by Jonas Saul
It was one thing when a woman was beaten up or raped for no reason. But when she asked for it and then tried to get the guy in trouble when she had it coming—that was where he drew the line.
Janice had to pay for what she did.
And for what she does to men in that VIP lounge.
He drank from his beer again, which was half empty. His stomach turned at the thought of missing her. Could she have showed up to quit and left already? Could he have missed her when he parked at the back by the smoking area?
When he finished his drink, he planned on going back to his vehicle and waiting out there. She would either show, or he would have to come back another night.
The girl on stage was too skinny. She appeared to be either drunk or stoned as her movements were uncoordinated. She swung around the pole too many times, holding on with her right hand, swaying to and fro to a Led Zeppelin classic.
On his last pull from the bottle, his subject stepped onto the floor. Janice had been in the VIP lounge all this time. A man came out behind her, tucking his shirt in.
“You little bitch,” he whispered, not afraid anyone would hear over the music. “You’re the one who has a price to pay.”
He’d seen enough. He had played it cool this long. Watching his subject take man after man back to VIP might make him grab her in the middle of the club. Then he would have to deal with the bouncers and he wouldn’t be able to go to work tomorrow and everything would be blown and he …
He smacked his face hard.
“Enough!” he scolded himself.
A man three tables over turned to him, met his eyes and then glanced away.
He got to his feet and started across the carpeted club floor without looking at his subject again. He would see her soon enough. He passed the bouncer, smacked the door hard on the way out and took a deep breath of the cold air. The temperature was dropping. Cars raced by on The Queensway, oblivious of who he was and what he was about to do.
Maybe it is better that way. The public lives in bliss not knowing who I really am and that I live among them. Fucking ignorant ants.
He jumped off the steps and walked through the parking lot toward his vehicle. As he neared it, two women were smoking by the picnic table. He had to get closer to be able to see if one of them was his subject.
One of the girls was a short-haired blonde with a thick fur coat covering her shoulders. Janice had long brown hair like the other woman who stood with her back to him. She wore a black winter coat, but Janice had worn a red winter coat to work.
He got to about even with them, his Range Rover two vehicles up. Then he turned at the same time the woman with the long brown hair turned toward him.
It was her. His subject. Janice.
This was his chance. He needed the chloroform. And he needed to deal with the other woman.
He made it to his car, opened the door and pulled the chloroform cloth out. The bottle had the right amount, measured previously, and he dabbed it onto the cloth.
He shut the door and popped open the tailgate as he glanced at the picnic table. Both women were still there, but their cigarettes were almost done.
Leaving his tailgate open, he walked toward them.
“Excuse me?” he called from just a few feet away. Their faces said this was their private time. Talk to them inside or don’t talk to them at all.
Yeah, well fuck you both.
“I wonder if either one of you could help me locate Dundas Street. I think it’s around here somewhere.” He came prepared with a small map that he pulled out of his pocket, unfolding it as he did. “Is it close?”
Music thumped behind the back door, which sat propped open with a broom handle. He stepped in closer and opened the map for them to look at while scanning the immediate area.
No one was in the parking lot. This was the perfect time.
But what should he do with the second girl?
It was now or never.
“It’s not far,” his subject answered without looking down at the map. “Just take The Queensway that way.” She gestured west.
Before she could turn back around, he stumbled over his feet on purpose, tripped close to the back door and jammed his foot onto the tip of the broom handle, forcing it deep into the back of the club. It slid inside perfectly and the door closed, latching with an audible click.
He collected himself and turned around. “I’m so sorry, ladies.”
Disgust showed on both their faces.
“Why’d you do that?” the short-haired girl asked. “Shit, now we have to walk all the way around to the front. Way to go, Moe.” She dropped her cigarette to the wet pavement and stomped on it, twisting her foot as if to drive it into the ground.
He chuckled. “Moe? You’ve got to be kidding.”
The girls looked at each other clearly wanting him gone. This was their private break area. He didn’t belong.
As fast as he could, he pulled the chloroform napkin out of his pocket and jammed it onto Janice’s face. She grunted and yanked her head back, but banged into the brick wall behind her. She clawed at his forearm with both hands, which he had expected, but it would only be another second or two before she was asleep.
The short-haired woman had moved behind him. He knew he needed to keep an eye on her. What if she ran? Memorized his license plate number? For a brief second, he realized how stupid this was and how risky.
Then all thoughts left his mind as a sudden and sharp pain rose from his groin. He looked down just as his feet settled onto the cement again. The short-haired woman’s hand was squeezing his scrotum from behind as she screamed. She held on at a steady rate of strength, but things were numbing for him below the waist.
“Let her go!” she yelled, but it didn’t matter anymore. When she had grabbed him, both his hands had shot upwards, removing the napkin from Janice’s face.
Janice lay on the wet cement, unconscious. He had done it and if he had one clear thought through all the pain he felt, he knew he had to neutralize the other woman too, or he would be in jail before the night was over.
Ignoring the pain as much as he could, he shouted an animalistic cry, twisted his upper body around and bent down toward the other woman, jamming the chloroform napkin onto her face. She pulled back and away, trying in vain to get away from his probing hand. In doing so, her hand released his scrotum.
He dropped to his knees with a loud grunt, never letting his hand fall from her face. She was a fighter, writhing under his grip while backing away on her butt. In the end, he held on long enough and there was plenty chloroform to make her lose consciousness, too.
Exhausted, spent, and in a great deal of pain, he lay there a few heartbeats and just breathed. Time was running out. Someone else could pop out the door for a smoke break or to check on the shouting. A customer could happen upon them.
He pushed himself up to a sitting position, looked around and then got to his feet. He forced one leg in front of the other even though he wanted to lie down and wait for the pain to subside. His legs obliged him as long as he spread them wide with each step, careful not to brush up against his scrotum.
She would pay for what she did to him. He had to pay, so she would too.
Janice was light. Getting her into the back of the Range Rover proved easy. He dropped her in roughly as a car drove by looking for a spot to park. He waited until the vehicle had passed and then went back for the second girl.
Getting her inside the back of the Rover was tougher and he considered himself lucky that no one came out the back door the entire time. He shut and secured his gate, then hopped around to the driver’s side and jumped in.
He had done it and got more than he bargained for—two bad women for the price of one.
Signs like this proved what he did was righteous. If he wasn’t supposed to be fixing things, resetting the wrongs they had perpetrated, then someone would’ve interrupted him.
He started the vehicle, left the parking lot and got onto highway 427 he
ading north. Once on Keele Street, he kept to the speed of traffic. When he pulled onto the street with the warehouse and his homemade cage, only the streetlights shone. The buildings were all dark.
Neither woman woke during the twenty-minute ride. He killed his lights and rolled to a stop near the toboggan tracks from earlier. Behind the front seat the magnetic strips advertising the security firm sat where he had placed them. Once they were affixed to each door, he checked on his captives. Both were still deep in a drugged sleep.
To make sure they didn’t wake until he was ready for them to, he opened another bottle of chloroform, dabbed a new cloth with it and held it over each girl’s nose for a few quick moments.
“There, that should do it.”
The far-off traffic was the only noise at this time of night. In this part of the industrial community at this hour, there wouldn’t be too much traffic close by. Even if a vehicle happened upon his Range Rover, the security signs wouldn’t garner a second glance.
He pulled the feisty one out first and dragged her by her heels through the snow, through the hole in the fence and then into the building’s side door. Once in the warehouse, he pulled her up and onto his shoulder fireman style and walked her downstairs to the cage. Minutes later, she was lying on her back in the cage, still sleeping. He checked her pulse. Steady and regular.
His scrotum felt better, which made him lighter on his feet. He hustled back outside and found Janice sleeping peacefully in the Rover.
After pulling her out and getting her inside, he shut the side door, lifted her up and carried her to the basement room, but he didn’t put her in the cage right away. She needed her operation while she was still unconscious.
I’m humane. I won’t slice your tongue off and suture it while you’re awake.
Smiling to himself at his kindness, he laid her down on the floor on her back. Then he removed her jacket, halter top and mini-skirt. Once she was completely naked, he admired her body. Such a thing of perfection, and could be had by any man willing to pay the price. Because of that, it was her turn to pay the price.
He rubbed his hands along her tanned skin, stopping on her nipples to caress them.
“When you wake, we’ll have more fun. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind doing everything while you’re drugged and sleeping—actually that’s preferred. I hate the protests and the crying. But you get a reprieve the first night because my ball sac is just too sore. Sadly, that bitch over there ruined our first evening together.”
He got up, walked over to the medical bag and removed the scalpel. Then he held it over the flame of the Bunsen burner.
“When the scalpel is hot like this, it helps to cauterize the tongue and limits bleeding,” he explained to his unconscious victim. “After that, I’ll use a cautery unit to burn the open cut, closing off blood vessels, which prevents further bleeding.” He turned to her with the hot scalpel ready in his hand. “But what do you care? You’ll sleep through the entire thing. When you wake tomorrow, we’ll be ready to have fun.”
He knelt beside her and ran a hand along her perfect thigh, stopping on the edge of her vagina.
“Oh, the fun we’ll have this week.”
Then he forced her mouth open. Using a clamp, he grabbed the tip of her pink tongue and pulled it out as far as he could.
With the scalpel as hot as it was, the edge cut into the base of her tongue easily.
He laughed as he sliced, knowing he was doing the work he was supposed to be doing.
The ultimate reset had begun, and he was the man to finish it.
Chapter 17
Kierian and Clint made it to the police station downtown, hopped out of the Impala and ran inside. Clint had gathered that the Toronto Police were processing Sarah Roberts for something. Their contact in the States hadn’t learned any more in such a short time. The Chief of Police was being called and asked to cooperate again.
Kierian wondered what the Chief was being told to get his cooperation so readily, but he figured it was something like national security or Sarah was under the protection of the United States. In the end, it didn’t matter as long as the Toronto police backed off. They had a mission. Even though it had gone on many more months than anticipated, and he was feeling as lazy about it as Clint was, they still had to see it through.
Had they caught up with her in Vegas, they could’ve offered her the deal. But without recent proof of her capabilities, the deal remained off the table.
They reached the front desk together.
Kierian held his FBI credentials up for the officer to see. “We understand Sarah Roberts, an American citizen, is being processed here.”
“FBI, eh?” He studied the badge and looked back at Kierian. “I’ll take a look.”
The officer turned to his computer and typed on the keyboard. After a minute, he turned back.
“There’s no Sarah Roberts in our system. Sorry guys. You’ll have to look elsewhere—”
“She’s in there. Check again.”
The cop’s face hardened. “I just checked. She ain’t in there.”
“Check again,” Kierian said. “She is.”
He mumbled something unintelligible to himself and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms.
“What are you doing?” Kierian asked. “Where is Sarah Roberts? We have to speak to her.”
“I have no idea. If she were here, I could tell you. But she ain’t.”
Kierian’s tolerance for asshole cops dropped to an all-new low. “Then put me through to the Chief of Police. Tell him Special Agent Kierian of the FBI is here and we need to have a talk.”
The cop chuckled. “Yeah, right. I’ll just dial him up and get him on the line for you.” He spoke in a high-pitched teenaged voice, mocking Kierian.
Clint’s phone chimed. They stepped back from the counter as Clint answered it. The reprieve came at the right time. Kierian was close to reaching across the desk and strangling the self-righteous asshole.
After a couple of mumbled comments, Clint extended his phone to the cop behind the desk who refused to take it.
Clint pulled his phone back and hit a button on it. “You’re on speaker, sir. Go ahead.”
“This is Chief Jones,” he said. “Offer these men your full cooperation. An American citizen named Sarah Roberts is under their observation. If she is in the building, locate her. These men need to speak with her. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” the Toronto cop said. He sat up in front of his computer and typed furiously.
“Thank you, sir,” Clint said into the phone and clicked off speaker. Then he ended the call.
“She’s in interrogation room four downstairs.”
“Is there a lawyer present?” Kierian asked.
The cop shrugged. “I have no idea. But I’ll have someone escort you two down there immediately.”
How fast the tone changes …
Chapter 18
Aaron stood at the living room window looking out at the cold evening. Sarah could be anywhere.
The phone rang again. This time Aaron picked it up and didn’t say Sarah’s name. He didn’t say a thing. He just listened.
“Is anyone there?” a man asked.
“Who’s this?”
“I need to speak with Sarah Roberts.”
“Yeah, sure. No problem. But not until I know who you are.”
There was a pause at the other end. “I don’t give out my name freely. I prefer anonymity.”
“Think of me as the gatekeeper. The key to getting past me is a name. That’s all. No name, no Sarah.”
The man cleared his throat. “Who are you?”
“My name is Aaron Stevens. You called my home.”
“The apartment on the second floor, downtown? Walking distance to your gym?”
“How do you know all that?”
“Penny told me.”
“Penny? Who’s that? And stop talking in circles.”
“Penny was my daughter.”
&nbs
p; “Was your daughter? Then how could she tell you—wait, I don’t know any Penny. How would Penny know me?”
More silence on the line. Something Sarah had told him came to mind.
“Are you Sarah’s cousin?” Aaron asked.
“Yes,” he said, as if he breathed the word out.
“Russell? It’s been awhile.”
“Please don’t say my name.”