by Kit Crumb
It was the first gunman, the one Rye had scoop kicked, who did all the talking. Although they were both formidable in size, the one who walked him across the street was definitely the boss.
“I don’t work for Lewd and Lascivious, I’m trying to find them.”
“What exactly do you mean, you’re trying to find them? You looking for a job or something?” The two men grinned at each other.
Rye was getting fired up but didn’t want to piss off his captors.
“I think they’ve killed a man, an actor in one of their films, and they’re going to kill again.”
The two thugs exchanged looks again.
“You ain’t no cop and definitely not a bounty hunter. What’s it to you?”
“Their next victim could be a woman who came to me asking for help. Look, this guy had his liver cut out, but I don’t know if there is really a connection between the company and the guy’s death. All I know for sure is that the woman I’m looking for asked me for help. She appeared in a film made by these guys—and so did the guy.” Rye suddenly realized he’d been talking a mile a minute, something Claire said he did when he was nervous. He paused and took a deep breath. “I don’t know what you think, but I’m not associated with Lewd and Lascivious in any way.”
“OK, Mr. Rye. I see you’re pretty excited; hey, two guns in my face and I’d be pretty excited, too. I’m gonna tell you some things cuz I think we may be able to help each other. Whatchu think?”
Rye didn’t know if he was expected to answer, but was willing to do anything at this point in order to get the guns pointed somewhere else.
“Sure, glad to help. Could you put those guns away?”
The two men smiled at the request. “Put the guns away, sure why not. First put your hands on the ceiling.”
Rye raised his hands until his fingers touched the padded headliner. One of the men waved his gun under Rye’s nose.
“Palms flat and don’t move or Rock here will blow a hole in you. And at this range I’d get a face fulla guts.”
If the gunman was trying to frighten him, he’d done a good job.
He felt the man’s hands lightly run up his sides, around behind his neck, around his waist and his crotch.
“Now sit back on your butt and bring your feet around in front, nice ‘n slow.”
The process of bringing his feet around pulled Rye’s pant legs half way up his calf. It was plain to see that he wasn’t wearing an ankle holster.
“Good, now we put the guns away. Bring your hands down. Now, tell me, when did this guy get his liver cut out?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I found him day before yesterday, and he hadn’t been dead more than twenty-four hours.”
“How would you know how long he’d been dead? You a doctor or sumpin’?”
Rye was steamed and at the end of his patience with all the questions. Now that the guns were out of sight, he was feeling a little braver, but not a lot.
“I’m an emergency medical technician. But what has all this got to do with you? And how do you figure we can help each other? You can help me right now by letting me go.”
His two captors looked at each other as if trying to make up their minds about something.
“An emergency medical… you mean an ambulance driver?”
“Basically, yeah,” Rye said, trying to hide his anger.
“OK then. My ol’ man is dyin’ of a liver disease. He needs a new liver, can’t wait. The odds of gettin’ picked from an organ donor list in time to save his life ain’t so good. My ol’ man’s doctor says he can get a liver through other channels, says leave it to him. What do you know, I get a call the next day saying if I want a liver, bring a hundred gees to Pier 39, San Francisco, midnight, cash. Maybe the liver I bought and your dead guy’s liver are one in the same?”
Rye could feel the sweat trickling down his side and beading across his forehead. He could hear his own heart beat, but knew he couldn’t panic. Both his captors were built like linebackers and both still had their guns, and although he no longer felt his life was in immediate danger, he was far from safe. This man was talking about black market organ sales and he had to know it was a federal offense. The other guy had called him by name. They’d revealed too much to let him go.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Rye was right, it was no problem getting the license number of the Dodge Caravan. Claire simply asked Jake Bradshaw, her good buddy at the fire department, to run it through the DMV for a name and address. Apparently, the vehicle had been caught in a surveillance tape as it crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, and he was able to provide a crude image of the driver and the passenger. Now she had a face to match the name. Jake had pulled the face of the woman Rye identified as asking for help off the tape, but as Claire left Medford, Oregon, heading north, she began having doubts. What was she going to do when she got to this guy’s house? All she knew was Crystal’s name.
Claire pulled onto the shoulder of the freeway and dialed Paul Casey’s number on her cell phone. She got his answering machine.
“Paul, this is Claire. Rye went to LA in search of a porn company and I’m headed for 20415 Pericolo Lane. It’s just above Denton near the coast.” Claire pulled the phone away from her ear to avoid the static that suddenly came on the line.
“Great, well it was a good try,” she said and pressed the end button and put the phone back on the passenger seat.
She ran through several scenarios for getting into the house on Pericolo Lane. But who was this girl Rye wanted so desperately to help? Would she even be there and more importantly, who were these people she was involved with? She finally let it go; the whole idea was insane anyway. Paul had even told Rye that there was nothing either of them could do. Great, the message she left, outlining her intention of locating the girl, flew in the face of Paul’s advice. But, she figured, this far up the coast and having left a message for Paul—if his machine even recorded it—she sure as hell wasn’t going to turn back now.
It was while leaving the rest stop just above the little town of Cottage Grove that Claire had an idea that she thought just might work. She’d say she was a private investigator hired by an attorney to locate the two people who assisted with a multi-car accident on I-5. The victims and their families had put together a reward of $10,000, to split between the two. She wouldn’t even show the picture, she’d explain how she traced the license plate of the Dodge and had only a description of a tall, slightly balding man and a woman with long blonde hair. Claire ran the scenario over and over, even practicing what she’d say. When she reached Denton, she gassed up and drove a couple blocks without finding her turn off, then pulled into the parking lot of the Book Nook and asked for directions to Pericolo Lane.
The occasional house or mailbox became more and more infrequent as she drove on, until she hadn’t seen a house in twenty minutes. She was beginning to think that she had gone too far until she came to a hairpin curve and passed a steel reinforced mailbox with the correct address. A fifteen-foot high iron gate blocked the paved driveway. Attached on either side of the driveway were twenty-foot high stone pillars.
She parked a foot or two from the gate, got out and gave the iron bars a shake.
“Wow this is really made to keep people out,” Claire said, to no one in particular.
To the left and right of the pillars, barbed wire fencing lead off into the woods. Imbedded in one of the pillars was a speaker with a keypad.
Claire pressed the button marked “intercom.” “Hello, I need to speak to the owner of a black and red Dodge Caravan.”
The speaker crackled as a tinny sounding voice responded. “State your name and business.”
“My name is Claire Anderson and I’m a private investigator authorized to give the owner of the black and red Dodge Caravan a reward of ten thousand dollars.”
There was no immediate response and Claire was beginning to wonder if the speaker worked. When the tinny sounding voice caught her by surprise, she could feel her pulse pound in her ears.
“I’m sorry the owner of the Dodge isn’t here at this time.”
“Could I pass through? I just need to find out who the owner is.”
This time the response was immediate.
“Just mail the check to this address.”
Claire jabbed at the button. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. I have to deliver the check in person.”
The reply wasn’t so congenial this time. “Then you’re out of luck.”
She tried several different approaches but the person at the other end either wasn’t responding or wasn’t there. She got into her car and drove slowly along Pericolo Lane until she found a break in the barbed wire.
She started to wonder if the young woman who asked Rye for help was being held against her will. She hadn’t really expected an open invitation to come inside, but it was obvious that these people had something to hide—and it wasn’t just pornography.
Pulling onto the shoulder of the road, she left a note under the windshield wiper—Won’t start, caught a ride into town.
Reaching behind the seat, Claire grabbed her butt pack and pulled on a down vest. Checking up and down the road, she quickly made her way down the little slope that led to the barbed wire fence where the top two strands had come undone from one of the fence posts. High stepping, Claire leapt over the fence and into the forest, quickly moving out of sight from the road. She made her way in the direction of the driveway, figuring that she’d need to come up on the house from behind. She’d been jogging for nearly twenty minutes, finally stopping to catch her breath. Bent over with her hands on her knees she looked up and began scanning the woods for a house. Spotting the driveway, she figured if she just stayed parallel to it, she’d eventually run into one.
After another half hour of hopping over fallen trees and branches, she spotted what she was looking for.
Walking now, she began to circle around behind the block building until she was directly behind it. She duck walked out of the woods up to a large boulder just twenty feet from the rear door, and peaked around the edge. “What the hell?”
Rocking back off her heels onto her butt, her back against the moss-covered boulder, she tried to figure out what she had just seen. The only door looked solid, the top was chicken wire and the bottom half was reinforced with metal. The door handle was a simple pull, no doorknob.
This could be the door to any clinic in the country, Claire thought. “What kind of house is this?” she said softly.
There were no windows facing the boulder except the one in the door. Taking a deep breath, Claire sprinted to the back of the house, pressing herself against the wall of the building next to the door. Her blood raced as the adrenalin surged. Taking another deep breath and holding it, she peeked in through the bottom corner of the window. She looked down at what could have been a hospital corridor, complete with crash cart and two gurneys sitting in the hall. Not seeing anyone, she took a minute to scope out the hall, but couldn’t see much beyond the first room.
“OK, Claire, you can do this.”
She took several deep breaths through her nose to help calm down, the way she did before a sparing match at the dojo. Gently, very gently, she reached up and tugged at the door handle. To her surprise, the heavy door opened easily. In one quick move she slipped into the hall and stepped into the first room she came to.
She did a quick scan, checking out what appeared to be an exam room. “Holy shit!” she cried out louder than she meant to.
There, sitting on an exam table, dressed in loose fitting scrubs, was the blonde from the porn tape. Claire checked the hall, still empty. She closed the door and turned out the light.
“Hi, hello?” Claire whispered.
She immediately recognized that the young woman was mildly sedated. She sat on the exam table tottering, as though about to fall forward, eyes glazed. In twenty years as an emergency room nurse and EMT, Claire had seen people in this state of sedation hundreds of times; usually she had put them there.
She climbed onto the exam table next to the young woman, placing a hand on her shoulder to keep her from falling.
“My name’s Claire. Crystal?”
She leaned forward putting her ear in front of the woman’s lips.
“Mu eve.”
“Mary, is that your name? I thought it was Crystal.”
The young woman’s brow furrowed and she pursed her lips to speak.
“Hep!”
Each time the young woman spoke she rocked forward against Claire’s steadying hand.
“Helen? Is that your name? Can I help you, Helen?”
Suddenly the young woman turned to face Claire, her eyes focused, her speech clearing a bit.
“Must leave now.”
As though someone had flipped a switch, the young woman slumped forward, her eyes once again glazed over.
“That’s all I needed to hear. C’mon honey, let’s get out of here.”
She placed a hand on the woman’s chest and in the small of her back to help her slide off the exam table. Crystal wasn’t steady, but was willing. Claire led her to the door and checked the hall.
“Get ready. On the count of three we’re going to run out the door.”
She knew that providing a mildly sedated patient advance notice allowed them time to adjust. On three, the two women stepped into the hall. She figured Crystal was stable enough that she could be pulled along. Claire was just at the back door when she stopped short at the slamming of a door at the opposite end of the building.
“Hey their Crystal, who’s your friend?”
Claire turned. She was face to face with a burly young man in scrubs.
“Hi there, I’m Derrick, her anesthesiologist. And you are…?” he said slowly.
Claire knew that it was now or never. If she hesitated, all would be over.
“I’m Doctor Pain,” she said, smiling, as she planted her right foot into Derrick’s groin. She then grasped his throat with her left hand. As he doubled over, she helped him to the floor, placing a thumb behind his ear causing him to lose conscious.
Claire grabbed Crystal by the shoulders and shook her hard. “C’mon we’ve gotta go.”
Pushing and pulling, Claire got the two of them out the door. She headed into the forest, holding Crystal tightly by the hand, coaxing, dragging and pulling her through the woods. Branches slapped them, feeling like so many needles, poking and whipping.
“C’mon, snap out of it,” Claire hissed, as she dragged her along. They had to get back to the road and her car as soon as possible. “At this rate we won’t make the road before they notice you’re gone. C’mon, Crystal, you can make it.”
Scanning the woods ahead, Claire noticed a hill and some cliffs. Not exactly the direction of the road, but a place where they could hide until Crystal came around.
“Hey how about a rest, would you like that?” Crystal was becoming more responsive, crying out as branches struck her in the face. But she didn’t respond to Claire’s question.
Claire made her way around branches and tree limbs scattered on the forest floor. In some cases, whole trees lay in their path. Working her way to the cliffs, she noticed that Crystal was looking around, becoming aware of her surroundings.
There had to be some rocks, a place to hide. When she finally reached the cliffs, there were no boulders to hide behind, just a shear rock face.
Claire suddenly noticed that Crystal was no longer yanking her arm every thirty seconds. She was now moving with much more ease. Claire stopped, attempted to get a verbal response, but still nothing.
As they rounded the natural curve of the cliff face,
a hole appeared. “Look, a cave,” Claire said.
Cautiously, she crept up to the small dark opening. Her breathing instantly constricted and she quickly stepped back, spooked by the black hole in solid stone that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The opening seemed to shrink right before her eyes and she was reminded of something far back in her memory, something out of her childhood. Taking a deep breath, she stepped up to the opening. One look and she knew this was no cave, it was a mine.
Even in the dim light, she could see that the timbers were huge and ran up the side, crisscrossing along the ceiling. But as she stepped to enter, Crystal would have none of it, and froze.
“C’mon there’s no time for this. Crystal, come on,” Claire said, in her sternest whisper.
Slowly, she managed to drag the young woman into the mine’s entrance. She had her back bent to the task and was facing into the shaft, pulling with all her strength.
“Where are we?” Claire whirled around. Crystal had spoken.
“Welcome back to the land of the living. My name’s Claire. C’mon, we’ve got to hide.”
She led her to the wall of the mine, and the two women crouched behind one of the huge beams. “What do you remember?”
“Only that I was going to be taken to a clinic to see my friend, Jan. When I got inside the room where Jan was supposed to be someone came up behind me and placed a cloth over my mouth and nose. The next thing I knew there were trees and someone pulling me along. Was that you?”
“Yeah, we’ve been bushwhacking for about fifteen minutes.”
“Who are you and why are you helping me?”
“My husband and I operate an ambulance service and were attending an accident just outside of Medford on the I-5. He said you came up to him and asked for help, then he saw you on a porn tape and thought you might be in trouble. But when we discovered that a dead guy was also in a film made by the same company, we were afraid you might be next.”
“What do you think they were going to do to me?” Crystal asked.
