The Dream Virgin

by Don Quine

  Leon took out a syringe and stuck it in Vladimir’s neck.

  The killer jumped at the prick, turned around to Leon, desperate to understand why this was happening to him.

  “Who are you, mate? Why you doing this?”

  Vladimir knew it was about more than money.

  Leon told Vladimir the sodium thiopental was a pleasant high, to sit back and enjoy it while Leon asked some questions and explained briefly to Vladimir that he was to answer them with just a yes or a no, unless Leon asked for more.

  Then Leon took a weathered front-page newspaper clipping from his jacket, unfolded it, and held it in front of Vladimir.

  The heading read: Prominent Portland Tycoon and Philanthropist Murdered on Hawaiian Beach.

  Under the heading there was a photo of a man’s body on a beach with police markers surrounding it. Under the photo the article gave details.

  Leon’s memory flashed.

  Being on the lake with Harry fishing for Kokanee and hooking a mackinaw when his cell rang, a photo of his dad’s face laughing at life, but the call wasn’t from his dad; it was a cop with bad news. Landing the Cessna in Princeville, the Hanalei Bay so beautiful at sunset and feeling numb, lost. Confirming his dad’s groin-riddled body that had been moved from the beach into his suite at the St. Regis Resort. Screaming and pounding the bed, oblivious to cops and medics and hotel staff, but feeling the flush of hate fill his heart.

  Leon put the clipping back in his pocket.

  No. Vladimir didn’t know Robert Bickford.

  Yes. Vladimir shot the mark in his groin on that beach after breakfast. Groin shots were his signature. “Want your mark to catch a lethal dose of clap, you hire VD.”

  Vladimir giggled.

  Leon smashed him in mouth with his gun, reminded the hitman, just Yes or No.

  No. Vladimir didn’t know who hired him.

  Yes. It was a normal-sized-looking man with a mustache.

  Yes. It was at The Beach Bar in Honolulu.

  A few minutes more of Yes and No, with no details worth believing beyond what was already known, Leon got tired of Vladimir’s giggles.

  Truth serum seldom worked on a professional liar, but it did confirm for Leon that Vladimir was the hitman. That the millions Leon spent on informants and investigators the past nine years finally paid off. He still had to find out who had hired Vladimir, but a message would be sent and hopefully cause some rumbling; stir things up.

  It didn’t matter how much Leon still needed to spend or how long it took, he would find the person who ordered the murder of his father.

  Vladimir looked at Leon, knew without asking, and said, “The guy I did was close to you, huh?”

  Leon nodded, told Vladimir to lie down on the plastic-covered floor next to his dead associates, stretch out like he was taking a nap and close his eyes. Vladimir did like Leon requested, giggled and said he didn’t want to die, he liked Angie’s Irish stew.

  There were only three bullets left in the 10-cartridge 9mm clip when Leon shot Vladimir. He reloaded the P30 and emptied the full clip until Vladimir stopped screaming, his groin a raw meatloaf.

  Except for the compressor fan, the refrigerated room was deadly quiet.

  Leon stared at Vladimir, then looked away.

  He didn’t look happy or angry when he said, “Got one of them, Dad.”

  Leon said it simply and wasn’t aware of the point-blank blood on his gun hand and arm or the tears on his face.

  The pawnbroker watched Leon leave the fish store, watched him nod up at the tree where the pawnbroker had been lodged since sundown with his assault rifle and three sidearms. Protein bars and a flask of black tea.

  Leon stepped over the dead gang members lying on the walkways and headed toward the entrance to the office strip where the three black BMWs were. A dark Mercedes pulled up to the entrance and Leon got in the car.

  A minute later three Asian gangsters in black suits and shirts opened the door of the Arts Foundry office and took orders in Thai from Marsha. They gathered the dead bodies and dragged them into the fish store.

  One thug followed behind and gave swift sweeps of spray to the bloody walkways, used a tank of special solvent and the red stains faded away like magic.

  The pawnbroker waited for the thug with the solvent to go in the store.

  Once the coast was clear, he dropped down from the tree, landed on the wall, jumped onto the walkway, sprinted to the entrance of the strip, and got in the car with Leon.

  The dark Mercedes drove off without headlights until it got a block away and the low beams came on.

  It was near sunrise when Leon slipped out of his custom-made suit, removed his blonde hair and goatee, hawk nose and horn rim glasses, put them in a trash bag, and changed into his Aloha outfit.

  He walked from the hidden room through the bathroom into the pawnshop where he got the distinctive suspenders that offset his outfits, his excuse to visit the seedy side of the city to purchase unique items.

  Leon left the closed shop with a pair of fancy suspenders, left out the back way out into the alley where a silver Audi A7 was waiting.

  A bum waited by the alley street entrance, mumbled to himself, tried to light a cigarette butt.

  Leon got in the Audi.

  The bum walked to the other side of the street; mumbled.

  The Audi pulled out of the alley, hung a right onto the street.

  The bum watched the pawnbroker walk out of his shop, lock the front door, acknowledge the sound of an early morning harbor horn, then get in the silver A7 and drive away.

  Swiftly pocketing his handgun, the bum headed toward a car parked down the street where a stray dog lifted a leg to its rear tire.

  CHAPTER 61

  The pawnbroker looked very different from the way he looked at the pawnshop. He no longer wore a turban. He didn’t have an assault rifle on him. In fact, he had on nothing but the white towel draped over his buttocks by the Filipina masseuse stepping on his back with her feet.

  “Oh, yeah!” “Right there!” “Ahhh!”

  Jafar Jones was low to the plush carpeted floor on his custom-built massage table with a slot to put your head and breathe and look at a magazine if you wanted but never did except in the beginning when the muscles were warmed up with hot towels.

  Jafar was Rahim’s older brother and Jones was the last name their parents adopted when they moved from Azerbaijan to the United States and settled in Portland in 1963.

  Rustam was their real last name.

  In Azerbaijan, it was a name that carried great prestige due to Jafar and Rahim’s cousin Mazra, whose uncle was the great poet, Suleyman Rustam.

  When Jafar wasn’t getting massaged, wasn’t taking care of business, but was entertaining attractive women, he would tip his champagne glass, suavely say, “Sevgilim, könlüm sənin heyranın olsun, olmasın?”

  The attractive ladies would look at him wide-eyed in wonder.

  Jafar would explain his relationship to the great poet, that what he recited for them in Turkish was the first line of one of Suleyman’s finest poems.

  Jafar would take a sip of Dom Perignon, wait for the ladies to ask what the line meant in English, and Jafar would suavely translate, “Sweetheart, ever wish my heart became your follower?”

  The ladies would swoon and tell Jafar it was so lyrical, such a romantic line. He’d smile, knew they could give a shit, the lines they cared about were kept on a silver plate with a silver straw on Jafar’s coffee table in his two-bedroom bachelor suite in one of Portland’s finest luxury hotels.

  Jafar had an expensive lifestyle, but espionage paid well.

  Leon tuned Jafar’s massage moans out by tuning into his Kundalini, did fifty Breath of Fires by the sectional sofa, then stood up, feet shoulder-width apart for a memory exercise.

  Focus now, Leo
n.

  Tip of the tongue on the roof of the mouth, right arm crosses the chest so the right thumb and fingers can squeeze tight on the bottom of the left earlobe, same with the left hand squeezing the right ear.

  Now exhale slowly as you slowly squat, and slowly inhale when you slowly rise.

  Good, Leon.

  It was a good exercise for autistic kids and folks with Alzheimer’s.

  A set of fifteen reps gave Leon a sharp perk. He needed it. Except for a few catnaps, he hadn’t slept in thirty-two hours.

  He marveled at Elfri only taking naps.

  Leon was halfway through the set when Jafar thanked the masseuse who smiled subserviently and helped him slip into a gorgeous silk robe.

  The Le Jourdain restaurant was located inside the hotel on the twenty-first floor.

  Jafar was treated like royalty, his table by the beautiful bay window featuring the Columbia River with a glimpse of Mount Hood was always marked Reserved.

  Leon and Jafar discussed Marsha’s distribution of the videos that Vladimir took in the fish frig, the hooked chinks along with the additional videos she took of Vladimir and his bullet-riddled groin. Marsha would see that the crime boss in Bangkok got the bloody video along with forty-three informants Jafar had in Asia, Europe, Africa, and South and North America.

  That was part of the deal Marsha had with Jafar.

  Marsha would take over and run the Vancouver operation and stay in touch, spread the word that the informant who provided her with info on the person or persons who hired Vladimir to murder Robert Bickford would get a million dollars.

  Twenty-five percent commission for Marsha.

  Leon picked at his omelet while Jafar enjoyed a waffle, spoke about the price of freedom and the new Le Jourdain hostess that worked the dinner shift.

  Leon looked at his watch. In another hour he’d be in his plane, fly back to Enterprise where Oliver would meet him in the chopper.

  Vengeance was bittersweet because it wasn’t complete, and the hate held Leon hostage. He didn’t know how long or how much it would cost him to find who was behind his father’s murder, but he did know who Reimer was and that he was out there somewhere.

  Leon needed to make sure he found him before the cops did.

  Jafar put down his V-8 and answered his phone.

  “When?” he said, listened a little more, then said, “Okay, follow them to Enterprise for the arraignment,” then Jafar asked Rahim in Turkish what good was his taking Lipitor if he’s eating ice cream every night. Was he watching his anger?

  Rahim was headed for a heart attack like their father if he didn’t.

  CHAPTER 62

  “You’ll want to use that regulator hose, the one with the yellow stripe; hooks up under the fire pan,” Hugh said.

  Hugh was a nice, mid-twenties guy with yellow-rim glasses on a preoccupied face, the Nest Associate working on the Dream Zoo project along with five Greenhorns assigned to help get the Dreamland Companion hooked up to the Express that was parked at the rear of Elfri’s project space, large spruce trees rising behind the bus.

  Chip was sitting by a nearby tree trunk with his sketchpad.

  Hugh was being polite. He wanted to get back to the construction center and work with fiberglass, which was his specialty. And he was focused on fabricating a Dreamers Only storefront.

  Elfri picked up the hose.

  “If you got more important stuff to do, Hugh, I think we can handle this, right guys?”

  The Greenhorns agreed totally.

  More than a dozen acres of meadowland had been cleared, set up for the estimated three-thousand-plus Bashers who’d be checking out hundreds of Crazy Ideas in a few weeks. Along with a few dozen venture capitalists.

  A team of Greenhorns cleared the access road from Ventures Nest Road that continued past the Nest parking entrance for a quarter mile to where the campus ended and the Bash grounds began.

  The campus would be closed to the public for the weekend unless you had a Ventures Nest Tour Ticket for $20 that let you walk around the Nest in groups with a guide and get a look with explanations of what was going on; goals and accomplishments of the diverse and innovative projects.

  If you had deep pockets, you could buy a $1,000 VN Patron ticket that got you a special viewing of one of the hush-hush projects called The Obstickle, which, word was, a challenge course that made you laugh.

  First Aid stations and portable potties were being placed on the Bash grounds along with food booths painted to identify themselves and their menus. Booths, tables, sets, and shades, the bulk of the Bash construction was made of cardboard. Many of the portable structures folded away for another day, others were recycled.

  There were eight hundred 10’x10’ outdoor spaces and fifty-nine exhibition booths. The booths and spaces were set up on each side of the long and winding way which ran from the Bash entrance to the rear of the event grounds where a special area on a rise was built for the five Nestlings to showcase their projects, each with its own seating area for prospective investors.

  The rise sloped down to the end of the winding way where the Crazy Ideas auction stage was being set up for the motor-mouth wonder, Bill “Itty Biddy” Cassidy.

  Because Itty was only ten, he had his mom and dad fly in with him from Taos, saw that his throat got breaks and stayed moist with sips of kombucha. Maybe not as fast as the kid on Little Big Shots, but Itty’s bids were wicked and fast enough for the VC crowd to yell out and raise their bid boards. If they had the Bash app they could zap their bids from their smartphones; Itty quick-talking the money up higher and higher.

  If you were a Greenhorn, being able to work on one of the Nestling projects was a home run. And of all five projects, Elfri’s was the grand slam.

  Tasty treat puppets, kid vitamins, fashion getups, and portable workouts were cool and clever spins on things, but dreams were hard to compete with when you were showed how to bring them to life with help from a professional like Elfri. DZ was the killer project to be working on.

  Elfri had on shorts, sneakers, and a tee, hair tucked under a cap like she did before she got to Ventures Nest. Difference was now she was okay with people looking at her. If they thought she was sexy, no problem.

  As long as no one said anything smart or got out of hand, she felt fine about having a nice ass.

  The Dreamy Eyes outfit Leah designed for her was a stunner, but Elfri accepting being sexy had more to do with what happened around her in the past two months than it had to do with fashion smarts.

  Pops hooking up with Molly, becoming a nudist, and spending time writing his romance novel.

  Jack giving Elfri winks, showing her that flirting was a way to connect with people in general, not just as a come on.

  Chip, with no nightmares for nearly a month, working on his Driller comic book.

  The people in her life she grew to know and love helped Elfri open up more to others she didn’t know. But most of all it was knowing that when the time was right, she and Oliver would be together.

  And if that caused her to look sexy, she was good with it. Which no doubt had something to do with Hugh asking again, “Sure you’re okay, Elfri, no biggie for me to hang out if you want?”

  Elfri twirled the hose.

  “Go do your amazing things, Hugh. We’ll call you if we have any questions.”

  Elfri gave Hugh a smile and a wink.

  Hugh smiled, nodded, backed away from the Dreamside Companion, got in his cart and headed for the construction center feeling like a lucky guy when Oliver unicycled past him.

  Elfri watched Oliver and Hugh wave to each other, then Oliver pedaled up and hopped off next to her.

  “Hey, you,” he said, holding the seat of his unicycle.

  “Hey,” Elfri said back as they held each other’s eyes for a heartbeat.

  Then Oliver asked if th
ey could talk.

  They took a walk and Chip tagged along. He liked seeing Elfri and Oliver together and kept his distance so they could have some private space.

  They stopped near the Wisdom in Residence yurt that had a wise person in it a month at a time that was booked year round. Currently occupied by a philosopher working on her latest treatise that was called Emotional Religions. A very calm lady with an accepting manner.

  Elfri looked down on the brook that cut through campus and touched a pond of nearby water lilies. Oliver looked at her.

  “How you feeling?”

  Elfri turned from the lilies and looked at Oliver.

  “About what? Life in general? Or the announcement you and Nicole had to make yesterday to everyone at the Nest regarding Reimer Gore being on the loose after it made the news? News you’ve known about before it became news, which was only shared with a select few that included my grandfather?”

  She glanced at Chip sketching by the tree.

  “Or how do I feel about treated like a child, not an adult who deserves to know what the fuck is going on, especially since I spend more time with Chip than any of you do?”

  Elfri took a step that put her face to face with Oliver.

  “You want to know how I feel about that?”

  During the short time it took Elfri to tell him how angry and hurt she was, she realized Oliver wasn’t just tuned into what she was telling him about Reimer, he was tuned into her. He was looking deep into her eyes.

  Elfri stopped talking.

  Oliver took her hands and drew Elfri slowly into his arms.

  “You’re a hothead,” he said.

  Elfri said, “What are you going to do about it?”

  Chip went back to drawing. The Driller wasn’t into kissing.

  CHAPTER 63

  The motel room was warm; ceiling fans, but no air conditioning.

  Leon, Will, Ray, Oliver, and Jack studied a map of Northeast Oregon.

  There were four markers on the map where Reimer had been in relation to Lake Meadows. It was decided and agreed, with Molly’s and Nicole’s approval, that Oliver and Jack would use Ed and Al to hunt Reimer like they did when with the biker gang, only this time the team would move in once Reimer was spotted.