by Chris Mooney
Set up in the corners, below the laser lights, were cages holding dancing girls in bikinis. One cage held two young muscular men dressed in black bikini briefs, their tanned, perfectly sculpted bodies glistening with oil and glitter to reflect the lasers and coloured lights. Bryson looked away, disgusted, his eyes drifting up to the ceiling where plasma TVs played music videos.
A bar was set up to his right. The counter was covered with Plexiglas, bright white lighting beneath it. Waitresses wearing black leather pants and matching bikini tops placed drinks on their trays and hustled off to a roped-off area behind the bar crammed with black leather couches and chairs – the VIP area. Malcolm Fletcher, still wearing his black-lens sunglasses, stood next to a jaw-dropping young woman wearing a tight black dress. She was tall and had long, dark red hair. She looked like Darby McCormick.
The woman whispered something in Fletcher's ear, then walked away.
A moment later Fletcher stood and followed, swallowed inside the crowd of gyrating bodies and groping hands.
Christ, where did he go? Bryson looked around the club. The techno music was deafening. One song blended into the next, boom-boom-boom, that same hideous beat playing over and over again, vibrating inside his chest.
There; there he was, standing on the opposite side of the dance floor with the redhead, who was talking to a security guard, a pissed-off looking gentleman sporting a long goatee and a lot of jailhouse tattoos inked on both forearms.
The guard nodded and stepped aside. The woman opened a door marked 'Private'. Fletcher followed.
55
So that's why you came here, Tim Bryson thought. Fletcher was heading downstairs to get laid. Perfect.
Bryson put on his earpiece. The lapel mike was already in place.
'Lang, can you hear me?'
'I hear you.'
'Stand by,' Bryson said as he pushed his way through the dance floor.
The bouncer guarding the door marked 'Private' put his hand out and asked for a password. Bryson flashed the badge and had to scream above the music to tell the guy with the goatee not to let anyone else down here.
Bryson descended the black-painted stairwell in the dim light, the shit music shut off by the thick metal door but the same hideous beat pounding inside his head, boom-boom-boom, Watts running behind him. No doors, the stairs kept leading down and down, Christ, how deep was this place buried?
Six flights of stairs and here was an archway leading into a room with a marble floor. Aquarium tanks were built into the walls, packed with bright coral and colourful fish. Standing behind a podium much like the kind in restaurants where they took your dinner reservation was a tall man with a shaved head. He was dressed in a black suit and silver tie.
'Good evening, gentlemen.'
Bryson looked to his right, to a change room with lockers. White terrycloth robes were neatly folded on the shelves.
The man with the shaved head smiled. 'You must be new. Welcome. My name is Noah. You can change into your robes or, if you prefer, you can go directly to a private room. Let me see what's available.' He looked down at the podium. 'Room sixty-two is available. Shall I give you a key? Or would you like to enjoy the bathhouse first?'
Bryson flashed his credentials. Noah cleared his throat.
'Officers, this is a private establishment. Our members pay for their -'
'I'm interested in only one member, a tall man with black-tinted sunglasses,' Bryson said. 'He came through here a few minutes ago with a redhead. Where did they go?'
'They requested a private room – room thirty-three.'
'Is it locked?'
'I would imagine so.'
'Do you have a spare key?'
'It's in the back office. Give me a moment.' Noah disappeared behind a black curtain. Watts followed.
Now Bryson had to figure out the logistics of removing Fletcher. Marching him up the stairs and through the crowded dance floor was not a viable option. Too many things could go wrong.
Noah returned with Watts and handed Bryson a key.
'Is there a separate, more private exit for your members?' Bryson asked.
'I was going to suggest using our elevator. It's next to room thirty-three. It will take you up to the main floor and out a private door that leads to the back of the club.'
'You're talking about the alleyway.'
'Yes. Our members value their privacy, as I'm sure you can understand.'
'We'll be very discreet, I promise. This room you're taking us to, are there any other doors in there?'
'No sir, just the single door which leads into the hallway.'
'What about cameras? Do you have anyone watching this level?'
'Certainly not,' Noah said. 'Security cameras would be a violation of our members' privacy.'
Bryson talked to Lang through the lapel mike. Lang didn't respond. I must be too far underground, Bryson thought. The walls are blocking the signal.
He had better luck with the cell phone. The signal was weak but it would do. He told Lang where he was.
'Repeat that?' Lang said.
'We're going to bring Fletcher out through the alley. Move everyone into position. If you don't hear back from me within twenty minutes, storm the club.'
What to do with the bald man? Bryson didn't want to leave him here. He might call management. He might bring additional security. He could do any number of things to protect his job. Bryson wanted to play this nice and quiet.
'Lead the way.'
Noah escorted them into a hallway of white tile and dim lighting designed to hide faces. There was a steamy reek of chlorine from the bathhouse. Murmured conversations and moaning from behind each of the closed doors. From a room far down the hallway, a man screamed in either pain or ecstasy, maybe a combination of both.
Noah stopped in front of room 33. Grunting came from the room across the hall. The door had a mesh grating in it. Darkness in there but Bryson could make out the shape of a man. He was tied down to a table and wore a leather mask.
'Harder,' the man cried. 'Harder.'
A woman laughed.
Bryson removed his handgun and listened at room 33. He heard running water. He motioned for Noah to step closer.
'Is there a shower in this room?' Bryson whispered.
'Each room has its own bathroom.'
'Where is it?'
'When you open the door, it will be to your left.'
'Locks?'
'Yes, each bathroom door has a lock. I don't have a key. If you'd like additional help, I could call security.'
'No. Please step back. Stay right here.'
Noah moved against the far wall, looking as though he might faint. Bryson turned to Watts.
'I'll go in first and you'll cover me. If he makes a move, take him down.'
Watts nodded, sweat dripping down his face. The hallway was uncomfortably humid from the steam. Bryson slipped the key inside the lock and held his breath for a moment before turning the handle. Don't throw the door open. If it banged against the wall, the sound would alert Fletcher, might give him enough time to reach for his gun. Okay… now.
56
Snapshots in the candlelight – a massage table in the corner, clothes piled on a fabric-covered bench, the assortment of toys, handcuffs and bottles of lotion lying on a shelf next to folded towels.
Clear. Bryson turned to the bathroom, the light on, relieved to see the door was cracked open. He threw his shoulder into the door and rushed into the thick steam. Clear. Watts moved past him and yanked the shower curtain aside.
The showerhead was running hot, steam everywhere, but nobody was standing under the water.
On the floor was a metal canister shaped like a soda can only it had the kind of handle and pin seen on a grenade. Underneath the pounding water Bryson heard a hissing sound.
From the bathroom doorway came a muzzle flash. Watts was hit in the back. He fell inside the shower as Bryson turned around to fire – a second flash and Bryson felt a force like a hot, meta
l fist slam into his stomach.
Bryson fell against the bathroom wall, gasping for air, saw the third flash from the doorway and the fist hit him again high in the chest as he tripped over Watts and crashed sideways into the shower stall.
Bryson's heart was pounding but his lungs felt as though they had shut off. He couldn't breathe. The gun was still gripped in his hand. Gasping for air, he brought the gun up, about to fire into the steam when a black-gloved hand gripped his wrist and twisted, snap. Bryson tried to scream but no sound came out. The Beretta fell. He tried to reach for it. The fabric of a pair of black pants whisked past his face and a foot kicked him in the stomach.
He threw up his coffee and parts of a bagel. A boot pressed his face against the shower floor. His arms were yanked behind his back, his fists bound with what felt like Flexicuffs. Bryson felt the plastic biting his skin, his eyes on the canister lying sideways on the floor, hissing.
Next his ankles were bound and then the gloved hand ripped the lapel mike from his coat. The hands grabbed him by the hair. Bryson felt a needle plunge into his neck. He tried to pull away, couldn't, felt a long, slow burn and then he was tossed out of the shower stall and onto the bathroom floor.
Bryson lay on his side, every muscle in his body straining as he dry heaved. Something was wrong. His eyes were burning and he felt another wave of nausea running wild through his stomach.
Fletcher dragged him into the adjoining room. Watts lay on the shower floor, hogtied by Flexicuffs, the water spraying his bloody face as he threw up onto the floor.
A fire alarm sounded. Fletcher shut the bathroom door and dragged Bryson across the floor, the carpet burning his cheek as he kept dry-heaving. Then the burning stopped and his face was lying against the cool tile in the hallway. Men and women in towels and bathrobes were standing around to see what the commotion was.
A small, cylindrical object trailing thick grey smoke rolled down the hallway. A hissing sound behind him and then Bryson saw the same canister from the bathroom rolling across the floor as he was dragged into an elevator.
A whine of the motor and the clank of gears as the elevator lifted. Timothy Bryson lay on his stomach on the elevator floor of dirt and grime. He turned onto his side, dry-heaving, and looked down at his stomach. No blood.
That didn't make sense. He had seen the muzzle flash, had felt the gunshot tear through his stomach and then his chest. He should be bleeding.
Malcolm Fletcher stood above him, his voice muffled behind a small mask covering his mouth and nose.
'Do you know who I am, Detective?'
Bryson nodded then dry-heaved again.
'Then you know why I'm here.'
Bryson didn't answer. Fletcher took off the mask and tucked it inside his jacket pocket.
The elevator stopped. The doors slid open, the hallway dark.
Malcolm Fletcher flipped the emergency stop button. A hunting knife was gripped in his gloved hand.
Bryson felt a surge of panic and then, strangely, the feeling vanished behind an odd sense of calmness. He knew he should be scared but his body seemed completely unaware of the danger.
'If you're a good boy and tell the truth, Timmy, I'll let you go. But if you don't tell the truth, if I don't feel you're truly sorry for your sins, well, you'll have no one to blame but yourself.'
The blade cut through the bindings on his ankles.
Fletcher helped him to his feet. Bryson coughed, tried to catch his breath. Hands cuffed behind his back, it was difficult to stand.
Fletcher gripped his arm and moved him into the hallway. As Bryson made his way up the stairs, wobbling like a drunk, that odd sense of calm transformed itself into something different, a feeling of bliss that took away the fear, the pain, everything.
A door opened and Bryson saw a flat roof that seemed to stretch for miles. Three drunken steps and then Fletcher shoved him back against a brick wall and pressed the blade of the knife underneath his chin.
'Say hello, Timmy. And remember our agreement.'
Fletcher pressed a cell phone against Bryson's ear.
'Hello?'
'Detective Bryson? This is Tina Sanders – Jennifer's mother. We met at the police station.'
Bryson heard a dim voice scream at him to run, run as fast as you can.
'I was told you have information on the man who killed my daughter.'
Where could he run? He wouldn't get far, not with a knife pressed to his throat, not with this peaceful, drunken dreaminess that made him feel like he was an angel floating on air.
'Please, I -' Tina Sanders' voice caught. She cleared her throat, collected herself. 'I need to know what happened. I've been living with this so long, I can't stand not knowing. Please tell me.'
'I don't know what happened to your daughter.'
'I was told a man named Sam Dingle killed Jenny.'
'I don't know anything about that.'
'This man… is he in jail?'
Bryson shivered underneath his wet clothes, his teeth chattering as he scrambled to recall the pieces of carefully constructed lies he had stitched together over the years in case this moment ever came.
Fletcher stuck the tip of the knife through his throat. 'Make a choice, Timmy.'
'My daughter was dying,' Bryson said. 'Emily had a rare form of leukaemia. My wife and I tried everything. The doctors wanted to give her an experimental treatment but my health insurance wouldn't cover it.'
'What's this have to do with Jenny?'
The truth floated to the surface. Bryson closed his eyes, surprised at how easily the words came.
'Sam Dingle used his belt to strangle one of the women. We found a fingerprint. That was the only evidence we had. We had no witnesses, and Dingle's mother said her son was with her the night those women disappeared. We were building a case against him when I approached Dingle's father. I told him I could make the belt disappear for the right price.'
In the distance was the sound of fire engines. Just keep talking. Lang knows you're in here so just keep talking until he finds you.
'I needed the money for my daughter's treatment,' Bryson said. 'I couldn't get any more loans, we were already maxed out. We couldn't borrow any more money. I was desperate. My daughter was looking to me to save her life and when Dingle's father agreed to pay, I made him promise me to get his son treatment at a psychiatric hospital. He went to Sinclair.'
'You son of a bitch,' Tina Sanders said. 'You rotten son of a bitch.'
'Emily was eight, she was only eight years old, and this treatment was supposed to save her life. She couldn't do any more chemotherapy, her body -'
Fletcher moved the phone away and pressed it against his ear. 'Hello, Miss Sanders… yes, it's me. Now about Detective Bryson, have you given any thought about our previous discussion?… I see. That is, of course, your choice. I'll call you back shortly.'
Malcolm Fletcher flipped the phone shut. Bryson ran.
57
Bryson took one step and his legs buckled.
Lying on the roof, hands cuffed behind his back and sirens blaring in the cold night air, he stared up at the sky bursting with the kind of bright stars that made him think of the warm summer evenings when Emily, as an infant, was cradled in his arms. He held her bottle, rocking back and forth on the front porch, back and forth until she finally fell back asleep.
Then he saw Malcolm Fletcher looming above him, his eyes as black as the night sky.
'I didn't kill her daughter,' Bryson said. His voice sounded so far away.
'Oh but you did,' Fletcher said. 'That belt would have sent Mr Dingle to jail or, depending on his legal representation, permanently confined him to a mental asylum like Sinclair. If you did your job, Jennifer Sanders would still be alive.'
'I'm sorry.'
'The sympathy in your voice is overwhelming.'
'I didn't have a choice.' In his mind's eye Bryson saw his bald daughter lying in the hospital bed, skin ashen from the chemotherapy, arms bruised from the IV lines. He
saw Emily sucking on ice chips. Emily throwing up in a pail and Emily crying out for her mother and Emily screaming as the nurse injected her with morphine to take away the pain.
'I didn't have a choice,' he said again.
'What day was Sammy released from Sinclair?'
'I don't know.'
'You didn't keep a close eye on him?'
'No.'
'Did you look for Sammy after his discharge?'
'No.'
'I didn't think so.' Fletcher picked him up by the arms. 'You know Sammy killed those women. Since Sammy voluntarily admitted himself under the guise of having a nervous breakdown, you knew he could release himself whenever he wanted, or at least until his parents stopped paying the hospital bill, which they did, incidentally, six months later.'
'I did what you asked. I told the truth.'
'You did, and I'm very proud of you. See the fire escape at the end of the roof?'
'Barely,' Bryson said. Everything was blurry.
'I'm going to escort you there now.' Fletcher helped him across the roof. 'That's it, watch your step. I wouldn't want you to trip and hurt yourself.'
Bryson wanted to get out of this terribly cold air. He couldn't stop shivering.
'In case you're wondering, Sammy wandered across the country performing menial construction and landscaping jobs,' Fletcher said. 'He did, however, manage to return east once to collect his portion of his parents' rather meagre estate. During his visit, he raped and tortured Jennifer Sanders over a period of days before strangling her and leaving her body to rot.'