Wildcase - [Rail Black 02]

by Neil Russell

  The chauffeur still had the Big Penetrator in her mouth, but instead of pointing at the guy’s chin, it was now checking out his pedicure. I motioned for the driver to get up. “Let’s get a look at the guest of honor,” I said. “Take off his hood.”

  She stood and looked at Crimson, confirming that she understood English. Crimson shook her head no, and the chauffeur glared back at me in defiance. I noticed that the man in the hood had begun urinating involuntarily. “Come to think of it,” I said, “I’ll pass.” I raised the Sig and shot him in the face. In the enclosed space, the roar of the Rowland was like a howitzer, and a female camera operator screamed.

  At that range, hollow point notwithstanding, had the decapitator-in-waiting not been wearing a hood, his head might have exploded on the technician beside him. As it was, except for some brain tissue that shot out of the eyeholes, the thick leather contained most of the gore. He staggered back slightly, then pitched face forward into his own pool of piss. It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then, karma is immediate.

  Crimson ran to the man and bent over him. When she turned to me, her face was contorted with rage. “Do you know who this is?” she spit.

  “I don’t, but if you can wake him up, I’ll shoot him again.”

  “You fool. It’s General Maa, First Class General of the Army. We are all dead now.”

  “Well, he only had a second-class hard-on, so I’ll take my chances.”

  Crimson stood, her fury barely under control. “The general is who kept your friends’ precious children flowing. Are you even smart enough to realize that you’ve ended that?”

  I’d had about enough of her, but I couldn’t kill her yet. “And somewhere, a tiger just lit up a cigar. Fuck the general, and while we’re at it, fuck you.”

  “Security will have heard the shot and ...”

  I cut her off. “Not over that bullshit music out front.” I pointed the gun directly at her. “But if I’m wrong, you won’t know it. Now, you and your girlfriend please undo the lady.”

  It took Crimson and her chauffeur a couple of minutes to get the bands unhooked. While they worked, I made an observation to the naked, red-booted addition to my fan club.

  “This was supposed to be Sherry Huston, wasn’t it? But when she told you her sister was a big deal in the FBI, you backed off. What I don’t understand is why you poisoned her. It seems counterintuitive.”

  Crimson turned, “An unfortunate error in judgment by some overzealous associates. They will not be repeating it.”

  “But it left you with the worst possible scenario. The FBI agent’s sister dead, a living witness and a general with half a hard-on who still wanted a neck to cut. I’ll bet Major wasn’t happy to see you come through the door and even less happy after you left. That’s a tough ad to run. ‘Free trip to China. Oh, by the way, no high collars.’ General Maa must have been a very demanding client.”

  “Not a client, a business partner. An important one. He’d never gone all the way before...and he wanted to.”

  “And who better to make that happen. Miss All the Way herself.” I grabbed her arm and turned it so her wound showed. “Did you warn him that they sometimes bite?”

  “All the motherfucker had to do was talk.”

  “Sure, so there would be more bodies. You wouldn’t have let the baby live either if you’d found it, would you? At least you got your rocks off. You and Stumpy there. Does it bother you when she has a cock in her mouth?”

  I thought she was going to charge me, and part of me was disappointed when she didn’t. “Fuck you,” she sneered.

  I smiled. “It’s nice to know you feel something.” Chuck would have approved. I thought about the women the general had probably maimed and who would bear the scars forever. I turned and put another bullet in his body. Crimson jumped a foot. It was unprofessional, but it felt right. It also kept the room guessing.

  Deep bruises were already forming in Birdy’s flesh, and as I helped her to her feet, she swooned against me. One of the male crewmembers had that look in his eye that he might be thinking about becoming a hero, so I gave him the opportunity to look down the Sig’s barrel. “The picture’s been canceled,” I said. “You still want to die for it?” He decided he didn’t.

  “Where are her clothes?” I asked him.

  He hesitated and looked at Crimson. Apparently, everything went through her. I was going to kill the chauffeur anyway, this gave me a chance to get something for it. I turned and shot her in the chest. The bullet came out her back, splattering the sword tattoo of her former fellatiate. The guy I was talking to choked back his vomit, and blurted, “In the other room. The one you came from.”

  I pushed Birdy toward the bathroom. “Get dressed, I’ll be along in a minute.”

  She stumbled away, and I turned to the group. “Everybody have a seat.” They complied quickly. As Crimson started down, I said to her, “Not you, sweetie. You and I have a lot of Q&A ahead. Let’s start with where’s Bolin?”

  Her eyes flashed, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Good, I was hoping you’d make it difficult.”

  I could see her tensing to kick. Since she’d wielded the syringe in her left hand, I gambled she’d go with the same foot. She was really good and really limber. She got the red boot as high as my head. I leaned back to let it go by then banged her in the face with a fist. She wasn’t out, but she was woozy, and I grabbed a handful of black hair and pulled her to me.

  While she was trying to get back to today, I fished the roll of duct tape from my pocket and tossed it to one of the seated men. I gave him instructions, and he pulled Crimson’s arms behind her and wound several loops around her wrists then several more above her elbows—tight. After he’d done her mouth, I had him remove her boots, then I ground my heel into her toes on both feet. If I’d had a length of barbed wire, I’d have cinched it around her neck too.

  Contrary to the handwringers who jerk each other off at thousand-dollar-a-plate human rights dinners, terrorists, enemy combatants and the truly pathological—even females—don’t stop trying to kill because of a pair of cuffs and suggestion. Check with the family of Mike Spann or the guards at Guantanamo. You need to incapacitate them or, at the very least, keep them off-balance. Crimson was uncomfortable, but she was still mobile in a hobbling sort of way. More to the point, now a Cub Scout could handle her.

  Before she and I left, I made eye contact with each of those on the floor, letting them watch me memorize their faces. “It’s going to take us a few minutes to get out of here,” I said. “If I see any of you ...”

  I didn’t need to complete the sentence. I was pretty sure they believed me. I found the sound board and cranked up Mr. Cave again. Loud.

  * * * *

  43

  Lunging Dogs and Cold Hands

  Back in the hallway, I heard running feet. One of the first rules of clandestine work is to have a backup escape carefully thought out. Mine was a little sketchy, but so far, no one knew exactly what was happening, so I had the element of surprise. It wouldn’t last much longer.

  The elevator was still on our floor, and it opened as soon as I pushed the button. I doused the lights, and we got in. Birdy had managed to get on a blouse and a pair of jeans but was shoeless. Crimson made one attempt to sound an alarm by shouting, so I jammed the Sig in her mouth, mashing her lips, breaking a couple of teeth and getting it far enough down her throat to make her gag. With her arms pulled up behind her causing her to bend forward at a nearly ninety-degree angle, she was spitting quite a bit of blood. I hoped Chuck and Lucille were watching.

  The pool area was heated with propane lamps, and several people were enjoying each other under their warmth. Drugs and assorted paraphernalia lay on the tables and were strewn across the deck. I’ve never used drugs recreationally, so I don’t have a frame of reference for what they do for sex. But if this stuff was any indication, once you come out of the haze, you’ve got to be sore as hell.

  There had t
o be another way out, if only in case the elevator failed. Asking Crimson wasn’t likely to get me an answer, so I told Birdy to hold her and went looking. I found it behind one of the cabanas. It was a long upward ramp that led under the house. Cutting through the mountain would have been difficult under any circumstances, but only the concrete floor and cage lights were new. Almost certainly, this had been one of the tunnels dug throughout the colony during the Japanese occupation. I was glad the walls couldn’t talk.

  We came out in a small cottage hidden in the trees beyond the garage. As we entered the woods, I looked back and saw that the door I had used to enter the house was still standing open, but there were men with guns guarding it.

  The barbed wire was still silent, and I had just lifted Birdy over the strands when the first shot went past my head. I had intended to hoist Crimson over too, but when I reached for her, she started twisting and kicking. I was fully prepared to drag her over, but she was going to slow us down too much. It was time to shoot her and be done with it. The problem was, I might need the five bullets I had left.

  “You’re what we call unfinished business.” I clipped her on the chin with a right hook that sent her down for the count. As I took Birdy’s hand and ran toward the footpath, I immediately regretted not finishing her. Had I still been in Delta, it would have been a close call not to cashier me. I didn’t envy the guy who’d taped her for me.

  It was then that I heard the barking. Lots of it. On the move.

  Birdy said her first words since I’d found her. “Kennels. Big dogs. I saw them tear a man apart.”

  That would have been the outbuilding I’d seen from the air. I didn’t know anything about Tibetan Mastiffs. However, the path didn’t seem like a good idea. Pulling Birdy with me, I made a hard left turn and went into the brush. Birdy was a good runner. She also wasn’t a complainer even though I was sure her feet were being sliced to ribbons.

  The baying was getting louder, and I chanced a look over my shoulder. I couldn’t see them yet, but the foliage was moving erratically about twenty-five yards back, and I guessed we had at least a hundred yards to go to get to the road. I didn’t have time to do the math, but I was pretty sure we weren’t going to make it.

  “Car’s up the road. Look for tape on the headlight,” I shouted, and pushed Birdy ahead. She put on a burst of speed, and I headed off on a right angle away from her. As I ran, I yelled and thrashed to draw the dogs in my direction.

  I didn’t know how many there were, but they were moving too fast to have handlers with them. That meant whatever course the alpha dog took, the rest would follow. For better or worse, I got my wish.

  When I broke onto the path, all of the nighttime strollers had disappeared. I was well into my adrenaline rush, but even if a new supply was on the way, it wasn’t going to help me outrun a dog. I allowed myself a look back and corrected the count. Four.

  Ahead on the right, a ten-foot, spiked iron fence separated the ridgeline from the path. Since I hadn’t seen any similar barrier earlier, I had to assume the drop-off there was severe. I waited until the last possible second, then veered off the path and put the iron bars between myself and the walkway. Severe was the appropriate word. Far below, I could see tiny lights. I grabbed on to the fence and moved along it, hand over hand.

  One of the mastiffs had gotten onto the same side of the fence as me, and I heard him, pawing at the slope, gaining on the horizontal but losing on the vertical. Then I heard him start to slide. After a few seconds, he must have hit a level spot, because even though it was too dark to see him, his barking told me he was directly below me.

  The remaining three dogs were still on the path only inches away. Over and over, they lunged against the bars in a frenzy, and I had to keep moving my hands to avoid having them torn away. I guessed their weight at nearly two hundred pounds apiece with coats as thick as bears’. And unlike some guard dogs who are trained to occupy their quarry, these wanted to tear me apart. It was probably wiser to shoot them rather than try to outsmart them, but it’s difficult for me to punish animals because of asshole owners.

  They kept lunging, and I kept moving, as did my escort below. A few yards ahead, I saw the barrier coming to an end. The dogs didn’t notice until they were almost there. When they did, they came around it with a vengeance. The lead dog leaped earlier, higher and farther than I expected, and I mistimed my kick. I just grazed its side and felt my leg go numb as it got a piece of my ankle before it clawed at the air and tumbled down the grade.

  The other two began slipping and sliding before they could charge, and soon, all four were on the flats below creating an ungodly racket. I swung around the fence and heard the sound of men running in my direction.

  Suddenly, a horn sounded, twice. Like a foghorn, but more shrill. It came from the direction of the Silk House, and the running stopped. I heard anxious voices, then the footsteps headed back the way they had come.

  The headlights of the Maserati were on, and the piece of duct tape was in place. The passenger and driver doors were open, but Birdy stood several feet in front, staring through the windshield. I grabbed her arm, but she stayed rooted and shook her head. I went to the car. Regina’s head lolled back on the seat, her chest ripped open by bullets, blood spilling down her front.

  In the ditch next to the car, two men with tattooed faces lay face-up, each shot through the forehead and still clutching their guns.

  In the quiet, I heard tires squealing farther down the mountain. Lots of them. The rats were clearing out. I waited for one to come this way, but none did. A few minutes later, all was quiet again. But only for a few seconds. This time, the rush came from up the mountain. The six Mercedes barreled past me traveling much faster than should have been comfortable.

  I looked into them. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw former LAPD lieutenant Perry Duke in the third car. Just in case, I waved.

  I lifted Regina’s body gently and placed it in the backseat. I found a blanket in the trunk and covered her, taking a moment to smooth her hair off her brow. I got Birdy in the car without difficulty this time, and she huddled against the door, wide-eyed. I started the Mas and headed down the hill.

  A wiser man would have called it a night. Instead, I turned into the Silk House. I waited for Birdy to react, but she sat mute.

  * * * *

  The silk moth gate was wide open. Somebody had even clipped one side and torn it halfway off the pillar. The driveway that was full earlier was now empty. The garage was open and bare except for some gardening equipment and an old bicycle. I walked around the house to the kennels. There were two dogs left. Older ones, sharing a cage. They looked at me with curiosity but didn’t snarl or bark.

  I approached them, and one leaned against the bars, urging me to scratch it. I did, then opened the cage. Both dogs took their time coming out, then stretched and looked around. Suddenly, in the distance, I heard barking. The two mastiffs pricked up their ears, cocked their heads and bolted out of the building.

  It was dead quiet inside the house. I’d left Birdy in the car, but she didn’t let me get to the door before she was behind me. “I’d rather be in here than out there alone,” she said. “What are you going to do?”

  I kept it to myself. Things aren’t evil, only people. But sometimes, you have to get rid of things so people can begin to heal. And sometimes, you just have to finish what you came to do.

  It had to be there somewhere, and I decided to start with the least obvious, yet most obvious place. I couldn’t guess the combined weight of the jade tiger and its base, but it was formidable. The tiger’s ivory teeth and claws were individually set into the stone, and they looked as sharp as they would have in life. It was a bizarre piece, but then this was the home of someone for whom a snuff film seemed reasonable.

  I reached out and touched the tiger’s uplifted foot. The jade was smooth and cool, the claws firmly attached. The three remaining paws were secured to a bronze plate that was slightly smaller than the limest
one base. Something was nagging at me, trying to push past the still-dominant chemicals of fight or flight. The bronze wasn’t right. No artist or purveyor would mount a dark piece of jade on an even darker piece of metal to affix it to white stone. The drama was in the contrast of the green against the lighter base; in the sleek, polished jade in opposition to the rough rock.

  I ran my finger along the bronze plate’s vertical edge. It was gently scalloped, which was also aesthetically off. Even if the metal had a legitimate purpose, it shouldn’t compete with the piece. Three sides were regular and cold. In the rear, however, one depression had three faint ridges in it that were almost invisible to the naked eye. It was also more than warm to the touch.