by Kailin Gow
“That should keep that nosy fucker out of the way.”
It strikes me that I’ve never heard Roni Taylor speak before. Her voice is high-pitched, almost girlish. But there’s a ruthlessness in her voice that chills me to the very bone.
“Quick and easy,” Ben grins back at her. It’s a grin that sends chills shooting up and down my spine like pins. I’d never seen Ben act like this before. What was he doing?
It can’t be true. Or could it? Ben was never my friend. Maybe he was just pretending, this whole time: making up stories in order to get my trust, to make me want to open up to him, to find out what I was all about.
I don’t have time to interrogate Ben as to his motives. I kick him as hard as I can, straight in the balls.
He doubles over in pain .”OUCH,” he screams, falling to his knees.
It’s not going to buy me a lot of time, but it buys me enough.
I start running as fast as I can: running into the pitch dark desert behind the convenience store.
I don’t know how long this desert is. I don’t know how far it goes. I am being swallowed up by the blackness all around me: it is closing over me like water. I am drowning in the desert dark.
I stop behind a cactus, hiding, trying to catch my breath without being seen or heard. I can hear them near me, all echoes. They are calling out my name, over and over again. I don’t want to know what they’ll do to me when they find me.
I can hear them approaching. My whole body is a raw exposed nerve. Fear washes over me in stages.
I have to keep myself safe, I think. I have to survive.
I hear one of them getting close.
In a flash I stick out my arm, karate chopping one of them in the throat.
I hear a grunt and then a thud: someone’s fallen to the earth.
I look up to see it’s Ben that I’ve injured. He’s lying on the ground, winded.
Good, I think. One down. One to go.
I start running back towards the gas station area. The lighted convenience store may have other customers there – it may be my only chance at safety.
Then a strong hand grips me from behind, in a vice grip that’s so much stronger than it looks. Roni Taylor is holding onto me for dear life. For a willowy former model, she sure has muscles.
“No you don’t,” she says, firmly, smiling.
I try to fight back. I kick her, forcing her knees to buckle. Roni loosens her grip and falls down.
“Now you’re dead,” Roni snarls. “It doesn’t have to be this way, you know. I was going to let you live. I could have let you live. If you were willing to work with me on my scheme to take over the Tannenbaums you could have done very well for yourself. Now all you’ve done is show me you’re a loose cannon who can’t be controlled. So you’re better off dead.”
She tries to grab my foot but I’m able to pull ahead, to start running.
But Ben’s back on his feet, now, and he’s grabbing me. I try to punch him, blow after blow, but they seem to have no effect on his strong frame. He blocks my path to exit. I kick him and am just starting to get the upper hand when I feel it. A volt and then another. The worst pain I’ve ever felt. Thousands of volts of electricity coursing through me.
The stun gun.
I scream in agony as I convulse.
Then everything goes black
Chapter 2
I scream. I scream so loud you’d think somebody – anybody – could or would hear me out there: in this great sand expanse, in this desert that feels so lonely now. I’m in Ben’s arms, which are wrapped so tightly around me, but this time the embrace is fatal. This is not a caress. This not love. Ben is muscular, more muscular than he looks, holding me so tight I can’t even punch or kick back. I’m screaming so loud and I keep thinking there must be somebody, there must be somebody out there who can help me but we’re in the middle of the darkness and this highway is so lonely and so desolate that there is nobody on it.
I scream “help me!” and I think I hear a reply, echoing through the desert. But it is only a coyote, taking my howls of terror for a cry of one of its own. “Help me, help me, help me.” But it’s no use. I’m taken. I know that much. Ben has betrayed me. And Roni Taylor – for reasons I don’t even understand – wants me dead. And I guess that’s it, then.
I’m dead.
Who is this woman with so much power and so much strength in her little willowy frame? Who is this woman born without any of the qualities that make a person a person – a woman born with no morals, no heart, no soul? Is she just another coyote like those that roam the desert, looking for dead flesh from which to pick, looking for scraps to savage? Right now that’s what it feels like.
“Take her to the car,” says Roni in a haughty voice. She smiles. She’s so self-assured now. She has me right where she wants me. She’s a cat with a mouse served up to her on a silver platter. She smiles at Ben, showing her creamy teeth. She’s insanely beautiful, even now. Even in my fear I can appreciate the angelic quality of her lips, her nose, her deep blue eyes. “Tie her up, says Roni to Ben. “I don’t care if you’re rough with her. Just do it and let’s get on our way.”
Ben comes towards me with a silk handkerchief and a ball gag. Knowing the Blue Room, I hate to think where those items have been.
“Ben…what are you doing?”
I don’t even know what I’m trying to do here. Reason with him, I guess? Make him remember that we were friends, that I listened to him, that I liked him when nobody else did, that I was his only friend. Make him realize that, no matter what the circumstances, I’d never do that to him.
“Ben, please, please, I’m your friend. It’s me, Staci. You know me. You like me. I’d never do this to you Ben please I don’t know what she’s promised you or what she says but no matter what she says to you or promises you I swear to you she is lying. You can’t trust her Ben. Please you can’t trust her.”
But then Ben presses the ball gag into my mouth, and I can no longer speak. I cough, sputtering up phlegm, trying to breathe with the gag in my mouth. He ties my hands with the silk scarf. Then he lifts me so easily, as if I am no lighter than a feather, and puts me in the trunk of the car.
Hrrr hrrr hrrr
I try to make sounds from my throat but no words emerge.
“I’m sorry, Stace,” says Ben. When I look at his eyes I see a genuine sadness in them, a genuine pain. Like maybe he is enjoying this almost as little as I am. “I really did like you as a person,” he says. “I really did. But you have to understand – you’re in the way.”
“Hrrr hrrr hrrr”
What I mean to say is Ben! Ben! Ben!
“Tough break, Stace,” his voice is so harsh and full of regret as he slams the trunk door closed.
Then we drive.
We drive for hours.
Maybe it’s only minutes. Maybe it’s only days. I don’t know. I can’t tell anything in the trunk of the car, except that it’s hot, so hot, and that I’m so, so scared. I can’t figure out the directions, either. Are we going back to the Blue Towers? What do they want with me there? What will they do to me when they finally reach our destination?
I guess I should be grateful, I think. They didn’t just kill me outright. They had the opportunity. They could have shot me and left me for dead in the desert. But they didn’t and that can only mean one thing. That I have something they want. Money, maybe? I doubt it; I don’t have a lot. Information. Maybe they want to know how much I know, or if there’s someone else in on the investigation with me. If I concoct a partner – Rita – maybe they’ll let me live long enough to try and pump more information from me, buying me time to think of a plan.
Take over the Tannenbaums. That’s what Roni had said. I am not sure why she’d want to do that – other than a general desire to conquer and make herself mistress of everything halfway decent or expensive in this world – but maybe I could trick her into thinking I’d be more useful to her alive than dead. That’s all I need, really. To be mo
re useful alive. Even Roni isn’t stupid. She cares less about vendettas than about the big picture. Nobody gets to be where she is in life without thinking about the big picture. I just have to talk her into letting me live, come up with some reason, some excuse…
When at last the trunk door opens, I have to blink a few times quickly. The light hurts my eyes. We are in a parking garage in the bottom of a building: completely deserted.
Roni presses a gun to the small of my back.
“Okay,” she says. Her voice is harsh. “Let’s go. No loitering. No stopping. Just go.”
I give off a little whimper. I’m so scared my throat is dry in my mouth.
“Up,” she says.
We head up a dark, dank stairwell. It looks like a service stairway.
Then we’re in a corridor.
I take note of the carpeting. A plush, luxurious hotel room carpet. A distinctive B. We’re in a Blue Hotel. But this isn’t the Blue Tower in L.A. I don’t recognize this stairwell, this corridor.
I’m in a Blue Hotel – but where?
Roni forces me into a room. A gorgeous Blue suite. I recognize the touches well. Light blue curtains, marble fireplace, beautiful roses in the vases. No Blue luxury has been spared here; every expense has been made. Is this the place that’s going to be my tomb?
“Sit down,” snarls Roni. I sit down.
“Look…” I hardly know what to say. “I don’t even know you. What do you want from me?”
“It doesn’t matter if you know me or not,” says Roni. “I know you. And that’s what matters.”
Ben cuffs me to the bed.
“I’m just a Blue Girl,” I say. “I don’t want anything. I just want to go home – please!”
“Don’t lie to me.” Roni shoots me a dirty look. “I know who you are. Now listen. How much has Tannenbaum told you?”
“Who?”
“Dear old dad. How much has he told you? What does he want from you?”
“My dad?”
“He told you you were his heir, weren’t you? Precious little princess? What a rags to riches story. Whore discovers she’s secretly a billionaire. How touching. Well, I’m not interested in touching. I’m interested in making sure Tannenbaum doesn’t get his precious heir.”
“What does it matter to you?”
“I set my sights too low, girlie. The Blue fortune is what it is, but it’s nothing compared to Tannenbaum Enterprises. With Gloria Tannenbaum dead and buried and Clarence, my dear husband, close to death, there’s a whole crop of eligible young bachelors with money to burn. And let’s just say I want my share. Old Gloria Tannenbaum made quite a trade you know. From the Blue Room. Secrets. That was her currency. She’d infiltrate the Blue Room – with my help, mind you, and get secrets out of the Blue Girls she paid off. Company secrets. The kind of insider trading you get two to four for, easy. Except she never expected that her tricks would be used on her, too. Murderous, devious old bitch. She thought she’d fallen in love with Benny – dear, sweet Benny, her charming gigolo, whom she never even paid. Benny who whispered sweet nothings in her ear and said he was so terribly happy he’d found love with a truly mature woman. But she did pay him, didn’t she, Benny? In her secrets. And photographs. Photographs not very becoming of a matriarch of a business. Men can have their peccadillos, can’t they? Photographs of them can come out? But naked photographs of an old lady getting her rocks off? She’d have been a laughingstock. She’d have lost millions of business. So we made a trade, didn’t we, Benny? A big stake of the Tannenbaum estate in her will. In exchange for ensuring those photographs and all negatives conveniently made their way into a fire.
“Which is great for me. Or would be, if there weren’t another heir knocking about. Someone who could challenge my claim to the Tannenbaum estate. After all, I earned my money. You were just born to it. I may have conned and cheated and blackmailed my way into that money, but I used my brain. I worked for it. I worked for everything I have and you think you can just come along and be born lucky…”
“I was born in poverty because of the Tannenbaums,” I say. “I don’t want a dime from them. They almost ruined my mother’s life and now they’re ruining mine.”
I see a shadow of a frown cross her lips. Almost like I’ve said something that resonates with her.
“Be that as it may,” she says. “You’re in the way. You’re a liability.”
“But Ben…” I turn to him. “Why?”
“I told you.” He grits his teeth. “I want out of this life. I want to never see a client again. I hate the johns and everything they’ve done to me. Women like Gloria Tannenbaum deserve everything they get. And I need to get out of this life for good.”
“You chose to be here,” I say, anger rising to my cheeks. “You made that call on your own. Nobody forced you to be a Blues boy. And your contract never included sex.”
God, I sound like Terrence.
“Don’t be so naïve, Staci. Do you think a single patron actually expects “companionship” from the Blues whores? You should have gotten out long ago, Stace. But this is my chance. My chance at freedom. And I’m gonna take it.”
“There’s always a way out, Ben. You could have just walked away.”
“Not if you’re smart,” says Roni. “You go where the bread crumbs go. You don’t get out. You get ahead. That’s what I did. That’s what I want to do. The Blues are small fry. But the Tannenbaums, now, that’s where it’s at…now take off your clothes.”
“What?”
“You heard me, take ‘em off.”
She’s pointing the gun at me.
And then I realize what she has planned.
She’s going to make this look like a Blues meeting gone wrong. Like I’m Roz, killed by a patron.
“Take the gun, Ben.”
She hands him one of the two guns.
She’s going to have Ben kill me.
She’s going to make it look like he was my patron. A neat murder. Easy to solve. Fitting into the other patterns.
But how is she going to make sure Ben doesn’t talk.
She’s still holding the second gun, pointed at Ben.
“Ben – don’t you see? She’s going to make it look like a murder-suicide?”
“Go on, Ben,” says Roni. “Shoot her.”
“She’s going to kill you, too, Ben – don’t you see? She’ll never let you live, not after you do this. She’s going to make it look like you killed me, then yourself. I know she is. You’re not safe, either. She’ll never let you out.”
Nobody ever lets anyone out in the Blue Room.
Ben’s face falls. I can see my words have gotten to him.
“Roni – is this true?”
“Of course not, Ben. Now pull the fucking trigger.”
“Roni – I can’t. I can’t do this. You promised, you promised I’d be safe.”
“Shut up and kill her.”
“Roni!”
He turns to her, lunges for her gun.
But it’s too late.
She fires.
Ben falls.
Chapter 3
I scream, but it’s too late. Ben is lying there on the floor, blood spilling out of him. He’s unconscious. I watch as a pool of red spreads out around his inert frame. I don’t know if he’s dead. I can’t even bring myself to check. My mind has gone blank. A second ago Ben was standing there before me. Now he’s on the floor. And he may have betrayed me, but until an hour or so again Ben was my friend. Someone I cared about. Someone I trusted. Now, he’s…
If not dead, then seriously injured.
“Why did you do that?” I scream. Tears are pouring down my face. I don’t understand Roni, don’t understand any of it. Roni solves her problems with violence, that much is clear.
Roni crosses her arms. “He got in the way,” she says. “He was a loose end. He’d have made trouble for me. Just like you.”
So, this is it. She’s going to shoot me. That’s the end of that. My life over in a flash.
I look at Ben, the life oozing out of him, and realize just how easy it is to kill someone, just how arbitrary the distinction between “alive” and “dead” really is. This is the end of all things.
But I don’t want to die. Something in me struggles against Fate, against this promised ending. I’m not ready to die. I have my whole life ahead of me – a life that, though marred by the Blue Room and their machinations, is still one I want to live. Want to celebrate. And a fighting instinct I have never before known comes to the forefront of my brain.
“Now get on the bed and start stripping like a good girl,” says Roni, grinning maniacally.
I can live through this, I think. I have to live through this. I can’t defeat
Roni physically. She’s clearly a lot stronger than I am, and has had a lot more practice fighting. I just have to talk my way out of this. Roni had said she was interested in working with me – right up until the point where I ran. Maybe I could convince her to work with me again. Or at least, convince her long enough to get out of here.
“Now look here,” I say. “You don’t know that I’m a loose end.”
I try to sound confident. It’s hard when somebody’s pointing a gun at your face, but I try.
“Why? What are you?” A smirk comes over Roni’s face.
“I could just be the best friend you ever made,” I say.
This gets her attention. Her eyes glimmer with curiosity. “What are you talking about?” she says. “What do you mean?”
“I mean – I’m not like Ben. I’m not a loose cannon. I have very few needs. Mostly just to stay alive. I wouldn’t turn on you. I’m not dumb. All I want is my safety – and my family’s safety – guaranteed. The rest is yours.”
Roni’s gun comes ever closer towards me. “What makes you think I believe that?”
“Listen,” I say. “How long have I known about the Tannenbaum inheritance? A couple of days, right? And what have I chosen to do about it?”
“What?”
“Nothing,” I say. I have to think fast. My heart is pounding. “Nothing at all. And do you know why?”
