. Twosomes, threesomes, whatever, and they seemed perfectly comfortable sharing their experience with anyone who wanted to look. The men were all Asian; the women, a mix, including a milk-skinned blonde doing a sixty-nine with a heavily freckled redhead while two men shared a pipe of something and watched. No Birdy.
One privacy curtain was drawn, and just as I started toward it, a young Asian woman pushed the fabric aside and stepped out. She was wearing heels and nothing else—unless you counted the fourteen inches of ribbed, black dildo belted to her pubis. The Asian man reclining on a chaise was naked, masked and handcuffed, and when he said something to her, she turned, grabbed his genitals and squeezed, hard. He let out a moan, and she smiled.
When she walked past me, I noticed her eyes were glassy, and there was a zombielike quality to her stride. She noticed my gun, seemed to try to process it, then pointed at the dildo. I shook my head, and she shrugged and walked on, eventually turning into the kitchen, strap-on swinging.
I retraced my steps and headed down the hallway I had passed. The techno was not being piped here, and I could hear my footsteps on the Berber runner. Then there was a sudden burst of different music from the far end of the hall, where I could see a vertical sliver of light.
The corridor ended in a T, and the light was coming from between a set of double doors. So was music. I stood and listened. Nick Cave’s “Red Right Hand” again. Suddenly, it went off, and there were voices, then a slap followed by a moan. Then metal clanking and more moaning, and the music began again, even louder.
I gently tried the door handle. Locked. I pushed on the wood to gauge its strength and wasn’t surprised to find it rock solid. If there were security inside, this is where it would be stationed. I might be able to John Wayne my way through, but if I didn’t get in on the first try, I might not get a second chance.
I took a left and walked down the hall alongside the room. Forty feet farther, I came to another smaller door, but as I reached for the handle, I heard a motor and saw lights at the end of the corridor. An elevator. Probably the one to the pool. I moved to a position beside it and pressed myself against the wall.
When it opened, light spilled into the corridor, and two Asian men got off, naked and holding hands. The elevator door closed behind them, and they made their way down the hall and turned right toward the living room.
I went back to the door. It was unlocked, and I crouched and pushed it open. It swung noiselessly inward to no reaction. I could make out a king bed and seating area. Both were unoccupied. I entered and closed the door behind me.
To the right was an open door into a dark bathroom. There was another door on the opposite side with light under it. A connecting bath. Just as I started in, the music stopped again, and the opposite door opened, flooding the bathroom with brightness. I retreated. A mirror allowed me see a heavyset man entering. Over his shoulder he said in English, “Hold for a sec. I gotta take a piss. And Christian, dial down the fuckin’ bass before my ears bleed.”
The guy closed the door and didn’t turn on the bathroom light. I heard him unzip and a stream hit the toilet. The fat roll around his neck made a chop risky, so I stepped behind him and slammed my gun into his skull. I felt bone give, and he collapsed.
I deposited him on the floor, opened the door and went through. A blast of heat hit me, and I remembered Chuck Brando’s bedroom. My view was blocked by an array of generators, lighting equipment and photographic screens. A slender woman heard me coming and started to turn, “Doug, we’re getting a shadow across her face.”
When she saw it wasn’t Doug, she opened her mouth to shout, and I hit her on the chin with the heel of my hand before she could get anything out. The blow audibly slammed her teeth together and lifted her completely off her feet. She was unconscious before she felt the floor. I stepped past her, the Sig leveled.
Two digital movie cameras, a sound boom and three halogen floods were aimed at the center of the room. Birdy was strapped facedown on a rape rack. Dogmen use a canine version to breed fighters, but this one hadn’t been built with pit bulls in mind. Three four-foot-long pieces of I-beam had been welded to the points of two triangles made from square steel tubing to create a sawhorse-type device that was bolted to the floor so it couldn’t be rocked.
Birdy was bent lengthwise along the top beam, her torso supported by only a few inches of steel, her bare breasts hanging below. Three wide steel bands, one at her neck, one across her back under her arms and a third over her hips dug deeply into her skin as they held her in place. Her arms were banded to the front triangle at the wrists and biceps, and her legs had been drawn far apart, then banded to the rear triangle at the thigh, leaving her feet dangling off the ground. She was wearing one red high heel, the other lay under her.
Behind her, a muscular, burly guy of indeterminate ethnicity stood naked. A life-sized tattoo of a sword began at top of his pubic hair, its tip resting against his Adam’s apple. Kneeling in front of him, the chauffeur of the white Rolls had his very large, very stiff penis in her mouth. However, neither seemed emotionally engaged, just ready.
It was my first look at the rest of Crimson’s driver, and she wasn’t what I expected. Her thin face and slender neck belied a fireplug of a woman with chunky thighs and tiny breasts. Her arms were thick and hard too, like she lifted weights. If she hadn’t been sporting a waxed snatch, which looked like original equipment, I’d have bet she’d once been a man.
Crimson, wearing a pair of tall, red high-heel boots, stood at the side of the rack next to Birdy’s head. She held two fistfuls her hair as she pulled the prone girl’s face into her sculptured bush. But she too, seemed to be just going through the motions of some overrehearsed script.
And then I saw why. Off to one side stood another undressed man, a leather hood covering his head and face. From his drooping breasts, flaccid middle and the wiry gray hair around his half-erect man
hood, I guessed he was at least sixty, perhaps a decade older. In his right hand, he held a gleaming, jewel-handled dagger.
All the snuff team had been waiting for was Doug. Apparently, the guy was particular about lighting the face of the woman whose throat he was slitting. It was the same lighting that would catch his ejaculation when Birdy’s blood bathed his five inches of humiliation.
I wasn’t surprised that most of the dozen or so people in the room, now frozen and staring at me, were, like Doug, Caucasian. I was willing to bet they also had 818 area codes. If you want good production values, the San Pornando Valley is the place to go. I saw one man inching toward the double doors and suggested he not. He quickly returned to his original position and stood there, twitching.
“Step back,” I commanded Crimson. She looked into my eyes, then at my gun, and her mouth twisted into an ugly smile. Very slowly, she released Birdy’s hair and took a half step away. Birdy looked languidly in my direction. I saw her trying to focus, but she was under the influence of something. A part of me must have registered, however, because tears began streaming down her face.