by Fante, Dan
“Remember something, Vikki,” I said. “What happens here is your pal Sydnye’s MO. If they find a body in this bedroom—your bedroom—they won’t be looking at me. They’ll be looking somewhere else. So, here we go. Question one: How were you involved with Sydnye in the killing of my friend Woody?”
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!”
I restuffed the gag in her mouth. “Wrong answer!”
I put all my weight on her stomach again.
Her face contorted in pain. It took her half a minute to catch her breath.
“Okay,” I said, “you get one more chance. Here’s question number two. If you answer incorrectly I’m going to start hurting you. Really hurting you. So let’s start again from the here and now. It’s easier that way. The orange pills I found in Woody’s car were your pills—correct?”
I removed the gag.
“What if they were? So what.”
“Good. Very good. And were you at Woody’s apartment?”
“Fuck you! I just told you all I know!”
“Jesus, dumb answer!”
She was leering up at me now. “You’d better understand something,” she hissed. “All it takes is one call from me. I’m warning you.”
I stuffed the T-shirt back into her mouth. “Okay,” I said, “you were warned. Now we play the game your way.”
I jammed my knee into her stomach again—harder this time.
As she lay gasping and squirming on the bed, I leaned down and put my mouth to her ear. “I’ll be right back,” I said.
In the master bathroom’s cabinet’s drawers I found everything I needed: a lady’s safety razor, scissors, and a bar of soap. I then located a washcloth, soaked it, and returned to the bedroom with my supplies.
When she saw what I had in my hands Vikki began thrashing on the bed. Another knee to her solar plexus and she stopped resisting.
A couple of minutes later, now back on top of her, straddling her chest again, I began clipping away chunks of her hair, near the roots. When that was done I wet her head with the damp wash rag and coated it with soap, then began shaving.
Five minutes later, now done with her head, I moved down to her crotch and shaved that too. I hadn’t done a very good job in either place but I had made my point: I had followed Sydnye’s MO.
I pulled the gag from her mouth. “Now, do you think I’m serious?” I whispered into her ear. “Did that haircut remind you of anything?”
Vikki glared up at me. “Do you know what a pig you are?”
“Were you at Woody’s apartment? Were you with Sydnye?”
“You’re a pig. Fuck you, pig!”
I stuffed the gag back into her mouth, then moved off of her and down to the end of the bed.
“This may not be exactly the way my friend was tortured,” I said, “but it’ll be close.”
Grabbing her right ankle with both hands, I twisted it hard until I heard the joint snap.
Vikki screamed into the gag for several minutes.
Back on top of her again, I could see her eyes bulging in pain. “Okay, here we go again. I’ll rephrase my last question: “Did you help Sydnye kill my friend?”
I pulled the rag out again. Her face was set in a grimace and she had trouble getting the words out. “Okay, God damn you! Don’t hurt me again! Yes. Okay, yes! I was there! But I didn’t know what was going on. That’s the fucking truth.”
“You were in the apartment and you didn’t know Woody was going to be killed?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe you. I’m calling that another wrong answer.”
“Stop! Please! I never saw her hurt anyone before. I thought it was a sick game—a bluff. I didn’t know she was going to do him. I was just there. She ordered me to come along.”
“Why don’t I believe that?” I said.
Then I began sliding back down her body toward her other foot. Her right ankle was already swollen and turning purple.
“Okay!” she screamed. “I was there to watch! I was ordered to be there. I saw her break his arms and legs. I saw her kill him!”
“You watched my friend being murdered?”
“It was my job! She paid me to be there.”
“Okay, next question. We’re doing better. We’re working together now.”
“Look, she gets crazy. She just gets weird and crazy!”
“And who cut up his clothes in the closet and then poured whiskey down his throat as he was having his bones broken? Who did that?”
“Sydnye!”
“You’re a liar! The two of you were there for hours. Maybe six or seven hours. All night. Sydnye was working—busy torturing Woody. She needed help. There was a lot to do.”
“She wanted it to look freaky in the closet, so I cut the clothes up. She told me to smear his puke in the closet, so I did that too. That’s it. That’s all I did!”
“As she was breaking his bones, who gave him the whiskey?”
“She told me to do it.”
“That was you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you watch as she cut his cock off? Did you help?”
“No! I watched. Okay? I watched her do it. But he was dead by then.”
“You stood by after he was dead and watched my friend get his penis cut off? And you stood there and watched him be tortured—all his bones broken. And you did nothing?”
“Look, she made me. You don’t know her. She’s scary.”
I had to take several deep breaths. This piece of shit of a human being had assisted in my friend’s death. She’d looked on as a decent man was being killed—and did nothing.
I had to change the subject or kill Vikki now with my bare hands.
“So, how did you come to meet Sydnye?” I finally asked.
“A year ago,” she gasped. “We met a year ago. We both had the same shrink. We met in her office.”
“Good answer.”
“Then I went to work for her at the dating service in Hollywood. After that she started paying me to do side jobs.”
“Side jobs? What kinds of side jobs?”
“She took me to clubs—places like that. She wanted to meet people but she didn’t want to do it herself. She’s weird and quiet around people. I would meet them for her and then introduce them to her.”
“Men or women?”
“Both. But she’s into women. She just uses men for sex sometimes.”
“And she paid you to do that?”
“Yes. She paid me.”
“Did she take you to an AA meeting to meet my friend Woody?”
“I introduced her to him at a meeting in Brentwood. It was a big meeting at a synagogue with a few hundred people. On a Wednesday night.”
“And Sydnye was the one who told you to go to work for Sherman Toyota? Sydnye was the one who gave the orders for you to come on to me and to have sex with me?”
“Yes!” she screamed, “it was her idea, okay! All of it.”
“Sydnye paid you to help her kill Woody?”
“Sydnye’s rich. She’s very rich. She’s crazy too. I couldn’t say no.”
“How much did she pay you for your work with me, Vikki?”
“Twenty-five thousand dollars.”
I leaned close to her. “That’s a lot of money,” I whispered. “Your services don’t come cheap.”
“Her trust fund pays a couple of million a year. Sometimes more. She does what she wants. Anything she wants.”
“The day we had sex in my car—did she tell you to bring me back here to your place to fuck me so she could kill me?”
“I’m afraid of her. None of that was my idea!”
Now Vikki began howling, dripping snot and tears as she spoke. “C’mon, listen, I was afraid for my life! I had no choice.�
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“She planned to break my legs and arms and neck and cut my cock off, too, right? And I bet that she had something even more special in mind for me. I bet you know what it was too.”
“She has a drug. It can be injected into someone where they’re conscious all the time while you cut them up. She wanted to use it on you.”
“I believe that, Vikki.”
“I told you she was a freak.”
“Then tell me something else: Do you know her father? Do you know Karl Swan?”
“I only met him once.”
“Only once?”
“In Malibu. At his home. He has a big estate. I drove her there. She likes having me drive her places.”
I shook my head. “Just once? Why don’t I believe that?”
Vikki rolled her eyes. “Hey, she hates him. She doesn’t spend that much time with him. They don’t get along at all.”
“Where is Sydnye now?”
“I don’t know! She calls me. Then we meet.”
“Of course you know, Vikki. Of course you do. I’m calling that another incorrect answer.”
Reaching back down to the end of the bed, I grabbed her by her broken ankle, then shook it violently with my right hand. “I’ve got all night, Vikki.”
More sweat and tears and snot were running down her face. “No! That’s enough, goddamnit! I’m telling you. C’mon, please!”
“Where does Sydnye live?”
“She has an apartment at the Sorrento Towers at the end of Ocean Avenue. Number seven twenty-one. She’ll kill me when she finds out I told you. Now I’m dead for sure.”
“I want the rest of it! All of it! I want details! Sydnye’s a ghost—off the radar. No ID, no traces. What name or names does she use?”
“Her name is Laighne. Laighne Lazarus. That’s the name she uses now.”
“And she’s at the Sorrento Towers. Does she have other addresses?”
“She has the guest house at her father’s place in Malibu. It has a private driveway.”
“Where else?”
“A place in Mexico. Her lover Sandra lives at the Mexico place. Laighne spends some of her time there with Sandra.”
“Did you and Sydnye-Laighne have sex? Are you her lover too? Is that how you got hooked into this sick shit?”
“Okay, I guess that’s it. I don’t know.”
I could feel the blood rushing to my cheeks. We were an inch apart, face-to-face. “So you admit setting me up to be killed! And you admit being there when Woody was killed. And helping while he was being killed. What does that make you, Vikki?”
“I didn’t personally kill anyone, man!”
“Bullshit! Do you want to die—right here—right now!”
She could see the rage building in my eyes and I saw the fear in hers. “Tell me the truth,” I yelled.
“Okay,” she gasped, “I helped! Okay! I helped kill him!”
“How?”
“Just enough so she wouldn’t hurt me too. I helped her break his legs.”
“What else?”
“I was the one who cut his cock off. She ordered me to do it. But he was dead by then. That was all, goddamnit!”
I leaned back away from her. “Last thing, Vikki: I need phone numbers. Sydnye’s numbers. I also need the names and numbers of the people who work for Swan at his estate. His numbers too.”
“I have some. I have Swan’s cell. Sandra’s number in Mexico and Sydnye’s numbers too. I have that stuff.”
FIVE MINUTES LATER we were done. I had everything I needed. Vikki was still strapped down and lying faceup and naked on the bed. Her right ankle was now thickly swollen and contorted.
Holding up her .25 automatic, I leaned toward her. “I’m going to do you a favor, Vikki. I’m giving you a choice. A choice that Woody didn’t have.”
She saw the gun in my hand. “No, for God’s sake. NO! I told you everything. No! Jesus, NO!”
“Here’s the deal. We both know that you and Sydnye were planning to do me right here in this apartment. And we both know that you helped kill my friend. Right?”
“Please! C’mon, Fiorella! Jesus! Please!”
I leaned close to her ear and whispered: “You’re going to die as an accomplice in the murder of my friend. It can go one of two ways: I can break your fingers and arms and legs and keep it going for another three or four hours. Trust me, I’m willing to do that. Or you can hold this gun in your hand and put a bullet in your brain. That’s the deal.”
“NO! Jesus, NO!”
“I’ll start now. I’ll start with the fingers on your right hand, then move to the left hand. Then I’ll go to work on your other ankle. You remember how it goes, right?”
“C’mon! This is me, Fiorella! C’mon, we had something going together, remember?”
I loosened the restraint on her left hand. “You choose, Vikki. It’s up to you.”
She struggled, arching her body on the bed as her naked, thick breasts began flopping from side to side. Then she stopped squirming and glared at me, but said nothing.
After switching the gun to my opposite hand I forced the T-shirt gag back into her mouth. Now her eyes were like a wild animal’s. I grabbed her index finger in my fist and, in one motion, forced it back until I heard a snapping sound.
It took several minutes for her to stop screaming.
NOW I LEANED close to her ear and pulled the gag out. “Tell me when you’re ready to shoot yourself, Vikki. Your other fingers and the thumb are next. One at a time. I’m not going to rush this.”
“Kill me! Just shoot me in the head. Just do it!”
“No no no. You’re the one who’ll do that. I’ll aim the gun under your chin for you but you’re the one who’s going to squeeze the trigger and hopefully blow the top of your head off. I’ll be the one who helps. Just like you helped Woody die. It’s your call. You can die fast or you can die slow.”
She glared at me but didn’t speak.
I began forcing the gag back into her mouth but she resisted by clamping her jaw shut. Reaching down I slapped her swollen ankle with my hand, twice. Hard. That caused her to begin howling again and I jammed the T-shirt back into her mouth.
The broken finger was already swollen to twice its normal size. I held another finger in my fist, then looked into her eyes. “Okay, here we go again, Vikki,” I whispered. “Get ready.”
She began screaming into the gag. Then she nodded her head up and down.
I pulled the gag out.
“Okay. Okay. No more. I’ll do it! I’ll fuckin’ do it!”
Rolling her to her side, I freed her left hand from the belt restraint. Spit and tears were streaming down her face. I heard a sound, then looked down between her legs. She had pissed herself.
Grabbing her left hand tightly, I put the gun in it. My free hand was around her wrist, my finger blocking the trigger guard.
“Ready?” I said.
“Fuck you, man!”
“Right.”
I put her finger on the trigger.
“Okay,” I said, “here we go. Bye-bye, Vikki.”
Her eyes were fixed on the ceiling as she squeezed the trigger.
I WASHED UP her bathroom and cleaned myself up. That done, I wet the hand towel, wrung it out, then wiped off any traces of my prints in the bathroom and in the bedroom.
A quick once-over of the remaining night-stand drawer revealed something new: a small black leather bag—a sort of miniature tool kit—behind a box of CDs. In it were leather thong restraints, three different sized pairs of pliers with black handles, along with two pairs of surgeon’s gloves and a scalpel. Vikki’s traveling torture kit. She only helped. Right!
Preparing to leave, I located her purse in the living room and removed her cell phone, tucking it into my jacket pocket. Then I returned to the bedroom for
the last time, put on the surgeon’s gloves from the torture kit, and wiped everything down again, including the belts I had used to bind her. Then I tore off the piss-soaked, blood-soaked sheets and put them in a pillowcase.
After picking up my Beretta I covered what was left of Vikki’s head with the bedspread. Suddenly I felt the need to vomit and rushed back into the bathroom. It went on for five minutes.
LEAVING THE BUILDING with Vikki’s sheets under my arm, on my way up Sixth Street to Mom’s Escalade, I punched in the number to Archer’s cell. Just as I was putting the phone to my ear, I saw a dark, four-door Benz hook a quick right onto California Avenue, then speed away.
Archer answered on the third ring. “Who’s this?”
“It’s JD. Look, I’m in business. With any luck this could all be over in twenty-four hours. Maybe less.”
“You’re on Sydnye? How’d you get to her?”
“What about my mother? Did you get help?”
“I tried. I made the calls. I’m still waiting.”
“Okay, I’ll call you when I’m done, Archer. Keep trying.”
Then I clicked off.
A few blocks away I threw Vikki’s sheets into a Dumpster behind the Miramar Hotel.
TWENTY-FIVE
swan knew he was not like other men. In fact he was highly aware that his own life was a rather unique one, and that, for whatever cosmic motive, he had been selected and had survived to emancipate himself to a far greater purpose. His existence on the planet represented what he considered to be, for lack of a better term, a sort of experiment—perhaps a kind of virtuoso celestial circus act. In his spare moments he had often mused on these things.
For over fifty years now the producer had risen to increasing riches and status in Hollywood to hold ever-expanding influence over others. On any number of occasions one call from his Century Park East office suite had changed the course of a person’s life completely—for good or ill. In two situations that jogged his recollection, there had been suicides. In another, a pretty, full-breasted girl, whose movie-star career he has assisted for fifteen years (primarily to indulge his personal sexual whims) and whose life he now owned outright, at least on paper, had become engaged to a European head of state. She had neglected to call him for his permission. He had countered this slight simply by making two phone calls. In short order, an exposé of the woman’s private life and drug use reached the tabloid press, complete with revealing photographs of her bisexual escapades. In no time, her betrothed changed his mind and the bitch’s career in the film industry was over.