Point Doom
Page 24
The next, smaller bedroom, fifteen by fifteen, was filled with workout equipment and training machines. The walls were mirrored. Nothing much there.
THE MASTER BEDROOM at the end of the hallway was the payoff. Opening the door I could tell that this room was the only one in the place used by anyone.
There were clothes thrown around everywhere; on the floor and on several overstuffed purple chairs. Skirts and jeans and sexy lingerie covered the extra-large custom-made bed. A widescreen TV was set diagonally in one corner of the room. Two large dog cushions were on either side of the bathroom door. In one corner was a rolling service table. On it was a microwave, a large coffee brewer, and coffee supplies.
The wall on both sides of the TV contained another set of large black-and-white photographs. A dozen of them. These studies were all of Sydnye. All nudes in different poses. The woman in the pictures was strikingly beautiful but more like an idealized replica of the one I’d seen in the flesh on the two previous occasions. Her wavy black hair fell to just above her waist and was parted in the middle. Her mouth and eyes were large and inviting. Her breasts were full and looked too perfect to be real. It was as if I were looking at a different girl. Like her pal Vikki: two separate personalities.
Another area of the big room was dedicated to two dozen stuffed animals, all horses of various sizes.
On a low bureau beneath a wide mirror were several expensive-looking figure-study photographic books. Stepping over to them, I thumbed a few pages. All nudes, all in black and white. All females.
Opening the drawer beneath the bureau, I discovered DVDs of children’s movies. All the Toy Story movies, all the Shrek movies, Finding Nemo, Barbie’s Christmas Carol, and a hundred others. Both bureau drawers were packed with the goddamn things. These were a weird extension of the Happy Meal toys I’d found in the kitchen. Somewhere here was the mind of a deviant psycho-killer.
The bathroom was a mess. It was tiled in black and white with stark, empty walls. All the puffy, oversized towels from the chrome racks were scattered on the gleaming, hard-polished black marble floor.
Across the bathroom, open makeup bottles and lipstick cases were strewn over a white vanity table. Above it was an ornate, out of place Victorian-looking gilded mirror.
At the sink, the medicine cabinet door was ajar and its outward-facing mirror smudged with cream or makeup and finger marks.
I pulled the cabinet open with my gloved hand. Inside, on the shelves, I found what did not surprise me: bottles and bottles of prescription pills: Prozac, Zoloft, Abilify, Xanax, among many others, and several varieties of still-sealed script sleeping meds. The lithium was on the top shelf by itself—four bottles of the stuff.
Opening one, I saw that the pills inside matched the ones I’d found in Vikki’s medicine cabinet—same size and color.
I began popping the tops of all the plastic containers, then dumping the contents of each into the toilet.
When I was done I looked down into the water. It was completely covered in multi-colored pill casings. I hit the flusher. All the pills didn’t go down with the first flush so I waited, then flushed again.
BACK AT THE front door, I moved the stacked glasses aside, then checked my watch. I’d been here almost an hour—still no Sydnye. My last act before leaving was to cut away the duct tape from the sleeping Rotties’ legs and mouth.
A cell phone began buzzing in my pocket. Pulling it out I saw it was Vikki’s cell that was going off. I looked at the printout: Karl Swan’s private number.
“Go ahead, Swan,” I said. “I’m right here. I’m listening.”
“I hope your mother’s rooms at the Raddison in Santa Barbara are satisfactory. I’m told the restaurant in that hotel features an excellent Southwest chicken curry.”
“Fuck you, Swan. You’re a dead man.”
“You should know that several of my staff are stationed outside and in the lobby, awaiting my further instructions. It’s my impression that your hired men are no match for Russian automatic pistols.”
I whispered my response. “I was going to shoot you but now I’ve decided that I’m going to kill you with my bare hands instead.”
“Allow me to state my intentions clearly: Vaginal penetration, for a woman of your mother’s years, can be very uncomfortable—especially with a pointed, sharp object. May I suggest that you stop by my Malibu home? There are issues between us that require resolution. You have one hour, Mr. Fiorella.”
Then Swan clicked off.
What the psycho movie producer hopefully didn’t know yet was that Mom and Coco were not at the Raddison. I was one step ahead of Swan. I didn’t need Archer’s cops. When we were leaving Mom’s house on Point Dume, when I saw that I’d picked up a tail, I’d made the call. Then, when we arrived at the Raddison, I’d let Mendoza’s ex-cops book the room before I escorted Mom and Coco out the back way to one of the guy’s cars. I had then driven them to the Canary Inn, a few minutes away. I was betting and hoping they were still safe.
IN THE ELEVATOR I removed the jacket, ski cap, and goggles.
As the car arrived at the garage level and the doors opened, I felt a wave of something . . . I hesitated.
I waited until the doors began closing behind me, then moved out in a crouch, duck-walking beneath eye level of the parked cars, my Beretta in my hand.
LOOKING DOWN THE long row of front bumpers I saw the high front fender of the black Jeep standing out from the rest of the cars.
I continued shuffling toward it until I caught a glimpse of something bright yellow. The Porsche!
When I was two cars away from Sydnye’s convertible I looked up over the top of a tall SUV. Rudolpho, the boy-toy thug from my mother’s house, was in the passenger seat of the Porsche. Sydnye was behind the wheel.
Rudolpho leaned his head out the passenger window. “We know you’re here, Fiorella. Step out where we can see you—and hold your gun up.”
I waited.
“One call and your mother’s dead, Fiorella! Last time! I said, step out!” Rudolpho barked.
It would have been easy enough to splatter them both right there with one squeeze on the trigger of my 93R. That was my first and best thought, but instead I decided to let the scene play out in a different way, knowing that Karl Swan might yet be holding the best hand. I didn’t want to take any chances with my Mom’s life.
I held my Beretta above my head, then stood upright.
RUDOLPHO MUST’VE REMEMBERED that he owed me because the kicks and blows to my face and stomach came fast and were delivered with the vengeance and skill of a guy holding a grudge. As I lay on the pavement I felt a rib or two give way.
Now Sydnye was above me, too, with something sharp and shining in her hand. “Did you kill my puppies, fucker?” she whispered.
It took me half a minute to spit out the blood and then hold enough breath inside my chest to say the words. “They’re in dreamland, Syd. Not like sweet little Vikki,” I whispered. “She died slowly. You won’t be so lucky.”
Now Sydnye was on her knees beside me. Her face was calm and expressionless. She might have been ordering a double latte at Starbucks. “I’m going to cut you now, Fiorella. I’m going to cut one of your eyes out. Right here. But just one—I don’t want them both. I want you to be able to see the rest of what’s going to happen. I want you to see it all. I want us to enjoy it together.”
Rudolpho’s hand pushed her stiletto away, then he made two quick moves and the blade skidded across the parking lot’s concrete floor. “No way!” he snapped. “Please back off, Miss Swan! That’s not the deal! Your father’s instructions to me were to bring him back in one piece. He was very specific about that.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
There wasn’t enough room in the Porsche for the three of us so Rudolpho cuffed me behind my back and then punched me a few more times until he felt I was peaceful enough to travel.
The car’s battery was dead. There wasn’t even a clicking noise from the solenoid.
“Okay,” Rudolpho offered, “Plan B, Miss Swan. We’ll have to improvise. I’ll call and get more instructions.”
Sydnye rolled her eyes. “Jesus, Rudy. Wake up! Get Fiorella’s keys. We’ll use his car.”
He turned toward me. “Where’s your vehicle, Fiorella? Your mother’s Escalade? Where is it parked?”
“It’s down the block. You’re not very good at this, are you, Rudy?”
COMING UP THE steep ramp toward the electric garage gate, Rudolpho grabbed me with both hands from behind, by the cuffs, then cranked them hard in a circular motion.
“I’m taking these off now,” he hissed. “If you move quickly or say anything, I’ll kill you. Do we understand each other?”
I was smiling. “Okay, numbnuts,” I whispered. “But you’re improvising again. Tell me, does Swan hold your pee-pee for you when you take a squirt too?”
Rudolpho wasn’t amused. I got a nasty toe kick to the upper thigh that sent me to the concrete, on my knees.
After he pulled me to my feet, he handed Sydnye the gun, then unlocked my cuffs. Then he slid the keys back into his shirt pocket.
WHEN THE THREE of us had made our way to Mom’s Escalade, Swan’s man tossed my front pockets only and came up with the keys to her car. “In the back, Fiorella,” he ordered. “Miss Swan, I need you to drive again. I’ll keep an eye on him. I’m following your father’s orders.”
Sydnye made a face at the kid, then snatched the keys from his hand. “You’re a putz, Rudy.”
Rudolpho remained stonefaced. He spun me around, then clamped the cuffs back on my wrists with my arms behind me, then shoved me into the rear passenger compartment behind the driver’s seat.
ON OUR WAY up the Coast Highway toward Point Dume, the traffic was light. As we neared Gladstone’s at Sunset Boulevard, I’d finally managed to work the can of wasp spray out of my back pants pocket. I’d been lucky with Rudy. The hothead had been so distracted, carried away with getting his payback in the garage, that he’d forgotten to look past the Beretta in my hand and into the rear pockets of my slacks.
My gun was still in his right hand as he sat in the front passenger seat across from Sydnye. He used his left hand to pull his cell phone from his jacket pocket, preparing to make a call.
I was directly behind Sydnye as she drove. I knew it was now or never. I had just enough leeway with my cuffed hands behind me to contort my body and aim the nozzle of the wasp spray at the side of Rudolpho’s head. I took a deep breath.
The stream from the can caught part of his face and his left eye. My gun and his cell phone tumbled to the floor of the car as he grabbed at his face.
It took three or four seconds before Sydnye could fully react to what was happening and felt the first collateral sting of the pest spray.
Holding my breath I moved to the center space between the front seats and aimed blindly from behind my back. I began blasting away with the can, in her direction.
The spray missed her head but the ricochet off the inside windshield and the sun visor did immediate damage to her face and eyes.
Sydnye swerved the Escalade toward the shoulder, waving her right hand, trying to block the continuing blast.
When the car finally bumped to a stop against the embankment, I forced my right leg between the console and the driver’s seat.
Now facing Sydnye, then bracing my back against the side of the passenger seat and Rudolpho’s convulsing body, I began kicking at her: four, five, six times.
She was pinned by the driver’s door and had no option but to absorb the punishment I was dealing. Two of my heel thrusts caught her on the side of the head. She slumped against the steering wheel, unconscious.
My eyes and face were burning like crazy from the secondhand contact of the spray. Having to breathe in the evil shit wasn’t helping either.
Climbing across Rudolpho, my hands still shackled behind me, I fumbled to get to the door handle, pulled it, then tumbled to the street.
I immediately began gasping in as much fresh air I as could.
This was L.A. Here was a car in an accident with its front bumper against an embankment—what to any respectable citizen anywhere else in America would clearly be seen as an emergency situation—yet the cars on PCH continued rolling by and ignored our vehicle.
Once on my feet again, I saw that the kid, his eyes still clamped shut, had pulled himself together enough to start groping on the floor mat for my gun.
I leaned back inside the car, near his swollen face, and began using my head as a battering ram against his.
By the time I stopped, blood was streaming down his face and my forehead. The kid’s nose was crushed and his two upper front teeth were dangling from his bleeding mouth.
Bending him sideways toward me in the seat, then turning around, I tore the cuff keys from his shirt pocket with my shackled hands.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, with all the windows in the car open and the A/C blasting, I was at Cross Creek Road, the location where, only weeks before, my life had irrevocably taken a dump at Guido’s Restaurant. The two of them were cramped into the front passenger area, Sydnye on the floor.
I wheeled the Escalade around to the back of the shopping center, then parked out of sight in back of Guido’s.
I dumped both Sydnye and Rudy into the backseat. He was bleeding a lot, holding his head, and barely conscious. She was out cold. The large bulging contusion on the right side of her face and drooping jaw made it clear that bones were broken—probably in more than one place.
Looking around for spectators, making sure I wasn’t being watched, I used my belt and Rudy’s belt to bind Sydnye. Then I used the handcuffs on him.
It took me a few minutes to bring her around. I accomplished this by jabbing her in the thigh with my knife blade until her swollen eyes began to blink.
She couldn’t move her mouth but she was able to garble a few words. “Ooo-re deeeead, Fi-ella,” was her best effort.
I had to smile. “Easy for you to say, dollface. Now look, in a little while you and me and Rudy are going to pay a visit to your father’s place. But before that, we’re going to call Papa. I’ll do most of the talking but I want to make sure that Karl knows that you two are still among the living. You’ll have to speak to him.”
“Ukkk huuuuuu.”
“Right. Not bad. Keep working on it.”
Drool and foam were forming at the corners of her mouth. “So here’s the deal,” I said. ”If you don’t talk to Karl and help me out, I’m going to hurt you again. Badly. Pretty simple. Understand?”
“Ukkk huuuuuu.”
USING RUDOLPHO’S PHONE, I scrolled down to the last outbound number, then pressed send.
The call was answered on the first ring. “Karl Swan speaking.”
“Okay Karl, Sydnye’s here with me. Rudy too, only he’s sort of out of it. I’m the one holding the gun now. I’ve asked Sydnye to say a few words to let you know that I haven’t killed her yet. It’s time for you and me to have a little come-to-Jesus reunion, Karl.”
There was a long pause on the other end. “I have some disappointing news for you as well,” he said in his studied whisper. “The situation here has altered somewhat—albeit to my benefit. I have your mother, Mr. Fiorella. She’s here in front of me, unconscious. Your ruse and the evasions at the Raddison hotel have failed. People were shot, but that was to be expected under the circumstances. So please listen carefully: My primary imperative is for you to bring my daughter and Rudolpho here to my estate, alive.”
Swan’s news hit me hard. The fucker had outsmarted me. “I’ll kill Sydnye,” I said. “I won’t even blink.”
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br /> “I believe you. And that would be exceedingly sad for me. I care deeply for my daughter. But, in truth, she has been lost to me for a long time. Young Rudolpho would actually be a far greater loss. He has great potential. So here is my proposal: Deliver Sydnye and Rudolpho to me with yourself in exchange. That’s my proposition. Take it or leave it. You should also know that I’ve made plans for your mum. Unlike her, I am not an astrologer but my personal prediction is that she will succumb slowly after an invasive surgical procedure. My greatest skill, if I may boast a bit, is in keeping my subjects alert until I have accomplished what I set out to do. Naturally, there will be a great deal of pain. The delivery of high levels of discomfort is what enhances my pleasure. It is my finest talent.”
“Instant death is my skill, motherfucker! I’ll shoot Rudy through the head and not even blink! Want to try me now?”
“Quite simply, your mother will live unharmed in the trade for my daughter and Rudolpho. You, of course, will remain here with me. Mrs. Fiorella and her unconscious lady friend will go free. Do we have a deal?”
“Yeah, asshole, we have a deal.”
“Now, I must assume that Rudolpho is injured. Is that the case?”
“He’s a little lumpy but your young protégé is still alive. He’ll need some dental work and other stuff.”
“Mrs. Fiorella has no knowledge of being here. She and her companion were sedated in Santa Barbara before their drive down the coast. I can deliver the two ladies unharmed, if you and I can come to a suitable accommodation. Wait! How fortuitous, Mom is apparently beginning to come to! Excellent timing. Please, now I would like to speak to my daughter.”
“Okay, asshole. Here’s Sydnye. Then put Mom on the phone.”
I stuck the cell to Sydnye’s ear. “Talk now, bitch, or I’ll punch your face,” I whispered.