Savage Nights

by W. D. Gagliani

  Why?

  Suddenly, it was as if she had just begun to see how important this concept might be to her, though she had no idea why or how.

  She glanced at her two roommates —

  cellmates

  — and saw that they had both entered some sort of contemplative trance, maybe remembering how good their food tasted.

  Or maybe Marissa remembered how much she liked kinky sex.

  Jesus, she was beginning to go nuts. Or maybe it was the aftereffects of whatever shit they'd given her. In her food, no less, like a damned dog.

  Kit wondered if she'd ever be the same after this. After Uncle Rich found her and saved her from these men, whoever they were and whatever they ultimately wanted.

  Kit was smart enough to understand what she'd seen today. They had filmed the encounter with Marissa, so they were probably making pornography. That was a given, when you had a room called the Studio. But then what the hell was the Showroom, and the Sales Floor?

  Jesus.

  Kit started to think carefully about those names, and she didn't like what came to mind. Not at all.

  She tried to concentrate. What had her mother told her about Uncle Rich? What could she piece together from the bits she remembered her father griping about? Something about vision.

  Visions?

  What kind of visions?

  If her Uncle Rich was a monster who had visions, maybe he was also the kind of person who could see murders taking place, that kind of thing. A psychic. Maybe that's what her dad meant, maybe he was the kind of person who had a talent that others saw as monstrous, but really wasn't.

  Maybe he could see people in trouble, people trapped by some terrible consequence not of their own making.

  Maybe Kit could let him know she was in trouble. Lead him to her. Of course, she didn't know where she was. But maybe Marissa did. Or maybe Kit could figure it out before tomorrow. Maybe she could show him what to look for, in a vision.

  Kit decided she didn't have much to lose.

  She also decided that she would have to come up with another plan. What she needed was a weapon, but where was she going to find one?

  She started looking more carefully at her environment.

  She looked thoughtfully at Anne Marie.

  The Studio loomed large in her mind.

  FOURTEEN

  The middle-of-the-night tacos had stimulated his appetite. His stomach felt aggressively empty of anything except acid, which he ignored even though it seemed to gurgle and foam inside him.

  Brant watched the sharp winter light creeping up on the shadows from a window booth at his regular diner, and again the place was mostly empty and devoid of holiday cheer. Ignoring the acid in his belly and throat, and the twitch below his neck, he ordered scrambled eggs and potatoes, skipped the sausage, but allowed the thick Greek toast. Tea was once again the healthiest part of the meal. Brant felt his usual emptiness, knew the food wouldn't even touch it. He had rarely ever been able to gain weight. His slender Tunnel Rat frame had thickened only a little in thirty-odd years. But old habits were always the hardest to kill, and the urge to keep up his strength was overwhelming.

  He shivered as if sitting in a draft and drank his tea, letting it scald all the way down.

  The food came and he flirted with Sheila the waitress again because that was his pattern. She was attractive but too old to chase and too married. Sheila absent-mindedly patted her hair and smiled at him when he thanked her. The food held no interest for him, suddenly. His mind wandered.

  Irina's exquisite face floated into his mind. He heard Sheila's voice, but Irina's lips formed the words. His mind broadcast the sounds he had heard that morning below the apartment and he felt himself stirring, despite the knowledge that the girl was barely out of her teens. Between Irina and Colgrave, it seemed he was destined to let his thoughts wander. Wander toward lust.

  "I was askin' you if you wanted a refill on the tea, hon."

  His eyes crossed a little. Irina's pouty face faded and Sheila was there, her crooked smile wavering. Wondering if he was mocking her?

  He nodded. "Thanks, more tea's great."

  "Cold out there," she said. She held out the pot she'd already brought. "Work third shift?"

  "Sometimes."

  "I feel the same way and I'm here every night."

  Damn it, he wanted to be nice, but his mind whirred with thoughts and possibilities and more than a little lust, and this conversation was beginning to intrude. He gathered he was supposed to laugh, but all he did was smile lamely. "I know what you mean." Sheila's eyes crinkled a bit and she got the message. "I'll leave you alone now, hon. I got other customers, anyway."

  One elderly man had hobbled in. As she walked away, Brant caught her disappointment and cursed himself.

  He drank hot tea. The burn felt good.

  His phone bleeped a nameless tune. It was Sergeant Colgrave. "Yeah?"

  Her voice wasn't quite as warm as it had been. "Zimmerman wants you to come in again."

  "Any news?" His heart beat faster.

  "No." She hesitated. "Nothing about your niece yet."

  "I'm about to eat," he said. For Colgrave, he knew he would have moved faster. For Zimmerman, he realized he didn't give a shit. He had a feeling he knew what was up.

  She sighed into the phone. Caught between the rock and the rock pile. "Look, eat then get over here."

  "Shit."

  "Yeah, shit is about right." A hint of humor shone through. "You should have seen him bouncing around here like you'd pissed on his Wheaties."

  "Don't give me ideas."

  "Listen, Brant, I gotta tell you. I'm sympathetic here, but this tension between you two is making for a pain in the ass. I don't like being in the middle."

  "I know. Hold on." He saw Sheila approaching with a water jug and a glass. He smiled as she filled it, eyebrows raised. He didn't fit the profile of the eat-and-chat cell phone set she saw every day. He nodded and tried to rescue his earlier reluctance with another big smile and nod. A decent tip would repair the problem. "Thanks," he whispered.

  "What?"

  "Give me an hour," he said into the phone.

  "Half."

  "I'll see you in forty-five." He punched the End button before she could respond.

  He swallowed the tasteless food. He gave it some time and effort, but his appetite had tanked. He left a five on the table and more than half his breakfast. Nausea swam in and out of his throat.

  Twenty minutes later he parked the car and waited five more, giving his stomach time to settle.

  The squad room was abuzz with something that had happened

  overnight. A gang-style killing, Brant gathered from key words and phrases he overheard as he navigated through the rows of cubicles to reach the Homicide offices. When had cubicles replaced good, old-fashioned desks, anyway? Scarred, chipped, burned desktops with overflowing ashtrays, glass and cup rings, and yellowed papers in piles corresponding to months and years of open cases. That was the image he remembered. Not this sanitized corporate look, with cleared veneer desks and flat-screen computer monitors on every surface. Hardly any paper.

  It was a long way back to the days he'd started working for Kampmann...

  He saw a dark-haired cop directing three others huddled around a monitor, inside a double cubicle. The cop wore black leather like Brant, his thick hair flopping over the collar. No way that was regulation, even for a homicide detective with leeway. The cop stalked away toward a common printer and snatched paper from the output tray. There was a strange coiled threat in his movements not at all diminished by his mild limp.

  Brant turned away. He was approaching Colgrave's door and stopped to admire her through the glass.

  She was hunched over paperwork, her hair cascading loosely

  around her chin. Her lips mouthed the words she read. Brant smiled. If there was anything positive in this mess, it was having met Danni Colgrave.

  She looked up and saw him, and immediately her f
ace twisted in anger. She beckoned him with a jerked thumb, eyes blazing.

  He stepped into her space. "Sergeant?"

  "Get in here, all the way. Now shut the door and pull the shades."

  Brant did so. She waited, absently tapping a pen on the desktop.

  He turned and took the full brunt of her fiery eyes. "What's the deal? Who's the hairy cop out there with the group?"

  "The deal is that Zim's gunning for you, and it's your fault. The cop's Nick Lupo, currently heading the gang task force."

  "What'd I do now? Did I forget to plug the meter last time? This Lupo looks dangerous. Is he?"

  "Jesus, Brant! Zim tried to pull your DoD file, that's what's wrong."

  "And got a paper cut?"

  She stood behind her desk and came around so quickly he thought she was going to hit him. "It's a classified file, you dork," she said, finger wagging in his face. "You didn't warn us there would be some sort of federal case made if he tried to check up on you. Your brother has some files, and Zim got those all right. But when he requested your service paperwork, he got a nasty call from somebody in DC. If he sees you — scratch that, when he sees you, he's gonna tear you a new anal canal for not telling him. By the way, Lupo's one guy around here I trust at my back."

  Brant dropped into one of her guest chairs. "What was I supposed to do, warn Zim he should stay away? And do you mean Lupo's trustworthy compared to me?"

  She leaned back on her desktop, relaxing a little. "Shit, I don't know." She sighed. "Maybe you could have prepared him just a little. Maybe come clean about-"

  "About?" he prodded.

  "About your past, dammit!"

  "What's my past got to do with Kit's kidnapping?"

  "It's still a disappearance until we know for sure it's a kidnapping."

  "Damn it-"

  She waved him back down into the chair. "I've got people scanning mall video. Nothing so far. I've got people canvassing the mall again, second time. Still nothing. The roommate made that call to your brother, but she now says she's not sure why she said what she said. Blames her poor English for miscommunicating."

  "Meanwhile Kit's still gone."

  She nodded. "I know. I lean with you on this one. I made some inquiries at the University. Your niece has made an excellent impression on three of her profs, at least. No way does it seem she ran away willingly. To me. But Zim feels he's being jerked around. By you. By your brother. What the hell happened to you guys?"

  "Vietnam happened," he said. "Listen, Sergeant, I'm sorry about the paperwork problem. It's probably some military snafu-"

  "Yeah, right!" She barked a laugh.

  "But I have proof something's going on with the roommate."

  "All right, Brant. What ya got?"

  He slipped a small envelope from his jacket pocket and tossed it on the desk. "Some goons paid our friend Irina a visit overnight and had a very good time."

  She opened it and flipped through the prints. "Hmm. How'd you get these?"

  "I was parked outside."

  "How do you know they had a good time? What's that mean?"

  "I was inside for a while, right below them. Sounded like an orgy."

  She tossed the prints on her desk, disgust written on her face. "I can't act on this information, you know that!"

  "No, but I can. And now that you know about it, you can do something else."

  "What?"

  "Run these guys and get some addresses. I have a source-"

  "I bet you do," she said with a smirk.

  "I have a source," he repeated, "who tells me one of these is for sure local muscle for a certain Goran. Ring any bells?"

  The way her face froze, her eyes widened a fraction, and her nostrils flared, Brant knew he'd hit the bull's-eye.

  "Goran? The Serb?" Her eyes darted away from his.

  "You tell me," he began, but the door crashed open behind him, interrupting.

  "Goddamn it, somebody said they spotted you, that you had the fuckin' guts to come back here, but I said no way. Yet here you are."

  Brant turned to face Zimmerman, whose face was crimson with anger. White flecks dotted the skin around his lips.

  "Nice to see you, Zim."

  Zimmerman ignored him. "Jesus, Sergeant, you let this scumbag in your office? You listen to anything he's saying? I'm disappointed in you. I thought I told you he wasn't welcome here."

  Colgrave said nothing.

  Brant spoke in a slow tone. "Listen, Zimmerman, my niece isn't just missing. There's reason to believe she was kidnapped-"

  Zimmerman turned to Colgrave. "I want him out of here!" he screamed. "And I don't want you working on any goddamn thing he brings you! Do you understand? Nothing! I want none of your time wasted on this shit he's spouting." Outside the office, heads turned. He stormed out the door and slammed it behind him, rattling the glass and blinds.

  "Now that's one guy who needs emergency anger management," Brant said. "Didn't you say he wanted me to come in? Man's a fickle one."

  Colgrave flushed. "He's – he must have changed his mind. I've never seen him like this. I thought he was going to hit you."

  "Nah, he's already done that. After I saved his life."

  "What?"

  "Let it go. It's Kit I want to save now. You were going to tell me about Goran, the Serb..."

  "Shit, yeah. But none of it's good. And you didn't hear any of it from me."

  "Okay, fair enough."

  She sat and tapped out a rhythm on her keyboard. When the screen caught up to her, she angled the monitor so he could see if he hunched over her shoulder.

  "We don't have much on the guy because he's very careful. We've built up some tidbits based on things we hear, but it's mostly not official. We have this nifty software now, where we can just dump in little bits of information and build up a profile we can then send out quickly if we need to. It's tied into the Feds and we can hit international wires, too. The fact is, Goran's past is ... almost like yours, really. A blank. He shows up here about nine years ago, money in hand, and gets liquor licenses for a half dozen bars, a couple of them tittie bars. Gentlemen's clubs, they call'em. Probably greased a few aldermen for that, get around local ordnances and community standards. That's it. Seems to run a clean business. But we start hearing things... things about vices he and his friends are supposed to have. Things about prostitution, but mostly it's the escort service kind and handled very discreetly. Clients are happy, and happy clients don't squeal. Money changes hands. Then we hear he has eccentric clients, rich clients who have exotic tastes. We start to hear he's doing illegal things in his clubs, but no one — I mean no one — comes forward against him. No complaints, no accusations, no one dropping a dime. Nothing. All we hear are rumors."

  Brant let it wash over him for a few seconds. "What else?"

  "We heard there was one person — used to work for him. Made a phone call to the police and got, uh, transferred to somebody by

  mistake. This guy was gonna file a complaint. Against Goran himself, we think. But the call was cut off — he didn't like who he got transferred to. We had his number and a couple detectives paid him a visit. He was gone."

  "What do you mean, gone?"

  "Within about eight hours, his house was empty. Nothing left behind. No forwarding address, of course. Not a slip of toilet paper. Clean, as if he never existed."

  "The house?"

  "It's his. Paid off. Still there, and still empty. I guess at some point if the taxes go unpaid it'll be noticed, but right now we haven't got a clue where this guy went. Or what his beef was."

  "He just disappeared...?"

  "Brant, I know the connection you're making, but I need some shred of probable cause. People disappear all the time."

  He finger-stabbed one of the prints. "I've got a guy who supposedly works for this Serb, who's banging my niece's roommate. My niece is missing. I'd say it's good enough to get a search warrant."

  "I'll see what I can do, but this guy — he owns over two
dozen properties that I know of. If he's behind the kidnapping, she could be anywhere. There's no chance a judge is going to give us a blanket warrant to search them all, and then I wouldn't have the manpower to execute them simultaneously. If we hit the wrong place, they'd move her, don't you think?"

  He grunted.

  "Anyway, why would he have anybody kidnapped? Why jeopardize his business standing?"

  "I'll check with my sources, but I can put two and two together like anyone. If he runs girls, who's to say he's not involved in something even worse?"

  "You mean slavery?"

  "I was in Saigon long enough to know that slavery was happening. Dirty little cross-cultural secret. Nothing's changed. And the money's big for stuff like this."

  "Saigon was a long time ago."

  "You'd think, but I know for a fact that it's even worse now, especially in Asia and Eastern Europe. Just do a Web search on the sex trade. You get more hits than you can follow in a day. Bigger money. There's big money to be made because there are more perverts out there with money to burn, and the Internet to find each other and get organized."

  "So you think your niece was grabbed for slavery? You've got to have some other reasons, not just a hunch."

  "Okay, the roommate has an orgy, for one. She's no innocent butterfly like she wants to come across. She tries to seduce me-"

  Colgrave's eyebrows went up.

  "Yeah, I neglected to mention that. She put on the charm. For a kid, she's got a lot of charm. But that's not the only thing. She tells me she grew up in Kosovo. Her friend who bangs her works as a thug for a sleazebag guy they call the Serb. Do I have to draw you a map?"

  She frowned. "I get it, but I can't barge in without some probable cause, Brant. You remember probable cause?"

  "Hell, I thought the damn patriot act allowed you guys to do whatever you wanted."

  "The feds yeah, the NSA, whatever, they can wiretap everybody and his brother. But at the local level we still get hogtied just trying to do our jobs."

  "Well, I don't get hogtied."

  "What do you plan to do?" Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly.

  Brant had no trouble perceiving. He swam in her eyes.