Trifecta

by Pam Richter

  She had a glassy eyed stare and Vincent wondered if she had been drugged or hypnotized. He guessed that Omar had employed both so she wouldn't feel much pain.

  Vincent hands became clammy and his breath came faster anticipating Omar's next move. He felt light headed and dizzy, almost like he might pass out as Omar took his long pointed sword out and moved toward the woman.

  Omar took the sword point and placed it on the woman's neck, just above where her Adams apple would be. He used enough pressure to puncture the skin and then rotated the sword so that he opened the wound a little wider. Blood flowed down the woman's neck and between her breasts.

  Omar enjoyed this part of the ceremony, but could not go too far or hurt the woman too badly or the crowd might turn on him. It became apparent after a while that he was making a pattern with the puncture wounds and blood flowed down the young woman's body in stripes. Down her arms. Down her chest. The blood ran down her legs and back. She stood, perfectly still, unmoving all the while Omar punctured her skin and her blood finally fell in the sand.

  The crowd was unnaturally quiet. Vincent hoped the woman would not be terribly disfigured, but it appeared that the mutilation was partly a trick. The wounds were really too small for so much blood to flow. Omar probably had a fake sword that emitted the blood-like fluid that now stippled the woman's body. Still, it was like watching a bad horror flick and he felt himself gagging as it seemed to go on for hours. Really, the woman would have fainted from blood loss by now, Vincent told himself consolingly, if the wounds had been real. Still, Omar continued until the woman was covered with the small puncture marks. The last he placed in the middle of her forehead and blood ran down her nose and dripped from her chin to the sandy beach.

  It had to be fake, Vincent kept telling himself, as finally the woman was covered by a robe and led out of the circle. He couldn't tell if she was walking by herself because she was surrounded by Omar's priestesses. They led the sacrifice to the striped tent where they kept all of the so called magic potions, talismans and charms.

  Now Omar took a picture from his robe. Vincent tried in vain to get a glimpse of the person that the whole death ritual was for, but all he could discern from the distance was the likeness of a woman with long blond hair. Omar made a commanding motion to one of the women and had a torch brought in from outside the circle. He placed the torch in the sand in the middle of the circle. He was tall enough to reach up with the picture and put it in the flame. He seemed to hold it there for a long time. Vincent thought he must have used a flame retardant because his hand as well as the picture was in the flames. Then there was a burst of sparks from the torch and the picture turned black and disintegrated.

  Well, that was certainly fake, Vincent thought. The explosion of sparks could only be some sort of chemical that he had hidden in his sleeve. But the crowd didn't seem to think so. They had seen his hand in the fire. Some were moaning because they thought he was in pain. They probably believed he was a great sorcerer.

  Vincent was sickened by the whole thing, and especially by the crowd of worshipers. They had not emitted a sound while it appeared as though the young girl was being given deathly mutilations. But when it appeared as though Omar must be burning his hand they had protested with screams and moans. Vincent was disgusted. He vowed he would prove Omar a nasty, evil charlatan.

  Vincent kept moving his binoculars through the crowd on the beach looking for the huge man that Suzanne had described to him. The man who had raped her, wearing horns and a cape. But he couldn't find anyone who fit that description.

  Much later that night, Vincent had the surprising thought that if he couldn't find his proof regarding the sorcerer, Omar, he would have to kill the man himself. He had stayed long after everyone except Omar and the witches had left. At the end of the night's revelry, Omar brought the out sacrificial victim again. The young woman looked perfectly fine when she walked into the circle to the jubilant shouts of the crowd. The blood had been removed from her body. She was wearing a short white robe and raised her arms in benediction, along with Omar. Then darkness engulfed all; the torch's light suddenly gone, blinding everyone for a few moments.

  When the crowd became accustomed to the dimmer light of only the moon, the magic circle was empty. It seemed like everyone inside the circle had abruptly disappeared. This was the signal that the evening's events had ended. The crowd started gathering their belongings and walking up the bluff toward Vincent to get their cars.

  Vincent moved sideways atop the bluff to avoid the worshipers. Then he made his way down to the beach. He sat huddled in the sand entirely motionless in the dark, hoping he would not be discerned in the shadow of the hill above him. He waited to see what would transpire next.

  Vincent knew that when the torches went out everyone working with Omar had gone into the tent. They were probably waiting for the crowd to disperse before leaving themselves.

  Finally a few women came out of the tent and began cleaning the beach of all debris. The stake torches were taken down. The fire where the magic potions were supposed to be made was doused and cleaned. Women walked around the beach, picking up soft drink cans, napkins and the other mess a large crowd could leave. In Hawaii the beaches were kept spotless. Omar obviously did not want the environmental police led to this place by signs that a crowd had been here during the night.

  Finally Omar came out of the tent and walked alone to the top of the bluff. Vincent followed him with his binoculars and saw the man raise his hands toward the heavens, as though beseeching some deity. He was silhouetted against the full moon. His cape made him look like a bat ready to take off into the sky. Then Omar went to a black Porsche and drove away.

  Vincent watched the women as they finished cleaning and finally left the deserted beach in a chattering group. Still, Vincent waited because the sacrifice victim had not been with the others. It was then that the man Vincent had waited for finally came out of the tent. He was just as Suzanne had described, minus the horns and cape. Vincent had seldom seen such size except in professional wrestlers. The man was holding the sacrificial victim in his arms. The young woman looked like a tiny doll, he was so gigantic.

  Vincent watched him walk toward the surf and lay the girl down on the beach close to the waves. Then the giant walked back to the tent, took it down, and carried it up to the highway.

  Vincent waited until he heard a motor start up and the sound of the man driving away down the highway. Then he started running to the woman who lay nude in the sand. He couldn't believe the man had left her there, where the high tide would take her out into the ocean in a few hours, if she was unconscious or hurt.

  Vincent slowed down when he was near. Running in the sand was exhausting work for him, a sedentary scholar, and he had been a few blocks away. His shoes were full of sand and his breath came in gasps.

  He knelt beside the woman and felt her neck. He couldn't discern a pulse. Vincent waded into the surf, cupped his hands in the ocean and filled them. He ran back to the woman and poured water over her forehead. He waited for a few seconds. Then he gently slapped her face a few times very lightly. "Wake up! Wake up."

  Vincent's ministrations did no good.

  The woman was dead.

  That was when Vincent knew Omar was truly evil. He had to be stopped. In the bright moonlight the woman looked like a perfect, beautiful statue. Vincent studied the wounds from Omar's sword and pressed a finger to one on her shoulder. The injures were real. Omar had not tricked the crowd.

  Vincent gently picked her up and walked slowly up the beach. When he moved the woman her wounds were still bleeding, so she had not been dead long. Vincent wondered if she had been alive when Omar left the tent.

  As he walked up the hill to the highway his tears slid down his face while her blood stopped flowing. He vowed he would kill Omar himself if he had to.

  He was gasping and staggering with his burden when he finally reached his car, atop the hill near the highway. He had to put her down on the gr
ound to get the keys from his pocket and he did not like doing it. He wanted to keep holding the poor woman who had been so brutally slaughtered.

  As he was leaning forward, trying to find a clean place upon which to place her, he heard something behind him and half turned, straightening up, still holding the woman. He saw the enormous giant behind him with arm raised.

  Vincent staggered backward, but the giant came after him with something held high. He felt blinding pain for only an instant. There was a flash of bright light. Then he crashed into darkness.

  CHAPTER 17

  The man cowered like a cringing dog.

  That was how Omar thought of Samson Stoker, as one of his pets. But Omar was furious and Samson made little grunts of apology and squinted his eyes, as though anticipating a beating. He was bent over, head turned slightly away, glancing at his master every once in a while, rolling his eyes and whining pathetically, as though awaiting some gruesome punishment.

  Omar took a deep breath and sighed, his anger suddenly dissipated by Samson's pathetic gestures. "I would never hurt you," he said. It was the truth.

  Omar had found Samson in the South American town of Bogota, Colombia. Omar had been there investigating methods to get drugs out of the country. South America also had interesting and lethal poisons he wanted to study. One tiny, beautifully colored frog was so deadly that a mere finger touch on the slimy skin could cause instant and agonizing death.

  One morning on the way to a restaurant for breakfast he had heard a sad moaning noise. Omar went down an alley between two dilapidated stucco apartment buildings, where plumbing was absent and the residents threw their nightly basins of human refuse out each morning. He thought it was an animal in pain and stepped daintily through the garbage in the filthy alley.

  Omar found a young boy, horribly beaten, who had finally been rejected by the gang of young thieves that lived in the streets of Bogata. The boy was unfit to scavenge, run and trick the adult society any longer. Samson had become too large and had been too badly hurt to fit in with roaming wild gangs of street children.

  When Samson raised his head in misery, saw Omar and tried to run away, Omar, with his cat-like agility, had caught him by the scruff of his shirt, examined his bloody mouth and bruised body with interest. The boy was large and ugly. His beaten face resembled a toady gargoyle. The potential for violence gleamed in the youngsters eyes. Omar decided he could be useful.

  He had taken Samson back to the palatial hotel where he was staying. In Bogota there was no middle class. Either you were rich and lived in luxurious splendor, or you were so poor that you ate garbage rifled from the streets.

  Omar fed the large ravenous child, whom he guessed was about ten years old. Over the years he had watched the young boy grow into an enormous and totally loyal disciple. Omar knew Samson would probably die if they were ever separated.

  Omar had never learned what caused the terrible injuries. It might have been the police, trying to set an example to the other street children, with the beating and cutting out of Samson's tongue. Samson would never tell Omar, and maybe he truly didn't remember or understand what had happened to him. Omar believed the beating had damaged Samson's brain, leaving him slightly retarded. But all of Omar's 'familiars' had less intelligence than he. It was no reason to shun them. If fact, Omar thought the lack of high intelligence to be the basis for their loyalty and fundamental innocence.

  Now, Omar led Samson to his king sized bed, quite absently stroking his large head like an enormous tame beast. Samson always wanted his nose pressed against some part of Omar's anatomy for security when he slept.

  Omar lay in the darkness, his eyes open. He was becoming increasingly worried about the young man. Samson loved power, as Omar did himself. But Samson's sense of power stemmed from unnecessary acts of violence and he did not possess the self-control necessary to regulate his actions. Samson practiced his sadistic behaviors on those weaker than he, usually women. Omar had seen him go out of control. There could be disastrous repercussions, especially now, when the police were searching for him as the supposed mastermind of the bank robbery.

  Omar sighed. Controlling Samson was becoming more and more difficult, but Omar did not want to give him up. Samson was useful muscle when force was necessary in his business. Besides, Samson didn't understand the difference between the concepts of right and wrong, which was very useful when one needed lethal acts of obedience without question.

  As Samson sighed contentedly and pressed his nose against Omar's side, Omar explained to Samson that he would have to have facial surgery since the police were searching for him. They would go to Switzerland for the operation.

  Omar only succeeded in scaring Samson, who started quivering and making tiny sad cries in his throat. Omar told him over and over again that the surgery would not be painful. He would look beautiful after it was done. And he would not feel anything because he would be asleep during the entire operation. He told Samson that he had had plastic surgery done on his eyes.

  Samson jerked up and stared at Omar's eyes. He gently stroked Omar's eyelids with one large finger and made sad sounds, tears coursing down his cheeks.

  See, Omar said, I had it done, too. You'll be beautiful. Your nose will be straight and your lips will be fixed. When I had it done I didn't feel a thing. And now my eyes are fine.

  A blissful smile lit Samson's face and, pressing his nose against Omar's shoulder, he went contentedly to sleep. Omar lay awake for a long time. He wondered why Samson had killed the death-rite sacrifice.

  The police arrived at Michelle's door right after Heather came over for coffee. It was Lieutenant Rivers and Sergeant Nunes, the same officers who had come to her office a couple of days ago to question her about the attack in Los Vegas.

  They both brightened visibly when she offered them coffee and took them into the kitchen. The reason, of course, was Heather's presence, wearing only shorts and a brief halter. Michelle was glad Heather was there. She was afraid that she might have left some evidence on that bag of money she sent to the police. Forensics was a formidable science. Perhaps she had left a fingerprint or a strand of her hair had been caught in one of the packets of money. How could she explain that she had inexplicably found stolen cash in her office files?

  Their visit did have to do with the bank robbery, but it was not what she had feared. It seemed there were several hot-tip calls to the police about Samson Stoker after his caricature was shown on television. He had been seen with a tall, dark haired woman at the Sheraton Hotel. A tenant in one of the buildings she managed identified Michelle as the woman accompanying the mastermind of the bank robbery.

  The two policemen were sitting comfortably at her kitchen table now, drinking coffee. Lieutenant Rivers told Michelle that they would rather not have to take her downtown, to police headquarters. If she could please explain her involvement with the man?

  Michelle related how she had met Samson Stoker and that her only involvement with him had been riding as a passenger in the limousine to a restaurant. The police took notes, saying they would go to Omar Satinov's residence and ask him about his employee.

  Omar answered the early morning call, pushing Samson's inert body out of the way as he reached for the telephone by his bed. No one called him at the ungodly hour of 7:00 a.m. He was annoyed.

  "Omar. The police are on their way up to your apartment. They're going to ask you about Samson Stoker."

  "What? Is this Michelle?" Omar asked, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

  "Yes. There was a drawing of Samson on television. Some people recognized him. And me. Together at the Sheraton."

  Omar was thinking fast. He had to get her off the telephone and hide Samson. "Good of you to call. You say they're on their way up, now?"

  "They should be ringing at any second."

  "Well. Thanks for telling me. I have to go, now."

  "Wait! I got the food for Lucifer from Suzanne last night. But the problem is, Lucifer keeps attacking my friends."

/>   "Tell him not to," Omar said, annoyed that she was taking up so much time. It was imperative that he hide Samson and she was delaying him with stupid complaints.

  "Tell him not to?"

  "Yes," Omar said, trying to be patient. "He's smart. If you tell him not to, he won't."

  "Well, okay.

  "Do you mind keeping him for a little while longer?"

  "No. He's a darling kitten."

  Omar leaped out of bed and started dragging at Samson's arm, trying to pull him off the bed. Samson groaned and resisted. Samson slept like the dead and it took him a while to get started in the morning, but there was no time to indulge the boy. Omar pulled Samson to the floor, amid sheets and blankets.

  Samson was confused and scared.

  "Quick, under the bed. And don't make a sound."

  Samson was making little grunts and had finally opened one eye.

  "Do you understand? We're hiding you. It's a fun, pretend game. Now you stay. It won't be long."

  At that precise moment Omar heard the expected ring that there were people at his private elevator. He threw the covers back on his bed and as he was rushing out, grabbing a silk robe, he noticed Samson's hand peeking out from under the bed. He ran back and pushed the hand back under with his foot. "Remember. Don't move. We're playing 'hide and seek.'"

  Omar dashed down the hallway and turned the key so the elevator would operate and waited at the open door.

  The policemen showed Omar the artist's rendering of Samson after he had invited them in and they all sat down for a chat. Omar had exceptionally keen hearing and he caught muffled noises from the bedroom, Samson giggling from under the bed. He started talking quickly to cover the mirthful sounds, declaring that Samson did work for him occasionally, but he lived on the other side of the island, in Kaneoke. The police professed polite disbelief that Omar did not have a record of his employee's address and phone number. Omar pretended to be highly indignant that they would question his word.