by Wes Lowe
“Really, or is that another Noah Reid joke?” asked Abby.
“For real. In China, we were attacked by snakes, martial artists, special ops types…JJ came to the rescue.”
Olivia grinned at Abby’s failing attempts at hiding her growing interest in JJ. “Maybe JJ can join us for dinner.”
“Only if you like rabbit food. Personally, I’m kind of tired of discovering the thousands of ways of eating tofu,” said Noah. His head motioned toward the door. “Come on. Let’s go make some beautiful music together.”
Olivia groaned and turned to Abby as the three stepped to the door. “Now you know why he’s an ex.”
It took Pietr more than three hours to drive the twenty miles from Little Odessa to The Seventh Hotel. JJ made him stop at what the young Russian girls thought was the most fantastic store in the world: Walmart. They screamed gleefully as they picked out new clothes and accessories, toiletries, tried on oversized sunglasses, played music on the audio systems, and eschewed the healthy meals in favor of wolfing down burgers, fries and sodas in the store’s McDonalds.
Giggling and talking like young girls should be talking, it didn’t take them long to adjust to their newfound freedom.
Back at the hotel, several girls at a time crowded into the shower and bathtub while JJ tried to activate his new cell phone. Unsuccessful, he decided to wait until the girls were done and sat at his computer instead.
A frown appeared on his face as he perused the first sites his Google search came up with. He felt his blood pressure rising several points as he continued his exploration.
He pursed his lips and whistled silently. What he saw was totally beyond his capability.
He needed help but not from Noah. Noah was only slightly more computer literate than JJ.
He picked up the hotel’s room phone and made a call.
“Are you crazy, JJ? I want to sleep for another five hours,” said a bleary-eyed Sam, holding his cell phone to his ear while sprawled lazily on the top of a bed.
“Don’t hang up!”
Sam inhaled. “This is so not cool. You and Noah left me stranded and this poor defenseless child had to fend for himself. What if I got eaten by a bear? What...”
“Get online. Now!”
There was something about the tone in JJ’s voice that told Sam something was up. He leapt out of bed and dashed to a computer.
“I’m here. What do you want?”
“Check your email. I want you to tell me who these people are.”
Sam clicked his email inbox and found JJ’s message. He opened two files. One of them was the Facebook photo of the Samaritan at Café du Music. The other was a link to a YouTube video of JJ pounding on the gorilla.
“JJ, you are so the man! What up?”
“The guy at the end of the YouTube video helping the big guy? Is he the same person staring at us in the Facebook photo at the club? If they are, I want you to tell me who he is.”
“Who do you think I am? You’re in New York. Get someone at NYPD to do it.”
“What am I supposed to say? I think this guy saved someone that I beat up?”
“So what makes you think I can do it?”
“Because I’m going to pay you a hundred bucks to do it. Two hundred if you can tell me within half an hour.”
“Consider it done. And get ready to pay me two hundred.”
“That’s what I’m counting on.”
JJ knew Sam was like a lot of other young computer geeks. This was a personal challenge and, if he couldn’t do it himself, he would know someone who could.
JJ was right on the mark. Sam asked his gaming buddy, IAMTHEWALRUS, for a favor.
Hey Walrus, you got time?
Depends.
Fifty bucks time.
I’m interested.
Can you hack into the NYPD database and find out who these two losers are? Sam forwarded JJ’s email to Walrus.
Wow. Who’s the ninja?
Good buddy. Can you do it?
More.
More what?
More dough what else?
Seventy-five.
A hundred.
Done.
34
Ready to Rock
Right at 5:30 in the afternoon, Abby, Olivia and Noah entered the lobby of the Vector Building to find Byron, Leonard and Jeff in deep discussion with a distressed Queenie. Byron pointed to a stained glass window. “Don’t see that very much in New York.”
“That’s why I’m thinking we can make this a land play,” nodded Leonard. “We’ll hold the paper on the building. If the New Amsterdam succeeds, everything’s cool. If it goes tits up, we foreclose, take ownership and develop.”
“The owners only want to sell because of the vision,” pleaded Queenie.
“Which is perfectly within their rights,” replied Byron. “It is also perfectly within our rights to make sure that our asses are protected.”
Seems to be a common theme. “Sorry we’re late,” interrupted Noah. “What’s happening?”
“Byron wants to buy the whole building and turn it into condos,” blurted Queenie.
“Just trying to be prudent,” said Byron. “What if the New Amsterdam is a bust? There’s no market for a bankrupt studio so we could lose everything. It’s senseless to have Skyscape tie up the penthouse and four floors below it. That’s prime real estate. Quality penthouses in New York have fetched up to a hundred million or more.”
Leonard added, “And there’s another problem. We took a look at the lease. There’s a demolition clause that says the landlords can kick the tenants out with two years’ notice if they want to re-develop the property. That just doesn’t fly for New Amsterdam staying here long term but it does make sense if we can buy the building.”
Byron interjected. “But, at this point, it’s all speculation. Let’s concentrate on what we have at hand and take a look at the studio.”
“Thank you,” exhaled Queenie. “Now we can go upstairs and begin our tour. “
Noah’s cell phone dinged indicating a text message. He grinned as he read it. “That crazy ninja. He’s had me worried all day wondering what happened to him. No calls. No texts.”
“Where is he?” asked Abby.
“Back at The Seventh with a bunch of young Russian girls. They’re all watching Sleepless in Seattle.”
Bingo! The Chinaman was at The Seventh! Queenie breathed an inward sight of relief. She had torn a strip off the Russian when he phoned to tell her that JJ had escaped. Now she could get Alexei back to work. “I like that movie, too. I’m a hopeless romantic.”
As they lined up to go through the security checkpoint, Queenie discreetly sent a text.
In his private office at Kandinsky’s, Alexei was beating the crap out of Raoul. Alexei couldn’t care less about JJ but every one of the escaped girls was worth big money to him.
“How you be so stupid? I should kill you now!” yelled the angry Russian boss.
“Give me a chance. I will get them back.”
“How? You have no idea where they are,” snarled Alexei. So angry that his eyes bulged from their sockets, Alexei picked up the table he and Raoul sat at and brought it down on his henchman’s head. “How idiotic you are. They were in concrete room. The girls were drugged. It’s you, Boris and Dmitri against one Chinaman. A Chinaman! You disgrace! In City of New York with eight million people, you think it not hard to find Russian girls?”
Alexei’s cell dinged. He opened his phone and read the text from Queenie. He turned to Raoul. “God must be with you. Go to The Seventh Hotel. That’s where Chinaman and girls are. If you screw up again, I kill you myself.”
Kenny greeted Byron, Jeff, Leonard, Queenie, Abby and Noah at the entrance to Skyscape. “Thanks for coming. I’m Kenny, studio manager and one of the producers at Skyscape. This is where dreams come alive.”
As Kenny repeated his spiel to the members of the Manhattan Investors Syndicate, Noah and company listened politely. Once was enough for them.
However, Byron, Jeff and Leonard listened in fascination as Kenny gave the guided tour, describing the studio’s history, told insider stories of the award-winning artists that had stepped through the door and delicious dirt about who slept with whom and where. On the technical side, he described, in layman’s language, the functioning and features of the popular and obscure pieces of equipment.
Kenny stopped at the door of Studio 5 and nodded proudly. “This room is our pride and joy and will be the centerpiece of the New Amsterdam Arts Center. Our plan is for it to be primarily used by world-class musicians, engineers and producers. However, all the assistants and gofers will be from the New Amsterdam. The young people will experience firsthand genius in operation, something they can’t buy for love or money anywhere else. I particularly like Queenie’s idea that all students, not just the top ones, will get a chance to assist here. Let’s check it out.”
Their expectations already raised, mouths still dropped when Kenny opened the door. This was a huge recording room with thirty-foot ceilings, two grand pianos and huge windows overlooking the city. But what really got the juices going was a hundred-piece orchestra and a thirty-voice choir, entirely composed of students in high school or lower.
Queenie squeezed Abby’s hand. “Like I said before, what’s the point of visiting a studio if you’re going to sing a tune or two. Go for it, girl. We’re going to make Forever a chartbuster today!”
Omigod! Abby’s face was shining brighter than a Christmas tree.
Electricity permeated the whole studio as Kenny positioned Abby behind the microphone. The potential investors saw adrenaline coursing through the sea of musicians, singers and technicians. Abby was calming herself with breathing exercises while Tim was like a little pixie, dashing between the young musicians, making sure they knew exactly what he wanted.
Ten minutes later, with all the preliminaries taken care of, Queenie proudly stepped onto the conductor’s platform. “Welcome to the inaugural session of the New Amsterdam Arts Center. None of the musicians you see can legally drink. Most can’t even vote and some are still a couple years away from puberty. This is the fast-tracked version of a process I hope to repeat many times. Abby and Olivia originally answered an audition call that I put out through social media. When I heard them, I booked them for Showcase Tuesday at Café du Music, where they brought the audience down. Last night, after the gig, I brought them to the next room where Olivia played piano with a top notch rhythm section and laid down the bed tracks. Abby gave a great vocal but I think that, with our complete orchestra, she’ll be inspired to even greater heights.”
She pointed to the orchestra and waved a finger over them. “Only a few, maybe none of them, will ever become a professional musician. But all of them, and generations more to come, will have the opportunity to expand their capabilities and reach to the sky. Music begins where words leave off, and at the New Amsterdam, our plan is to leave you all speechless.”
As Queenie stepped down to thunderous applause, Tim took her place. He winked at the kids. “You ready to rock?”
With a hundred and thirty kids nodding enthusiastically, Tim tapped his conductor’s baton and did the count-in. “One... Two... One. Two. Three. Four.”
And then the joint started jumpin’. Three minutes and forty-nine seconds of Valhalla, of pure frickin’ energy. A blistering sax solo from a fifteen-year-old, hair-tingling gospel-style harmonies, orchestral depth rivaling the Star Wars soundtracks and Abby, a human dynamo who was simply, pure soul.
Forever, I will love you.
Forever, I’ll be there
No matter where the fates may take you
No matter how hard
Forever, I will love you.
Abby raised her microphone in triumph as Olivia’s final piano chord shimmered with the sound of the huge studio orchestra.
Everyone was soundless for a few seconds, then Tim jumped in the air and shouted, “That’s it. We’re done like dinner!”
What a rush. No overdubs. No take two, take three, take ninety-seven. This tune was ready to release. There was a huge celebration in the recording room. Gofers wheeled in a cake, fruit juices and sodas as Abby was mobbed.
Even Olivia beamed. Her ordinary performance was buried under the wall of sound that Tim created.
A standing ovation greeted Queenie as she took Tim’s place on the conductor’s podium.
35
Monster
In his hotel room, JJ winced as he heard the muffled anguished screaming of young girls coming through his bedroom door. He listened helplessly to the voices of death breaking through, wishing he could do something, but there was nothing he could do to alleviate the agony of heroin withdrawal suffered by children.
He couldn’t see through the bathroom door but he could guess what the girls were doing to help each other—restraining a girl from breaking her jaw when biting a towel; holding frail bodies as they spasmed; wiping down overheated bodies with ice water; constricting arms and legs as they flailed. JJ offered acupuncture but the girls refused, believing that only enduring the pain of cold turkey could provide real healing. They insisted on doing it alone without JJ’s presence. They appreciated his kindness but he was still an outsider…and a man.
JJ was now two hundred dollars poorer, a fee he was happy to give. Sam’s contact took all of half an hour to deliver. The guy in the club and the Samaritan were, in fact, the same person. Further digging revealed his actual identity: Isaak Filipov, a petty small-time drug dealer with a history of arrests for violent assault. The gorilla’s real name was Ivan Kozlov. Kozlov had numerous arrests for violent assaults and even more charges dropped because of victims unwilling to testify.
What was interesting, though, was not the information that JJ paid for but the free information that Sam dug up on his own.
In the rap sheets of both Filipov and Kozlov were assaults on suspected illegal Chinese immigrants. In both cases, a woman by the name of “Elizabeth Watson” posted bail.
Sam was about to show JJ who Elizabeth Watson was when suddenly the room door swung open.
Two fully grown and very angry red-crowned cranes spread their wingspans and were coming straight at JJ. Not the graceful creatures of Hokkaido; these were angry, vicious beasts without subtlety—their sole mission was to maim and destroy. The claws and beaks were as sharp as a tiger’s teeth and just as dangerous.
JJ grabbed a chair and held it in front of his body for protection, but the birds’ sharp bills shredded the upholstery with ease, all the while beating their wings against JJ’s body.
Sidestepping the lunge of a beak, JJ did a standing somersault. As he descended, one bird’s head moved to spear him. JJ gave a quick side kick, brushing the crane away. Seeing an exposed belly, JJ launched a hammer fist at its body, sending it writhing to the floor.
Seeing and hearing its agony, the larger remaining crane charged at JJ. To escape, the acrobatic martial artist did a handspring to the window.
While incarcerated by the Russian thugs, JJ’s martial arts stars were taken away and he hadn’t replenished them. He balled his fist and smashed the window. It shattered. JJ’s hand was bleeding but he accomplished his goal. Pieces of broken glass became his weapons.
Crouching, he scooped up fragments and launched them at his winged opponent.
One, two, three, four, five, six pieces of glass and more embedded into the bird’s body, impeding but not stopping its approach.
The bleeding crane stepped unsteadily toward the martial arts master, calling out angrily, head thrusting with beak ready to pierce. When it was almost upon him, JJ yanked down the heavy blackout curtains from the window and quickly wrapped them around the enraged bird.
JJ rushed to the bedroom, opened the door, and the girls started screaming.
“Sorry,” he said. He quickly went through them to his suitcase, taking out a handful of martial arts stars and a dao, the short Shaolin dagger.
He rushed out of the bedroom and
slammed the door behind him. As he feared, the curtain was only a brief distraction. The bird had shredded the curtain and freed itself. JJ picked up a sofa and threw it but the crane leapt out of the way and the sofa slammed into a wall, leaving a large gouge in the plaster.
JJ’s assault continued with five razor-sharp stars thrown at the bird’s neck in rapid succession. Four of them missed any target but the fifth one sliced its neck. The crane was severely weakened, and blood gushed from its wound. JJ dashed over and snapped its neck. A final squawk stopped in the bird’s throat.
The bird on the floor, seeing the death of its companion, picked itself up and flew at JJ. JJ snatched a sofa cushion and shielded himself from the bird’s death-seeking beak and talons.
The crane easily shredded the cushion and leapt upon JJ. The Shaolin grandmaster pulled out his dagger and stabbed the bird in its breast.
Ignoring its agony, the bird furiously pecked at JJ. Bobbing, rolling and weaving out of death’s way, JJ spotted Noah’s leather jacket. He snatched it from the floor and wrapped it around the bird’s head just as its beak was about to pierce him. He yanked the dagger from the bird’s chest and stabbed it again and again. This time, he hit its heart. Mortally injured, the bleeding crane fluttered weakly before going limp.
JJ took the jacket off the bird. He hated taking the life of any living thing, even if it was trying to take his.
Examining the dead birds, he noticed certain irregularities. The irises of their tan-colored eyes were flecked with red. The red bare skin on the top of their crowns dismayed JJ. There were needle marks, evidence that they had been injected with who knew what. He had already noted that the birds’ beaks and talons were artificially sharpened, then he saw something else on the talons that sickened him: festering, open, infected sores.
These birds had been created by a monster.