Dangerous

by Sharon Green

  "Break time, yes!" Riss murmured with a big grin, raising one fist in a victory salute. "The only upside of this whole thing is that they're using a live band. If the music was canned even our falling over dead wouldn't get it to stop… Tain, as my partner of three weeks, I've decided to tell you first. If they try to give me even one more job like this one I'm going to quit."

  By now Riss was no longer looking amused, and Tain knew exactly how she felt - but there was something…

  "Are you telling me this garbage we've been doing isn't usual?" Tain asked, oddly disturbed. "I've been gritting my teeth and hanging in on the assumption that I'd be given the kind of jobs I'm more used to as soon as they made sure I haven't lost the ability to do the job."

  "Please," Riss protested, using one hand to push back her pink-streaked black hair. "Everyone with half a brain knows you left your last job because you got tired of working for an idiot who lied every time he opened his mouth. You're more than qualified for doing the kind of thing I used to do, but that's the trouble. Not one of us is getting the kind of job we used to get, but no one knows why."

  "That's not good," Tain said, pushing back her own blue-streaked brown hair. "When weird things start to happen, there's always a reason. Are you up for trying to find out what the reason is this time?"

  Riss looked interested and seemed about to agree, but a burst of loud laughter interrupted before she could say anything. Tain glanced over to see what everyone thought was so funny, and suddenly the conversation she and Riss had been having was shifted to second place.

  "Look at that," Riss murmured, drifting closer with Tain to the new show everyone was now watching. "I guess we've been really good, because we've just been given that miracle I mentioned. That has to be the girl we're looking for."

  Riss was right, of course, but there was more to the matter than just having found the missing girl. The girl in question had been led out onto the dance floor by the collar and leash around her neck, and now was stripping off all her clothes. The man holding the leash - and everyone else in sight - thought the strip act was a riot, but the girl herself looked horribly embarrassed and miserable. And yet she was still taking her clothes off without the least hesitation. Tain couldn't help thinking, What's wrong with this picture…?

  "That's right, just take them all off," the man holding the leash encouraged the girl with a chuckle. The blouse the girl wore was low cut and buttoned down the front, as if the choice of the blouse had been made with the collar and leash in mind.

  "Why is she listening to that crumb?" Riss murmured, obviously having seen herself how unhappy the girl was. "Why doesn't she tell him what to do with himself and just walk away?"

  "Good question," Tain murmured back, hating the idea she'd gotten. "I just hope there's a better answer than the one that just came to me. We'll have to - "

  "Okay, friends, now you can see all of the merchandise," the man holding the leash announced to the still-amused crowd. "Who'll give me five bucks to screw her right here and now?"

  "Oh, no, no, please don't!" the girl protested, her face having gone white instead of red. "Please, Mitch, don't do that to me! You know at least one of them will be willing, so please - "

  "Willing," the man named Mitch, who held the leash, interrupted, his amusement now looking vindictive. "No one will want to get involved with the unwilling, since that's against the law. So why don't you tell everyone that you are willing, and that you'll spread your legs for whoever pays. Tell them just that and nothing else."

  "I am willing, and I'll spread my legs for whoever pays," the girl obliged immediately, but in a terrified voice. She also obviously wanted to say something else, and Tain was afraid she knew exactly why the girl didn't.

  "That's much better," Mitch drawled while most of the males in the audience cheered and applauded and called out their own willingness. "But before I start to accept the offers, I think you need to learn who the boss is. Bend over and grab your ankles."

  The girl was now whimpering softly, but again she didn't hesitate to obey. Mitch moved behind her, shortening the leash in his grip, and then he swung the end of the leather leash hard at the girl's backside. The girl yowled and began to dance in place, and when the second stroke reached her the yelling got louder.

  "We've got to put a stop to this," Riss whispered to Tain over the loud amusement of the crowd around the two people. "The only problem is, most of these fools are either drunk or high or both. If we break up the show they'll probably try to stop us."

  "If we announce ourselves as anything official they probably will," Tain agreed, already having considered the point. "So let's be nasty and dangerous instead of official and scare the hell out of them. Do you mind following my lead?"

  "Not when you obviously have a plan and I don't," Riss answered with a grin. "Lead on, partner, or, to be more precise, lay on McPartner, and damned be him or her who first cries hold, enough."

  "I love working with literate people," Tain said with her own grin. "Shakespeare is revolving in his grave, but I like the rewrite. You grab that leash and hold onto the girl, and I'll take care of Mitch. Let's go."

  Tain took out her gun from the small shoulder bag she carried mostly as a substitute for a holster, waited a moment until Riss had done the same, and then she began to shoulder her way through the crowd. Mitch had been strapping the girl the whole time, and by now the girl was all but hopping around and screaming.

  "Okay, that's enough," Tain said to Mitch, letting him see the gun she held. "The boss thought we might find something interesting here tonight, and now that we have we mean to take it with us. And if the rest of you are smart you'll turn away and forget all about what my friend and I look like. Amnesia at the right time is proven to extend your life expectancy."

  Tain licked her lips as she looked around at the crowd, working to make them believe she wanted to shoot any or all of them. Drunk or not, high or not, most of these kids had grown up with the idea of organized crime doing as it damned well pleased. The police or anyone else official had to follow very strict rules, but those on the other side of the law followed only their own rules. Since everyone knew that, the crowd melted away so fast that an onlooker might have thought there was magic involved.

  "The bitch is mine!" Mitch growled, hating that Riss had taken the leash away from him and now had her gun pointed at his heart. "If you think you can take her you're dreaming!"

  "Well, if it's all a dream then you won't mind me doing this," Tain said mildly before jabbing the slime in the middle with her gun. Mitch the slime doubled over with a gasp, all he had the breath for, which gave Tain a moment to step near the still-bouncing girl.

  "You can straighten up now," she said softly to the girl, who was moaning and crying. "From now on you're not to obey anyone but me, but I do want you to go with my friend and cooperate with what she says. As soon as I'm back with you, you won't obey anyone else. Do you understand?"

  The girl nodded rather than say anything, but that was good enough. And bad enough. Tain now knew that her original suspicions had been right, that the girl had somehow been given that slave drug from Oliven that Tain had had so much trouble with herself. How that could be, Tain didn't know. But she sure as hell intended to find out.

  "Looks like it's a good thing we came in separate cars," Tain said to Riss in a murmur while Mitch fought to stand straight again. He'd gone down to one knee, but hadn't stretched out on the floor the way he'd probably wanted to. "You take the girl and I'll take the slime, and I'll meet you at that police station on Regis Drive. Wait in the parking lot until I get there."

  "Right," Riss agreed, but she eyed Tain curiously. "What did you say to the girl?"

  "I'll tell you later," Tain promised, glancing around. "Right now we need to get out of here. Let the girl carry her own clothes, but get her moving as fast as possible."

  Riss nodded and turned away to see to the girl, and Tain herself moved closer to Mitch.

  "Now that you're up o
n your feet again you can get moving," Tain said to the man, making the words more than a little cold. "Head for the way out and don't try to run. If I have to shoot you it probably won't be in the leg."

  "I'll get you for this, bitch," the man snarled softly as he glared at Tain. "Nobody treats me like this, nobody!"

  "Nobody until now," Tain pointed out, giving him a small shove to get him walking. "If you don't believe I'll shoot, then try to do something other than what I tell you to. The boss won't mind too much if we only bring him the girl. Unless, of course, you can provide him with others like her. We'll talk about that in my car."

  Mitch snarled some but still headed for the way out of the warehouse slowly, so Tain put her hand and the gun into her shoulder bag. But she didn't let go of the weapon, a fact Mitch caught onto immediately when he glanced back at her. The gun might not be visible any longer, but it was still pointed directly at him. He also noticed that Tain herself was far enough behind him that trying to jump her would get him nothing but shot, so he simply continued outside past the bouncers at the door without saying anything.

  Once Tain directed Mitch to her car, she stopped him from getting in before she had cuffed him. Once his wrists were securely behind him she put him in the back seat, then got behind the wheel herself.

  "So you're a cop after all," Mitch said with disgust as soon as Tain closed her door. "I want a lawyer and I want one now."

  "I'm not a cop," Tain said with a small laugh as she turned on the car. "I just happen to like using a cop tool now and then, so asking for a lawyer won't get you anything but hurt. I mentioned other girls earlier, and now's the time I want the question answered. Do you have other girls as … cooperative as the one we already have? If so, name a reasonable price for them."

  "I might be able to come up with one or two to begin with," Mitch responded after a small hesitation, apparently deciding that a little horse trading ought to be in order. "Just how many I can supply will depend on what your boss considers a reasonable price. To start with, I want a hundred thousand for Vicky."

  "That's not what my boss - or I - can consider reasonable, Mitch," Tain said as she drove out of the very large parking lot of the warehouse. "Try again, and this time keep in mind that a smaller piece of the pie is better than no piece at all."

  "Okay, I'll come down to fifty thou, but that's as low as I can afford to go," Mitch returned, now trying to sound businesslike and reasonable. "The shit I gave Vicky to make her more … agreeable has to be given once a week or she'll come out of it, and that shit isn't cheap. For the fifty you get the girl, and I keep her supplied for two months. After that ten grand a month will take care of supplying the shit, and we can have the same deal on all the girls I provide."

  "Not bad," Tain allowed as she drove toward another warehouse about a quarter of a mile away from the first. This building, unlike the first, was completely dark and obviously abandoned, and Tain drove into the shadow of the large building before stopping the car. "Now all I need to know is the name and location of your drug supplier. Give me a minute and I'll have something to write with and on."

  "What … are you … talking about?" Mitch asked, obviously struggling to speak the words. Tain had noticed that his speech was starting to slur the last time he'd spoken, which meant that the vibrational truth drug set into the handcuffs was beginning to work on him. She clicked on the dash light and got a pen and some paper from the glove compartment, then turned to look at the man. He sat slumped in the seat with his head back, and even in the dim light Tain could see the … disconnected expression in his eyes.

  "The police aren't allowed to do this, but I am," she said softly, delighted that her own people never played the stupid games that the ordinary authorities did. Being more concerned with "doing things the way they've always been done" was asinine, since the old ways too often put the innocent behind bars and let the guilty walk free. "Now you can answer my question. What's the name of your drug supplier and where can he or she be found?"

  Mitch was no longer able to hesitate even a moment before telling Tain what she wanted to know, and she wrote down the details before looking up at the man again.

  "Now you'll tell me about what went on with Vicky," Tain said. "Did she join you voluntarily, or did you give her that drug first?"

  "The stupid bitch was slumming, out for a couple of thrills before running back to where she belonged," Mitch answered, a hint of bitterness behind the flow of words. "She had no idea how bad life can get when you don't have a rich daddy, so I decided to show her."

  "And probably didn't give a damn that she isn't the type to have done the same to you," Tain said, knowing she was wasting her breath but still needing to say the words. "All right, Mitch, one last question. Have you given any other girls the same drug?"

  "I only just found out about the stuff a little while ago," Mitch answered at once. "The rich bitch was the first one I tried it on, but she won't be the last."

  "That's what you think," Tain muttered as she leaned way over the seat to touch the proper place on the handcuffs. Her touch turned off the vibrational truth drug effect, but it would be a short while before Mitch pulled out of it. Then she sat straight again, turned off the dash light, drove out of the parking lot, and headed for her rendezvous with Riss.

  Tain had no trouble finding Riss's car in the police station parking lot, and by then Mitch had recovered from the effects of the vibrations. Since he had no true memory of the questions he'd been asked while under control of the drug, he'd been pressing Tain for a response to his "very reasonable" offer. As soon as he saw where they were going, though, his coaxing sales pitch broke off.

  "What is this?" he demanded, obviously having seen the large signs telling people where they were. "You said you weren't a cop!"

  "I'm not a cop," Tain assured him, letting no more than a small smile curve her lips. "My badge comes from a different source altogether, but that doesn't mean I can't cooperate with the local authorities. The locals will arrest you, but you'll probably be tried in a higher court. Kidnapping isn't considered a local crime."

  The man began to curse then and leaned back to lift his legs with kicking Tain in the head clearly in mind, but she'd already parked near the station and next to Riss's car. Tain got out of her own car before Mitch could figure a way around her seat's head rest, opened the door to the station to say she needed the help of a couple of officers, then went back out to stand next to her car to wait.

  The wait lasted no more than a minute or so, but the two officers who came out looked at Tain with the kind of expressionlessness that reminded her about her disguise. With that in mind Tain held up her credentials, then gave a small laugh.

  "I know I don't look much like the picture ID, officers, but my partner and I have been working undercover," she explained, gesturing to Riss where she sat in her own car. "We just recovered the kidnapped girl we were looking for, and this slime is the one who kidnapped her. I hope you don't mind taking him off our hands so we can return the girl to her home."

  "We'll need a statement from the girl if we're going to hold the … slime," one of the officers said while the other opened the door to get Mitch out of the car. "You're right about not looking much like that picture, but I can still see enough of a resemblance that I'll take your word for it."

  "Good," Tain said. "If you'll get a detective out here we'll let him or her have a verbal statement from the girl, along with where she can be found. Once she's had the time to pull herself together she'll give a formal statement, and there's no worry about her conveniently forgetting about what was done to her. Her family is downright eager to have someone prosecuted, so they'll cooperate fully."

  The other officer had already forced Mitch into the building, so Tain followed the second officer and waited while a detective was being called. During the wait she also had the officer substitute her own cuffs for Tain's, then casually put the very special cuffs back into her shoulder bag. When the detective showed up, Tain walk
ed back out with the man and over to Riss's car. Vicky was completely dressed again and lying face down on the back seat. Tain opened the back door and Vicky's tear-stained face looked up at her.

  "Vicky, this is Detective Rivera," Tain said gently. "Tell him what happened between you and Mitch."

  "I don't think I know exactly what happened," Vicky answered at once, her voice shaky. "A few nights ago at a club Mitch came over and insisted on buying me a drink, promising to leave after the drink if I wanted him to. He … frightened me, so I drank the drink hoping to get rid of him sooner. But once I'd finished the drink I felt funny, and then I couldn't refuse to do whatever he told me to. Can I please go home now?"

  Tain soothed the girl with the promise that they'd be taking her home in just a couple of minutes, then she stood and waited while Rivera asked a couple of questions along with where "home" was for Vicky. The girl told him everything he needed to know, and after thanking Tain and Riss for their help he went back inside the station.

  "What now?" Riss asked once Rivera was gone. "We taking Vicky home the way we said we would?"

  "That's exactly what we're doing," Tain agreed. "Go straight there and I'll follow, and once we have Vicky handed over to people who'll take care of her then you and I can talk."

  "Can't wait," Riss commented with a wry smile, then waited until Tain was back in her car before backing out of the parking space. Tain did the same and then followed Riss to the highway, and it wasn't long before they reached the area where Vicky's parents had their very large house. The whole area was devoted to those with money, and the estate was large enough that it took a couple of minutes to go far enough up the drive to reach the house.

  Tain stopped her car behind Riss's, and even before they got Vicky out of Riss's car the front door of the house had opened and people were hurrying out. When Vicky saw her mother she began to cry hard, but her mother's matching tears were happy ones. Mrs. Aldridge hugged a daughter she'd obviously been afraid she'd never see again, her husband hugging the two of them together, the other sister and brother hovering not far away waiting their turn to welcome their sister home.