Pepper

by Carol Buhler

  “This job of yours getting more dangerous?” Ludo kept his voice low and his eyes on the dancers so Pepper didn’t chastise him.

  “Not really. It’s just that I want to have everything in place. Neither of us is getting younger.”

  “I have a very promising nephew in training. I didn’t think you’d want me to introduce him to you yet. Maybe next time.”

  “Good.”

  Byron was leading his wife into yet another dance, his arm around her ample waist. Sneakily, other men cut in to dance with her while their ladies begged him to partner them. A few steps later, another would cut in, and another, until finally Byron roared with what almost sounded like his earlier clarity, “I want to dance with her! Get out of my sight!” Since he was laughing so hard and the words came out slightly garbled, no one showed any sign of fear and they left the couple alone.

  Pepper had deposited his leftovers in a garbage can and was heading toward the gate when his personal phone rang. He shot a glance at Ludo, helping the bride and groom cut the cake, then answered. It wasn’t Firth’s voice. He stiffened.

  “Taylor Patterson? It’s me, Timothy, from Hotel Bayou. You need to come right away. There’s been a car accident. Mr. and Mrs. Firth are in the hospital. He’s asking for you, gave me his phone to call you.”

  “I’ll be there sometime in the night,” Pepper said bluntly. “Which hospital?”

  “Delt General on Bay Street.”

  “I know the place. Tell him I’m on my way.”

  **

  At 4:00 in the morning, Pepper made his way into Delt General and ran into Timothy at the nurse’s station.

  “I promised I’d wait for you and take you right there.” He coughed and cast his eyes to the floor. “Mrs. Firth died about two hours ago.”

  Although the nurse tried to stop them, Pepper shouldered past her, pushing Timothy ahead. They entered the darkened room and saw Firth awake. Pepper turned to the doorman. “Thanks for your help. I’ll take it from here.” He pressed a sizeable bill into the man’s hand and shoved him out the door, then closed and locked it.

  When he turned to his boss, the man’s eyes glowed with hatred from a sunken, ashen-white face. “A drunk driver. Broadsided us at a light, demolished her side.” He paused and drew in a raspy breath. “Make him pay dearly.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Chapter 15

  Pepper knew exactly how to make him pay, dearly. But he had to get him out of the prison hospital first. The man, despite his level of extreme inebriation, had been ejected from his car and slammed his head into a light pole. Supposedly, he was barely conscious. Before he could pay dearly, he would have to get well.

  In two days, Firth exited the hospital, frustrated, but didn’t rant at Pepper. Together they gathered Dara’s things, delivered everything to a care center for the poor, and left for Kavv to continue with plans until the drunk was released from prison, relatively healed but facing a vehicular homicide trial.

  Eventually, Pepper arrived back in Delt with instructions that the driver/killer not make it to his trial.

  The man’s not only a drunk, but an idiot. Pepper followed close behind his quarry as they approached a dark alley not far from the man’s house. The guy never noticed. His wife had screamed at him when he left, “Don’t you ever come back!” and he was muttering angrily.

  At the alley, Pepper sped up, wrapped his arm around the man’s throat, and dragged him out of sight. A single blow to the man’s head, just behind his right ear, laid him flat on the filthy ground. Pepper swung the limp body over his shoulder and walked calmly to the back of the alley, across the next street, into another alley. He unlocked the door to a vacant warehouse he’d prepared and stepped inside.

  By the time Pepper had strung him up to hang from the ceiling, face down with his ankles tied together, the idiot had come to enough to start flailing his arms and screaming for help. Pepper stuffed a rag in his mouth.

  To pleading eyes, Pepper said calmly, “In your stupidity, you killed the wife of a dangerous, vindictive man. Not me, but the man I work for. He wants you to pay more than the law will charge.”

  His words must have sobered the drunk instantly as he began to swing and gyrate, trying to strike with fists, only missing Pepper’s nose by a hair. Pepper pulled his sheathed neck knife and waved it before the man’s eyes, ducked under the uncontrolled strikes, and plucked the gag from the man’s mouth. “Scream all you want,” he said quietly as he sliced down the back of the man’s right thigh muscle. The drunk obliged.

  “No one’s going to hear you,” Pepper said in his lack-of-emotion tone. “I took the liberty of coating the windows with soundproofing.” He carved deeper into the left thigh.

  The man wailed, “I’ll pay you. Anything you want.”

  “Sorry. It’s too late for that.” Pepper added a cut to the man’s hip. “And I doubt you can outbid my boss.” The three wounds bled freely; Pepper smiled.

  “You see, he wants you to suffer for what you did.” Pepper’s voice dropped to an evil whisper. “You will.”

  His victim shrieked as the knife in Pepper’s hand approached his groin. He squeaked, “I’ll leave! You’ll never see me again, I promise. You tell him you did me and let me go.”

  “Can’t. He wants to see the newspaper report when the police find you.” Pepper pared off the man’s testicles.

  He continued around the dangling body, cutting slightly here, more deeply there. The flailing arms had gone limp; the victim alternated between sobs and shrieks of pain.

  “I don’t enjoy this,” Pepper said at last. “But you must pay.”

  Bleeding from many non-fatal spots, the man whimpered, “What now?”

  “Your face.” Pepper sliced carefully above the man’s nose so that blood would fill his eyes. Then, he sliced the chin. The man’s mouth filled and he choked even as he clawed at the thick red stuff with an equally bleeding hand.

  Wiping his blade on a shred of clothing that dangled from his victim’s pant-leg, he slipped it back into the sheath that always hung down his back. “I’ll leave you now. You’ll bleed out like a hanging beef by nightfall. Think about what you should have done differently—and if there is a hell, you can boast about your death to your friends until I get there some day.”

  The man screamed and begged as Pepper let himself out the door, locking it behind him.

  Three days later, he sent an anonymous message to the police about the abandoned warehouse.

  Remé Firth gave Pepper a substantial bonus when he read the newspaper details of the mysteriously tortured vehicular homicide suspect found dangling in a warehouse in Delt, dead from massive blood loss.

  **

  During the next year, Pepper investigated property and businesses throughout the city-states of Kavv and Juel. Without Dara, Firth had changed his tactics and wormed his way into Lord Roark of Kavv’s court. A single young man, the dark and brooding lord seemed to take to Firth’s financial proposals and they were soon business partners in the weapons trade. After only a few inquiries, Pepper had learned that Roark’s most earnest desire was the conquering of the neighboring city-state run by Lord Metz. That desire played smoothly into Firth’s plans so they set out to create and arm a military force for Kavv.

  No other city-state on the continent had an organized Army. Most had a guard force, as did the target, Lord Metz of Pith. As Roark’s force grew, the man became more and more egotistical, in Pepper’s opinion, so he maneuvered to stay out of Kavv as much as possible.

  After a three-week period spent traveling through neighboring Carn, Pepper arrived at Firth’s suite in a fine Kavv hotel with recommendations to avoid that city-state altogether. “They’re ruled by a triumvirate,” Pepper said with disgust. “I don’t know how they accomplish anything. I’d get one of the three listening, only to have him change his mind while I worked on another. Besides, Carn is nothing but marshland—not even productive marshland.”

  “I’ll take your advice, fo
r now,” Firth replied. “There are better prospects in Juel and Opel, not to mention further north. But tonight I want you to meet someone. Prepare for a formal dinner and join me in the lobby at eight.”

  Surprised by his boss’s air of suppressed excitement, Pepper did as he was directed. The two, dressed in expensive tuxedos, entered the exclusive hotel restaurant and were immediately directed to a secluded table nestled among a group of large potted plants. A lady awaited—not young—perhaps in her late thirties, her cheery hazel eyes her most attractive feature.

  Firth took the lady’s hand in response to her smile and kissed the back of it. Rising, he said, “Tatia, my dear, this is Pepper, my aide and right-hand man. He and I are at your command.”

  Pepper hid his reaction as he, too, kissed the hand held out to him. During dinner, it became obvious that Firth was out to impress and that the lady was indeed influenced by the surroundings and his boss’s words and actions. Unlike Firth’s relationship with Dara, this woman seemed to have captured his heart.

  After a thorough investigation, in which Pepper found nothing against the brilliant designer/architect Firth had given his love to, a lavish wedding was held at Kavv Palace with Lord Roark acting as best man, a further feather in Firth’s cap to present to Tatia’s parents. As a looker, Firth wasn’t much. But the wealth and influence he displayed had won them over completely.

  Pepper wondered what future business would be like for himself.

  Not much changed, to Pepper’s relief. He continued investigating land and businesses, insuring they were available at a reasonable purchase price for his boss, and didn’t get involved in the social life Firth and his new wife reveled in. She was a businesswoman in her own right and availed herself of Pepper’s talents when it came to locating land for one of her construction projects. Neither man ever let on to Tatia how a particular parcel happened to become available at the time she wanted it.

  The couple traveled extensively, were welcomed in the courts of city-state Lords, or into the homes of Presidents, and participated in the funding and creation of numerous governmental buildings throughout the continent. Even in Bonn, Pepper negotiated the demolition of the slums he’d grown up in. Tatia designed a beautiful high-rise, low-rent housing complex, and Firth made a fortune selling it to Bonn City.

  Eight years went by quickly. Pepper checked in on the manor every year. He watched his brother’s small family bloom with child after child, each with curly blond hair and blue eyes, and, as far as he could tell and Ludo reported, the sharp intelligence and easy-going cheerfulness of Byron’s younger years.

  Glad to see his brother’s contentment, he didn’t question his own. He had money. He ate what he liked, slept where and with whom he wanted to, and traveled to all corners of his world in luxury if he desired. He never asked himself if he was happy.

  **

  Lord Roark delivered his ultimatum to Lord Metz: “Either give your eldest daughter in marriage to Lord Roark so that she can bear the heir to both Kavv and Pith, or be invaded by Kavv’s now extensive military.”

  Pepper read the note Roark had sent to the Imperial Hotel in Opel. He, Remé, and Tatia were preparing for the grand opening of her triumphant achievement: the magnificent Opel Children’s Museum, so he was surprised by the timing of the threat. He shrugged. “Doesn’t involve us.”

  “No,” Firth replied. “I’m glad we’re here right now. I want his efforts to succeed—but without more of our help.” As Tatia entered the room, the two men changed the subject.

  The Firth’s were attending the Annual Presidential ball in Juel, guests of the recently widowed President Lucy Shef, when Tatia complained of a profoundly aching head. She’d been feeling poorly the past week, and in alarm, Remé and Lucy escorted her to a suite in the venue where she lay down to rest with her husband and friend hovering over her. Pepper was sent to fetch the President’s physician. He appeared within thirty minutes.

  “I think I’d better have her transferred to the hospital—run some tests,” the doctor said.

  Pepper stood silently, shoulders against the blank wall in the waiting room, trying to disappear. He’d met President Shef before but didn’t want her to realize exactly who he was in Firth’s organization. His boss had insisted he be present in the hospital claiming Shef would never connect him with the enforcer who’d convinced her to sell her home ranch just after her husband died. Pepper wasn’t as confident. He kept his head down as if worried about Mrs. Firth’s health, and kept his mouth shut.

  Firth leapt to his feet the moment the doctor came through the swinging door. Shef did, too, and clung to Firth’s arm for support. Pepper lifted his eyes slightly. The doctor didn’t look encouraging.

  “President Shef, we’ve done a brain scan.” He cleared his throat and focused on Firth. “I’m afraid your wife has a massive tumor on the left side of her brain. It is inoperable.”

  Firth turned pale. “Why?” he croaked. Pepper had known him for over ten years. He’d never seen the man as emotional as he was at that moment. Yes, he’d been furious over Dara’s senseless death. This was different—like he felt lost. Pepper, however, didn’t move. Shef was making all the necessary noises.

  “It has to have been growing for months. Tendrils have woven into various areas of her brain. We’d never get them all in an operation and could cause worse damage.” The doctor paused and studied the two before him. “We’ll try chemotherapy. But, Mr. Firth, I must warn you. I don’t expect her to live a year. I’m very sorry, sir, Madam President.”

  Tatia insisted on undergoing treatment in Kavv, where she could at least monitor the construction of her new home with Remé that she’d personally designed. Pepper stayed away as much as he dared, pursuing and watching over Firth’s businesses across the continent. Firth himself did nothing but wait hand and foot on his dying wife.

  The message of her death reached Pepper in Whay. He took the first plane he could catch and arrived within two hours. He’d stopped traveling by car when Tatia started her therapy, expecting to be called back with only minutes’ notice at any time. She hadn’t lived six months after the doctor’s prediction.

  Firth was withdrawn and silent during the funeral and the pair of them left Kavv immediately after. The relatively pleasant man that Pepper had worked for the past nine years was gone. Hatred and anger almost seeped out of Firth’s pores. Although he maintained his congenial and civil face in public, in private he barked and snapped.

  **

  “That idiot!” Firth growled one afternoon as Pepper entered the office in response to his call. “Roark married the wrong girl!” Pepper felt his brows rise in surprise.

  “He wrote me this confounded letter—says he married the second oldest daughter because the oldest got herself disinherited or some such poppycock.” Firth jerked his head from the letter and glared at Pepper. “Go see what happened. If that fool has ruined the takeover of Pith, we might have to do something about him. I’ll follow you to Kavv as soon as I get those papers signed for the wharf building. Report to me at the house.”

  Three days later, Pepper entered the study in the newly finished Firth mansion in Kavv to find his employer scowling into nothingness. “The news report we saw last night seems to be accurate,” he said. “I found ample evidence that the supposedly fictitious creatures called reeth and don do exist.”

  Firth snapped his head around. “Ridiculous.”

  Pepper stiffened but hid his anger at his boss’s tone. “Evidently, it’s not,” he said dryly. “The films and accounts of that exchange of prisoners are well documented. An individual calling himself a don kidnapped Lord Metz’ daughter and dishonored her. Metz took another so-called don they were holding in their prison to the Flagstone Plateau and made a trade for his daughter. Roark married the second daughter who will bear the heir.”

  “Don and reeth real?” Remé scoffed. “Who’s going to believe that? Not you?”

  Pepper placed copies of various newspapers and a reel of te
levision film onto Firth’s desk. “I kind of have to. And so do you. Pictures and reels of film of the critters are multiplying every day. It’s all anyone talks about.”

  “And that fool Roark waded right into it?”

  Swallowing a sigh at Firth’s sarcasm, he replied, “I don’t think he had a choice. It shouldn’t make any difference to his eventual rule over both city-states. This second daughter is now the heir—so her son will be, too. And, she seems a whole lot more amenable than the first one.”

  “You met her?”

  “Briefly. Long enough to see that she’ll be an asset to Roark. She wants power as much as he does.”

  “Well. I’ll be damned.”

  Yes, you will, right along with me.

  As the days passed, Pepper saw that the introduction of strange, flying, horse-like critters and their attached mind-mates, the don—whatever mind-mate meant—drew everyone’s attention. Firth’s business plans were operating smoother than ever which made his job easier. However, he swore to stay completely away from either of the two newly revealed species.

  Chapter 16

  Firth and Pepper were investigating shipping warehouses in Whay when they heard of Lord Roark’s ultimatum to Lord Metz, demanding that his father-in-law abdicate his throne in favor of his daughter and prospective heir.

  “Ha!” Firth said. “Guess the bride’s pregnant. Maybe this time Roark will do what he needs to do to further our cause.”

  “We have a cause?” Pepper asked. “I thought we were building wealth.”

  Firth acted surprised, and a bit devious. “I’ve decided on doing more,” he said without looking at Pepper. “We’re going to take over all the governments and rule the continent.”

  “Why?” Pepper kept his voice neutral even though he didn’t like where his boss seemed to be going. Ruling people is not like controlling employees. It sounds like too much work.