by S A Gardner
“Drug dealers are up my alley, not yours, Damian.”
“Says who? They sleep with terrorists all the time.”
Yeah. I knew that. I just wanted him off my back. Or maybe I didn’t. “If you’re offering to help, just say so.”
His smile poured right into my battered insides. “So.”
Oh God. I needed this, his support, his caring. I leaned into him. He perched his hip on the dresser, pulled me into his large frame, surrounded me, hid me. “Give me anything you have.”
“I will, on the way. Let’s go.”
He pressed my head to his heart, kissed the top of my wig, gave a grunt of disgust. “I’ll go. You stay here and take care of Matt. And get that dead synthetic dog off your head.”
I pulled out of his embrace. “No, Damian. You’re not taking over. This is my operation. I need to get names and facts and samples. This is not a PACT search-and-destroy sweep.”
“You’ll get your samples, if they are there to be had!”
“You promise you won’t get carried away, follow your programming and wipe out every hive you find…?”
What was I doing, asking him to promise? Did idiots ever get past their idiocies?
My raised hand closed his lips, no doubt on the promise-her-anything reflex. “Don’t. I already have a matching set of fake promises. And I changed my mind. You’ve done your bit for Matt. So thanks and please get me any info on his samples, but in any other way, stay out of it. I won’t ask you to promise that you will.”
He straightened. The room shrank. “Don’t bother. You want me to stay out of it? You got it. Seems I have limits, Calista. You just pushed me to them. And this time, I’m staying pushed.”
Twelve
“Yo, bitch, wazza rate?”
The nasty, guttural voice I’d been itching to hear all night called out to me over the pounding beat.
According to my freshly acquired info, this leering mass of DNA waste was Richard White, going by the badass street name of Filthy Rich. He had the filthy part down. I wanted him. And I’d succeeded in making him want me.
About time. I was beginning to get tired. Of being stuffed in that dress, of acting under twenty, of pretending to dig the rave scene. Of beating back the wandering hands and lewd offers.
Filthy was number three in the operation I was looking for. I’d had him tagged, had listened in on an afternoon’s worth of a thoroughly disgusting life. I got my details.
There was a new designer drug. Very hard to manufacture, a top-secret formula, making this slimeball’s operation confident of cornering the market, one they expected to be heroin-huge. The boasted effect of the new drug was unpredictable. Much like LSD in its user-related differences but far more potent. Couldn’t be clear what those effects were among the steady stream of lowlife lingo that spilled out of this creep’s lax mouth.
At least my stoolie’s info had been exact, first time out. Seems he’d realized I wouldn’t just have him arrested with an anonymous tip to the LAPD with evidence of his latest felony. This time, he’d realized, my pressure methods would be harsher.
I swaggered over to Filthy, yelled over the grinding techno music quaking the warehouse-turned-rave-center. “You talkin’ to me? Wassat? A lady can’ dress up and get some respec’, too?”
Thick lips spread. “Com’ere. I give you some real respec’.”
And there shouldn’t be any question what that dickhead meant. I smirked at him. “Yo, man. How generous. You fer real?”
Eyes dark as mine, sans lenses, but dead matte with that nauseating mix of viciousness, cunning and stupidity, widened. His interest levels were shooting up. I’d done my homework. One sheet of paper had told me all there was to know about Filthy.
He liked his “bitches” fit and white. Very. And he had a sentimental streak, too. He fell hard. Hit harder when women tried to walk away. And he was in between “love interests.” It was why I’d come after him rather than number one or two. I fit his bill. And he was following his programming with all the predictability expected from an amoeba-level life-form.
I needed a sample of his poison. A list of his sub-dealers, distributors and major pushers would come in handy, too. Then I’d walk away. If not before I broke every bone in his body as a collective overdue payment, courtesy of all those women he’d crippled or snuffed playing Othello. That and the life sentence I’d make sure he got. Maybe in my father’s prison. The idea made me feel almost sorry for the scumbag.
Now his eyes were defiling their way up my muscled thighs. “You wanna drink? Or aren’t ya old enough yet?”
Good old age-deceptive looks. Another thing that made me his kind of catch. He liked ’em young. Very. Yeah, his bill was a long one indeed. I stood before him, hands on hips. “I’m legal. And I’m buying. Move over. My feet are killin’ me.” I knocked his foot off his knee with mine.
That got him good. He was used to women sucking up to him and/or being scared out of their wits. He spouted off about needing a bitch who wouldn’t buckle under his “strength of character.” He had himself some of that coming, right down his throat.
My unblinking role-breaking had him instinctively scooting over the couch, letting me flop down, his slanting eyes widening more, his lips getting fuller, wetter, the flare of interest taking on a glazed tinge. The bastard was falling in love.
“So—you someone?” I looked up and down his gym-pumped body. Thirty-four, kept in shape, a P. Diddy wannabe. Would pull it off, too, if he’d only bathe. “A rapper or somethin’?”
“I’m way better, girl. Way better. I make ’em. Or break ’em.” He leaned over, one big hand snaking under my buttocks.
I made room, then sat on it, bending two fingers backward, hard. He yelped, withdrew his hand. I hit him with a harder look. “You a producer, then? Quit wastin’ m’time!”
He rubbed his fingers, his grin malicious and soppy all at once. “Ya got a tight ass, girl.” I started to rise. A hand on my forearm stopped me. I glared it off. “I’m a candyman.”
I curled my lip. “A pusher? Hah. You and every pseudo-male I met tonight. I talk only to men worth talkin’ to. Here, thass for the drink.” I tossed a twenty on the table, jumped up.
He half rose after me. “You wait here, girl. I’m someone. I ain’t no pusher. I’m the big man, the travel agent.”
Would he stop it already with the street synonyms for drug supplier? And how come he was admitting it to a five-minute non-acquaintance, one who could be a cop? Felt secure, did he?
He had reason to. I’d counted seven underlings among the ravers, the all-brawn variety. And in a crowded place like this, getting rid of one female would go unnoticed, cop or no cop. There was no way any recordings could be made in this pandemonium, either. As for verbal evidence, he probably had his ass legally covered, too.
He had two hundred and five bones in his body. I wondered how many I’d break before I was through. Times like this I loved being a surgeon.
I looked down on him. Time to play him some more, move into the next phase. “You crazy, man? What if I wuz a cop?”
“You ain’t no cop. I smell ’em a hundred yards away.”
Like they’d smell you! But he had a good nose, I gave him that. A miracle he retained any olfactory powers with his aroma.
“I ain’t no raspberry, dude.” That was a female who traded sex for drugs or the money to buy them, since we were talking lowlife. “I don’t do drugs, so if thass what you’re sellin’ me…”
“I don’t do drugs, either. And I like my women clean. I smell those, too. Thass why I called ya. I’m selling…” He paused, lost for words. His frown detailed his chagrin at the unprecedented occurrence. He made a quick recovery. “What do you wan’ me to sell ya? Anythin’ you want, I’m sellin’ it.”
I braced one knee on the couch, brushed his thigh, dropped my lips to his ear, gagging inwardly on his stench. He quivered in anticipation. Males! “I’m a businesswoman. I deal in opportunity. Ya got one to sell me?”
His face brightened. Bingo all but flashed on his forehead. “Is yer lucky day, girl.”
Bingo flashed in my mind, too.
“You got yerself a nice setup, dude,” I drawled, still fuming at the frisking his men had given me before letting me into his office-pad. It was at the far end of the warehouse, on a split-level overlooking the rave. If not overhearing. The soundproofing here rivaled a spaceship’s. Maybe I could ask for his contractor’s number for my own noise-infested apartment.
I walked away, went to the wall-to-wall window. Psychedelic lights, club drugs, young people throwing their health and lives away in the so-called pursuit of a good time, and recognition as one of the hip new world. And freedom, of course.
Wondered when it would hit them, that they’d indentured their fates to a far more destructive form of conformity, belonging to the self-serving and abusing herd? That in running from societal control they had surrendered themselves to a malignant and inescapable form of dictatorship? Pathetic. Sad. Not to mention enraging.
Him, he was just nauseating. And obvious. The way he kept touching the painting beside the door told me he couldn’t wait for me to notice, to comment on his good taste. The nouveau riche son of a bitch was “doing art,” hungry for an upgrade in class and a coating of off-the-shelf refinement. He had the money, and now wanted to rewrite his history, launder his image.
Time to throw him more off balance. “Hey, izzat a Marsden Hartley original? Man, I can’ believe it. You into art?”
He obviously couldn’t believe his luck, either, that he’d gotten hold of someone who understood the significance of his pride and joy, along with her other attributes. He could brag to his heart’s content to someone who’d appreciate it.
He stroked it, imitating the way he would me, his newest acquisition. “Yeah. Ain’t it a beaut?”
“Where’d you lift it from?”
That hit a nerve. He straightened. “I bought it, girl! Three months ago in a freakin’ o-thentic art auction.”
“Whatever you say.” He bristled at my impudence. I ignored him, inspected the glass. An inch thick, no-doubt bulletproof and one-way mirrored. No escape route this way if needed. Only visible way out was back through that door. Okay. Got it.
I turned to him, smirking. “Business must be boomin’.”
He strutted around, then toward me. “It ain’t boomin’ yet, girl. This is regular earnings from unprofitable stuff like 151 and La Chiva.”
Crack cocaine and heroin, unprofitable? That was whistle-worthy. It sure spoke of the magnitude of his profit projections for the new drug.
“Once we start peddling the ‘opportunity,’ I’m buyin’ me an estate. Wanna share it?”
He slipped my coat from my shoulders. What a gentleman. My act was working a spell on him. So much so that my stomach was starting to cramp. This was too smooth.
I was prepared for rough. His goons had missed my arsenal. My six-inch platform shoes, my trinket-filled bag, beneath my wig and in my bra support. And then, he was carrying—I could always borrow his piece. I’d still be glad if I didn’t need any of that.
I slipped from the hands encircling my waist, heard him groan. “And what do the ‘opportunity’ have that others don’t?”
“Exclusivity fer one.”
I was impressed. He could pronounce a five-syllable word?
“Concentration fer two. One kilo gets you three thousand on the streets. Then there’s the addictiveness. One hit an’ they keep coming back fo’ more, or they go ta hell.”
Was that what happened to Matt? What was still happening…?
Time to wrap this up before I was tempted to wrap up his sick life. I cocked my head at him. “So what are ya selling me? I came up here to get samples and talk business.”
His vicious eyes narrowed. “Ain’t no good thinkin’ you get away with a sample to make yer own, girl. It ain’t happenin’.”
As in, I couldn’t if I tried? If he believed it impossible to replicate, it should make volunteering a sample easier. He kept a stash here, for cutting deals. I’d rather not waste time searching for it. Or beating him up for it. That would be my farewell.
He must really have his ass covered, to have the stuff lying around in a police-monitored rave center. Must also have a surefire escape route in case of crackdowns. Maybe I could persuade him to share it. Would prefer not to leave the same way I came in.
I shrugged. “Why should I go to the trouble if yer supplyin’? I wanna sample for my connoisseur to see if it’s worth the hype.”
He whistled. “You got yerself a taster? You mean business fer sure, girl. How come I never seen you before?”
“I’m new to the City of Angels. All the way from the Apple. Got too hot for me there. Nicer weather here.”
“Yeah.” He moved in the direction of the painting, stopped, turned. “So, I give ya yer sample, what ya sellin’ in return?”
I turned to him. “Said I’m no raspberry!”
The door burst open on two gun-first goons. One of them snarled, “She’s a damn mole, boss.”
Uh-oh! They’d found me out somehow. Okay. Here we go.
I was already behind Filthy’s massive oak desk as his gaping reaction started to form. My heartbeat slowed, the extra speed pouring into my reflexes, the engrained protocols firing up my nervous pathways, my awareness splitting wide open, taking everything in and acting out my plan simultaneously.
The two thugs weren’t followed by more. I had three to contend with. Had to bring them down, at once. And for all.
One hollow heel snapped open under pressure in certain sequence, three cyanide blow-darts spilling into my grip, my fingers weaving around them. My other hand retrieved the bo shuriken darts from the other heel, brought them to my lips and then went after the hira shuriken throwing-blades in my makeup kit’s hidden level.
All the time a volley of enraged questions and answers popped in the sound-smothering room, followed by shouts. His, calling to me to come out on my own or else, calling me names. Theirs, asking his permission to deal with me. But no shots.
I doubted Filthy would want me killed right off. I could feel the realization of his own stupidity hitting him, coming off him in primitive, humiliated fury, radiating his filthy aura, filling the room. If he caught me, he’d have too much of a good time getting even for my stringing him along.
Getting caught didn’t figure in my plan.
I called out, buying time. “What’re you crazy dudes doing?”
“Come out, bitch!” Filthy roared.
Then I almost heard his mind click, reaching the conclusion that I was unarmed and helpless, cowering behind his desk. He must have given his cronies a silent signal to go drag me out. Good boy.
They came at me, one from above the desk, one around it. Heart-snatching and healthy fear burst—the catalyst I needed. One of my hands hurled a bo shuriken, the other brought the cyanide blow-dart to my lips. I blew.
I got the first in his left eye, perforating it right down to its boney bed. I got the second in the neck.
The first one screamed, once, before neurogenic shock hit. Never heard anything like the already dead shriek, aborted in the echoless environment. The second one stared, hyperventilating, his gun right in my face, his finger on the trigger. One lurch and his last action could be blowing a hole in my forehead and a bigger opening out the back of my head. Didn’t think so.
In another burst of repugnance and dread, I knocked his hand away with one fist, my leg ripping both of his from under him. He fell, in shock, with what cyanide victims suffer before they succumb physically—sure in the knowledge that a poison is already riding the rapids of their bloodstream, too swift for hope of an antidote, that their very heartbeats will deliver it to their cells, beating faster to bring a quicker end.
He’d stop breathing completely within two minutes, and living in under eight. Two were out of my way. One remained. Filthy.
His stampeding feet vibrated the heavily carpet
ed floor. I saw their shadow streaking beneath the desk. Had to deal with him before rage and macho stupidity dissipated and he wised up and ran for backup. There was also this matter of saving me the trouble and the time of opening his safe, of providing the rest of my needed info items. Of pointing out his contingency escape route.
Problem was, he was breaking out of character. He didn’t come after me with threats and fists and feet, but with bullets. The muffled shots slammed into my hideaway. One ripped through two thinner panels of wood, whizzed out beside my head. I flattened to the ground, every nerve jumping, expecting one missile among the hail to explode its way into my flesh.
Breathe. Stay down. He was smarter than I gave him credit for. Or maybe the sight of his two behemoths dead in seconds had boosted his intelligence fast. He must know now that he had no time to mess with me.
One way out of this. To lunge up, already firing a cyanide dart, hope he didn’t get a bead on me in the seconds I needed, duck back down again. I could probably do it.
Problem here was, I needed him alive.
So it was either he killed me, or I killed him and got out of here empty-handed.
Or maybe there was a third way….
I grabbed the dustbin, threw it in an arc designed to pass over his head. He reacted instinctively, lashing out at the perceived threat with a burst of bullets. I popped out, a bo shuriken launching from my hand, lodging in his wrist. He didn’t let go of the gun, panning in disbelief from his wrist to me. His pain threshold was high—got to give him that. He didn’t even shout. I was already crouching on the desk, taking my weight on my hands, lashing out at his bloody hand with a two-footed kick. He dropped the gun. Then he charged, bellowing like a warthog, and tackled me to the floor. He fell on me with his considerable mass.
My flesh ground into my bones. My lungs emptied. Bad mistake. Could only get leverage, power if I could breathe. Get him off.
I was on auto now, my ingrained training grabbing at fear and aggression, funneling them where they’d do the most good, the most damage. I rammed my forehead into his nose. He lurched backward, his blood spattering my face and neck. Air rushed into my lungs under pressure. For just the duration of one lungful. His hands were swooping for my neck, clamping, his thumbs fumbling for my larynx. Don’t let him get a lock.