Savage Nights

by W. D. Gagliani

  "Just some research. If I find something worthwhile, maybe you can use it as probable cause."

  He considered telling her about Irina's phallic stash and his other suspicions, but he couldn't confess to the B and E, not just yet.

  "Maybe. Listen Brant, tell me about Zim."

  Why was it so important to her? "Some other time." "You're a stubborn cuss," she said, smiling.

  Brant liked to see her smile. He smiled back. It felt good to be nice to someone, especially after seeing Zimmerman again.

  "I've been told that, and called worse." He pointed at her computer. "Anything else in there I can use?"

  Her smile turned sour. "This isn't your own personal network, Brant. What makes you think I'd give you more information?"

  "Because I could tell this guy disgusts you, too, that's why. And I bet you don't like him taking advantage of young girls like my niece, or worse. I have a feeling there's much worse here than stripping and even turning an occasional trick."

  She nodded. "Yeah, you're right there. But we don't know which clubs are operating outside the law. All we have are those rumors. Whenever we've tried to check, it's always looked legit."

  "Maybe the guy has a secret door to a back room or something, like a speakeasy back in the day."

  "I didn't think you were that old," she chided.

  "I didn't say I had a clear memory of speakeasies. You know what I mean. Maybe friends and members get an electronic key or a password or something."

  She thought about it. "It's possible. On the surface, far as we can tell, the guy's a good businessman. Even donates to local charities. He knows how to play the game."

  "And the bastard might be laughing about how he's got everybody fooled, sure," Brant said. "Serbs are smug sons of bitches."

  She tilted her head. "We have experience with that, do we?"

  "Let's say we have some."

  "Connected to that classified file?"

  "Maybe."

  "Well, maybe his smugness is appropriate. Maybe he's got friends in the department."

  Brant squinted at her. "What do you mean?"

  "I mentioned him to Zim before you brought him up. I think it's what made Zim so mad. Remember, he seemed to want to run a clean investigation — or at least he wanted me to run it — into your niece's disappearance. When I mentioned something about Goran as an aside-"

  "An aside?"

  "I said something like, we can't just assume the girl ran off, not with thugs like the Serb getting away with murder around here like he does. Zim went ballistic. And I just didn't think about it, but it was after that he told me he didn't want you around."

  "Shit, that's enough of a case for me right there."

  She blanched. "No it's not, Brant. He's not crooked, not Zim. I think he's become a jerk, but he's still one of the best cops I've ever known. I've seen him really care about his cases."

  "Like mine? No, I think you're right, he's a good cop. When it suits him. Maybe it's always suited him before. Maybe now somebody else is calling the tune."

  "I refuse to believe that," she said.

  "That's very loyal of you," he said, looking into her eyes.

  "Don't patronize me-" she started, but he interrupted.

  "I wasn't." He stood. "I really meant that as a compliment."

  "I'll accept it as a compliment, but I'm not convinced. Somewhere, Mr. Brant, you learned to speak out of both sides of your mouth. Isn't that what the mobsters say?"

  "How would I know?" He grinned.

  "How indeed."

  They sat for a few minutes, glancing at each other. Surveying the territory. Maybe mapping out a campaign.

  Brant grinned again, but this time there was no real mirth. "I have a couple ideas to follow up on, but I'm telling you right now, my gut got me through a lot of shit in Nam — got most of my men through it too, as long as they were my men... my gut tells me this Goran is our boy."

  "You think the roommate set her up?"

  "It's possible. Or maybe her goon boyfriend marked Kit as a likely snatch target — and fingered her for the Serb. Either one is possible. Anyway, my gut thinks it's this guy, and it doesn't care there's no proof. Sometimes the gut tells you more than an evidence trail."

  She assented. "I've followed up hunches, sure. But this, if it's true and we could take him down... it would be great for all the others he's taken or abused or used up. Not that your niece isn't important."

  "She's the only decent thing in my life, and I'm an asshole for sitting here when I should be looking for her." He smacked his thigh with a fist. "But my gut also tells me to go slow, that he's not going to go down easy. And I'm guessing there's a procedure, a process, for getting a girl out of here and out of the country. Homeland security has to have made some difference, somewhere. Need papers. Maybe she's got to be held for a while, someplace safe while you presumably search for her. Maybe they... maybe they get her hooked on smack or ecstasy or meth. Jesus, maybe that's what Kit's trying to tell me."

  "What?" Colgrave said sharply. "What did you say?"

  "Figuratively. I've been dreaming about her."

  "Funny, you don't look like you've been sleeping at all."

  "I didn't say it was good sleep. I just keel over sometimes, sleep like a dead man wherever I am. It's a PTSD thing, they think."

  "Happen while you're driving?"

  Brant smiled crookedly. "Not yet."

  "Jesus, that sounds awful."

  "Has its moments. But I know guys who are worse. Even guys who were in Gulf War One, or in this Iraq nightmare. I consider myself lucky."

  She nodded. Then her phone rang, and she held up a hand. "Sergeant Colgrave," she said into the handset. "Yes, let me get it for you."

  Brant stood and ignored her hand motion. He waved while she angrily tried to get him to stay even as she carried on a civil conversation with her caller. Her eyes blazed at him helplessly.

  He was out of her office before she could stop him. Zimmerman was nowhere in sight, so Brant bee-lined for the squad room door and made his escape. He nodded to the cop named Lupo in the hall. Lupo nodded back with a vague half-smile.

  Wheels turned in Brant's head.

  KIT

  "What's her problem?" Anne Marie nodded at Marissa, who ignored them, humming to herself.

  Surprised, Kit didn't answer immediately. She'd coaxed Anne Marie's story from her, true, but the new girl hadn't volunteered that much at first, and she hadn't seemed chummy at all. But the hours had brought too much new information.

  "I think she's got this syndrome that makes her think she likes it here."

  "Oh, I thought she was just nuts."

  Kit couldn't help giggling. Maybe the drug was still in her system.

  Kit wondered if there was a camera. There were a few dark spots and holes in the corners. The one most likely was right over the toilet, maybe where it could see all three cots. She stuck out her tongue but then thought better of it. No need to stir them up. If they had video, did it include audio? She knew how webcams were used at the university for security. They had no sound capabilities, and they simply recorded onto a dedicated computer hard drive or server. When it was full after a week, two weeks of recording, the hard drive would just start rewriting over the file. To monitor each camera, someone would have to open a window on the desktop. Just a webcam. She had to assume they were being monitored part of the time.

  Anne Marie was staring at her.

  "What did you say?"

  "I wanna go home."

  Kit sighed. Wiped a tear.

  Couldn't help it, damn them.

  She whispered. "Me, too."

  FIFTEEN

  Back in the car, he used his secure cell for one call.

  From the other end came the piercing whistle of a fax machine. Other callers would hang up, thinking they'd reached a wrong number. Instead, Brant stayed on the line and waited a full minute for the annoying tone to die out. Then he spoke a series of numbers and waited as his call w
as patched through.

  He imagined Kampmann, an old dusty man in an old dusty room, taking the call.

  "It's been a while," said the voice.

  "Yes, it has." Brant was back in Nam again, for a moment, back in Cu Chi Base, sitting in that sterile little office, listening as a man he already thought of as old mapped out his future. Kampmann had to be seventy if he was a day now, yet he was still taking his own secure calls, albeit not in the same office. Brant didn't know where he was — an undisclosed secure location if ever there was one. "I need a favor."

  "You only call when you need something, Richard. I'm disappointed."

  "Yeah, I'm sure," Brant said. "You only call me when you need me. Why is it any different?"

  There was a chuckle at the other end. "Of course, you're right. We probably owe you a favor or two."

  "Probably."

  "Very well, how can I help you?"

  "I have a feeling we'll be helping each other in the long run." Brant outlined his needs and waited while Kampmann put him on hold. The high string Muzak arrangement of a venerable Alan Parsons Project tune set his teeth on edge. Why did they have to ruin everything?

  "Richard?"

  "I'm here."

  "You may have stumbled on something very interesting," Kampmann began cautiously. "I think we might be able to benefit mutually."

  "What I thought. I'm ready."

  Kampmann spoke for a full five minutes. Brant did not interrupt. He nodded even though the old man couldn't see him. He waited until Kampmann was done, then double-checked several points.

  "I can send someone," Kampmann added. "Be there tomorrow or next day."

  "Frankly, it may be too late. I'll be back in touch later today. I can round up some help here, I think."

  "An old friend and co-conspirator, I assume? A non-com from your past?"

  Kampmann had always been good, which was why Brant had been good.

  "Yeah."

  "Well then. Good luck, Richard. Keep me posted if you can."

  "Will do," Brant said. He broke the connection. "If I can."

  He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. Something was nagging at him, and talking to Kampmann hadn't made it go away.

  KIT

  Marissa slept facing the wall, her breathing regular and punctuated by occasional soft snoring. She seemed happy, and Kit thought that if this was an improvement on Marissa's previous life, then she was really pathetic because there was no way this was any kind of life. Kit had seen plenty of nineteen and twenty-year-old "porn girls," college students some of them, or porn-stars in the making, who hawked their wares on MySpace and Facebook, often with a batch of barely acceptable sample pics wearing micro-bikinis or featuring girl-to-girl groping, and links to webcam or other "naughty sites," and put Marissa down as one of those.

  Or she was someone suffering from an incurable mental illness, no hope at all, and there was no trusting her.

  Anne Marie was a different matter. She was young, but tough. Her lank straw-blond hair made her eyes seem darker, and she looked a bit wasted, like a heroin addict. Kit wondered if she was, or just looked like one because of her paleness. She had a recent tattoo of the peace symbol in the small of her back, and a rose briar encircling one dainty ankle. Kit decided she liked them both, and told her so.

  "Thanks," Anne Marie whispered, almost embarrassed. As if no one had ever complimented her for anything. Maybe no one had.

  Kit couldn't help being drawn by the younger, quieter girl, and they'd become friends in the few hours they'd spent in captivity together.

  Kit and Anne Marie had talked about their lives in purely generic terms, finally boring Marissa to sleep, and then the two girls had made their pact mostly without words, using eye gestures and the occasional code phrase.

  Kit had considered her theory of being monitored by a camera, but wondered whether it might have sound. Maybe it wasn't a camera at all, but only a microphone. If the covert camera or mike location was in the opposite corner, the one not occupied by a bunk, Kit was willing to bet the view was fairly limited. When Kit made the Ameslan sign for all right with the edge of her right hand, Anne Marie returned it. Kit was surprised but delighted — and the implication hit home immediately.

  They'd be able to converse almost in privacy, at least unless one of the thugs came and thumped them for doing it. But if they kept their signs small and close to the body, Kit figured the thugs would never even notice.

  When Kit signed the equivalent of: We have to escape somehow, Anne Marie responded: What about her?, pointing at Marissa. Kit signed: Forget about her. She might turn us in.

  Sign language is fluid and elegant and some terms can't be translated into sound language, but Kit found that her volunteer's training served her well and that Anne Marie had somehow reached a similar level of proficiency.

  They conversed this way for the better part of an hour, and only heard sound out in the hallway once — a door opening and closing, and feet being almost dragged past, and then another door opening and closing.

  Were there more rooms —

  (cells)

  — with more prisoners down the length of the hall?

  After their initial fear of discovery had waned, they continued their silent conversation until they had agreed on a plan. They would work as a team. They carried out several calculations and shared the results through signs, wondering. Could their plan work?

  Kit signed: There's only one way to find out. It's better than not knowing. Or giving up.

  Anne Marie nodded decisively and signed: Yes. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears.

  When the door crashed open and they came for Marissa, the suddenness of it made them scream. And Marissa's response intensified their fear, because it didn't seem she was happy about being dragged out of her sleep.

  Daffy, who appeared to be the head thug, grabbed Marissa's hair and yanked hard enough to pull some out of her scalp. While she screamed in pain, he pulled her off-balance and dragged her out the door.

  Anne Marie and Kit listened to her scream incoherently and swear until the door down the hall slammed shut and cut off her voice like a guillotine.

  Kit jumped at the finality of the cut-off, then her brain caught up and wondered why they'd come for her in the middle of the night and with such violence. Marissa had been a star pupil, almost a willing accomplice. Why the change in their attitude?

  Unless...

  Unless she had outlived her usefulness?

  But that was unlikely, wasn't it? She seemed eager to make more porn for them. Kit had to address the thought she'd pushed away, far back into her mind as soon as she'd first had it. Now she had no choice but to think that logically, if there was a Sales Floor, then there had to be "sales." And the meaning of that was not something Kit wanted to ponder at length. Because as bad as being raped repeatedly could be, it could not be as bad as being bought and sold like a piece of furniture, like...

  Like a slave.

  There, she had thought it. She knew damn well the thought had always been in her mind that they were nothing more than slaves, but the implication of slavery being the whole point of their kidnapping seemed to lend a different, more sinister spin to the situation. But who did the buying?

  Kit held up her unmanacled hand and watched it shake uncontrollably, like advanced Parkinson's. She looked at her new friend and ally, Anne Marie. Her eyes were wide. They both felt it.

  The ante had been raised.

  And their lives had just taken on a new, unexpected twist.

  Neither slept.

  The fear ate into them like acid.

  SIXTEEN

  He circled the block three times before sliding into a space vacated by a service minivan. The east side was notorious for its sparse street parking, so Brant counted himself lucky. The space was perfect, facing away from Irina and Kit's building. He tilted his mirrors and settled in for a wait.

  Without warning, he felt the shudders beginning to work their way through him
. His vision blurred and he could no longer see out the windshield. There were shapes coming at him from the blur, but they were indistinct, and he wasn't sure whether he was seeing or hallucinating. Blinking rapidly, he saw a jungle clearing no different than a dozen others. But he watched DeMarco, newest of his Rats, being dragged away, his foot blown off by a grenade, a ragged bloody stump sticking out from the soaked olive drab of his fatigues. The screaming blasted its way into his head and there was gunfire, staccato bursts of M-16 fire dealing with the Viet who'd rolled the grenade under their feet, riddling his body with 5.56mm slugs until he was bloody rags and hamburger. DeMarco's screams intensified and became almost feminine, until he morphed into a girl, a red-haired girl being dragged-

  – being dragged somewhere bad —

  – and he knew it wasn't Kit, but maybe it was Kit seeing this, watching in fear as someone else went under the knife.

  A whine signaled incoming mortar rounds, and before anyone could react the explosion between DeMarco and the medic blew them apart, sending blood and bone cascading all around, and DeMarco's severed head smacked into Brant's foot like a deflated football, the look of surprise and pain etched forevermore on his features...

  But even as he staggered away to seek cover from the barrage, DeMarco's features changed and it was Kit again, staring at him with puzzled pain. Her mangled trachea and shattered spine flashed into view as she rolled away from him, and then it was DeMarco again, and gunfire raged around him, reducing the clearing to green shreds punctuated by red splashes and screams.

  Brant felt the lightness settle on him and fought to stay conscious, his throat dry and his stomach muscles heaving under his clothes. His ragged gasps only barely resembled breathing.

  Hands grasped the wheel. They were his hands, but felt alien.

  His head spun slower and the vision softened and soon it was just the windshield again, the view restored to the building he was watching.

  He couldn't help but sense the danger Kit faced, but somehow he knew she was still safe. For the moment.

  DeMarco hadn't been very lucky. He'd bled to death before the medevac chopper could find a place to set down. Brant hoped the girl he'd glimpsed would fare better.