by Sean Black
‘You tell the cops about these calls?’
‘Sure. They sent out some fat, frizzy-haired retard to talk to me.’
‘You think the phone calls were from Raven?’
‘Not directly.’
‘What does that mean?’
Vice stood up. Carrie kept still, although her heart was pounding again.
‘It means that Raven is good at playing the victim, drawing people into her little world, but she’s no angel, believe me. Now, I’ve answered all your questions, so what do you say? Should you and me get to know each other a little better?’ He leered at her, his tongue flicking over his lips.
Carrie tensed as she watched his hands. She was waiting for him to raise the gun. Trying to judge the best moment to make a break for it.
She took a deep breath. ‘You know, I don’t think I’m suitably attired for one of your productions.’
‘The outfits are upstairs. Why don’t you go pick one out?’
The stairs had been facing the front door. Without waiting, she started to walk out of the room, towards them. She could hear him getting up to follow her. But as soon as she was around the corner, she took to her heels, her shoes slapping hard against the tiles. At the door she allowed herself a split second to look back.
Vice was at the far end of the corridor. The gun was nowhere to be seen. He saw the panic in her face and laughed. ‘Say hello to Raven for me, would you?’
Carrie wrenched the front door open and then she was gone, half running, half stumbling down the drive. But as she neared the gates, she saw them starting to move.
Most electronic gates had a sensor to stop them closing on vehicles or people. Once they were shut, though, that was it. All she had to do was get there before they sealed entirely.
Not looking back any more, she focused entirely on the last few feet, making it just in time. As she squeezed through, the gates stopped.
Shaking, she clicked open the car and clambered in, activating the central locking as soon as she was inside. Then she sat, her head in her hands, feeling sick with fear and disgust.
She’d promised herself that a lowlife like Vice wouldn’t get to her, but he had. She looked to her right, back up towards the house. But the front door was closed and he was out of sight.
Even looking at the house made her shudder. Something about the place had chilled her. She thought of the dozens of young women, no more than children really, who must have stepped inside that front door, and left as very different people.
She took one last look, thinking for a moment that she had glimpsed Vice standing at one of the upstairs windows. But as the sun glinted against the glass, he was gone again, back into his nightmare world where women existed only to satisfy the darker, depraved urges of men who would run a hundred miles from a real relationship.
Twenty-seven
The Gulfstream taxied off the runway and came to a stop. The engines were shut down and the steps lowered. Next to the aircraft, a shiny black limousine waited for them, its engine idling with a low rumble. A driver and a single bodyguard sat inside.
As Lock escorted Raven down the stairs, the bodyguard had emerged to open the door. He was a huge guy, not tall but wide, with a thick neck and a Lego-block head. He was wearing a tight-fitting suit, which Lock presumed was meant to emphasize his muscles but would only cripple his ability to move if anything happened. A Fu Manchu goatee and pair of wraparound shades completed his look. While everything about him screamed ‘bodyguard’, Lock knew that if anything did go down, this guy would be about as much use as a cat-flap on a submarine.
As the bodyguard opened the door of the limo for them, his suit jacket rode up to reveal his firearm, a Glock 9mm. Professional operators usually weighted their suit pockets so they didn’t put their weapon on show when they moved. This guy’d made it clear that he was armed – and equally clear that the jacket restricted movement, so that by the time he was ready to fire his gun, an attacker could have put him down.
Close-protection work was about reaction time, and reaction time wasn’t helped by bulk. Ty was a powerfully put-together individual but he was also athletic. This man, Lock thought, was like a goddamn hippo. Yeah, if he got close enough he’d do some damage, but he’d never get near someone who knew what they were doing. He was like a cartoon version of what a tough guy should look like, and his presence instantly made Lock nervous.
The rear passenger door of the limo closed with a bass thunk heavy enough to let Lock know that the vehicle was up-armored. Another bad sign: up-armored vehicles tended to be used by high-net-worth individuals who carried a high risk. If you were all about bling and had no enemies, you’d save the cash and go for a soft-skinned regular limousine.
Raven sat opposite him, pulled some makeup and a compact mirror from her bag and went to work. It was time to ask her the question he’d been avoiding.
‘So, are you going to tell me who this guy is before we get to the hotel?’
Raven smiled. ‘He’d prefer I didn’t.’
Lock sighed. ‘It goes no further. Boy scout’s honor.’
Raven pursed her lips and blotted some lipstick on to a tissue, then checked herself in the mirror. ‘He’s a businessman.’
‘American?’
She glanced at him over the top of the compact. ‘Why the sudden interest?’
‘Would you mind answering the question?’
‘He’s Russian, if you must know. Or Ukrainian, I’m not quite sure.’
Lock’s heart sank a little. From his experience with Eastern European businessmen, the phrase was interchangeable with Mafia. Even if they ran a clean operation here, the risk of an overlap with elements of organized crime from back home was inevitable.
Raven must have read his unease. ‘Look, he’s a perfect gentleman. And, like I already said, if he wanted to harm me, he’d have done it already.’
‘And what about people close to you? Does he have any reason to harm them?’
‘People close to me?’
Lock took a deep breath, knowing that his question might finish his involvement with her. He’d brooded over whether to ask it since the visit to the production company. ‘Like Cindy. You denied knowing her but you were in a movie together, weren’t you?’
Raven’s only reaction was to straighten in her seat and cross her legs. ‘Where’s all this coming from?’
‘At the production company I saw a poster with the two of you on the wall.’
She smiled. ‘That’s it? That’s your evidence that I’ve been lying to you? I hope you’re a better bodyguard than an investigator.’
He stared straight at her. ‘So how do you explain the poster?’
‘You don’t watch a lot of these movies, do you, Ryan?’
‘I never considered that a bad thing,’ he said, reading her body language, which stayed perfectly relaxed and free of any tics that suggested she was nervous.
‘It’s true that Cindy and I were in the same movie, but we never shared a scene. They were shot on different days. That poster was a composite put together after the shoot.’
‘But I assumed—’
Raven flicked her jet-black hair. ‘People always assume things about me. Usually they assume the worst.’ She stared down at her hands. ‘I thought you might be different.’
Lock’s jaw tightened. ‘I’m sorry, but a couple of things didn’t add up. The poster was only one of them.’
She sighed. ‘Then you might as well ask me about the others.’
He glanced out at the shoals of overweight Midwesterners in slacks and T-shirts filtering in and out of the casinos in the broiling late-afternoon heat. ‘You were adamant that you wouldn’t leave your brother alone. That he was the reason you couldn’t get out of town. Yet here we are.’
She pulled her cigarettes from her bag and lit one. Lock reached over to press the button to lower the window but when he pushed it nothing happened. He tapped on the glass divider that separated the rear of the limo from the driver�
��s area where the bodyguard was sitting.
A second later it slid down and the man’s face filled the gap.
‘I’d like to open the window a little,’ Lock said to him.
There was a grunt, then the face was gone and the glass slid back into place. A second later the window nearest Raven came down a few inches.
‘It’s one night,’ she said finally. ‘And he’s with Ty. If we moved now it would freak him out even more than he is already. If I have to move I will, but right now he needs the familiarity of home. Plus, with the kind of money I’m spending on security, I couldn’t afford to pass this up. Happy now?’
Lock met her eyes, still unsure. ‘Yeah, I am,’ he lied.
Twenty-eight
Five minutes later they pulled up at the Bellagio, the billion-dollar hotel and casino that was the playground for the really high rollers. The bodyguard left Lock to carry the two small bags and led them through the lobby. The overly plush décor was offset by a huge multi-colored chandelier, which made the place look, Lock thought, like a bad acid trip to seventeenth-century Venice.
They followed the bodyguard towards the elevator that would take them up to the bedrooms.
‘He’s in the Chairman’s Suite,’ the bodyguard said. He produced a key from his jacket pocket and used it to call the elevator – standard procedure for the private suites where it often opened straight into the accommodation. Lock made sure to keep a close eye on where he put the key, although usually getting down was a simple matter of pushing a button.
The bodyguard ushered them inside and they started their ascent to the top of the hotel. As the doors opened, Raven’s features shifted into a thousand-watt smile – like an actress walking on stage, Lock thought.
They stepped out into a marbled foyer. The bodyguard gestured towards a set of double doors, but as Lock moved towards it, a beefy arm shot out in front of him blocking his passage.
‘The lady goes inside. We’re over there in one of the entourage suites,’ the bodyguard growled, with a nod to a door across the corridor.
Lock stared at the guy’s arm. ‘Put that down before I break it off.’
The bodyguard cleared his throat. ‘I don’t think my boss was looking for a threesome, which means you have to wait outside.’
Lock turned to Raven. ‘It’s your call.’
Raven smiled. ‘Relax. If I need you, I’ll holler.’
‘You’re sure?’
She nodded, opened the doors and was gone.
The bodyguard patted his shoulder with a hand the size of a fire shovel. ‘You’ve done your job. Got her here in one piece. Come on inside and chill out. She’s going to be a few hours.’ He smirked. ‘The boss has a lot of energy for a guy his age.’
The entourage suite, as the bodyguard had called it, was four times the size of any regular hotel suite. Another marbled foyer opened into a huge living area, which was dominated by a vast television tuned to a pro football game. To either side of the living area there were two bedrooms, complete with separate his and hers bathrooms.
Lock had already noticed that the bodyguard seemed to get off on the wealth of his employer, and the power that he clearly thought it bestowed. The guy was naïve. Money could buy muscle. Protection was a different matter. People who were interested in staying safe didn’t go in for lavish demonstrations of their buying power.
He made a show of taking in the suite and let out a low whistle. ‘The bill for all this must run pretty high.’
The bodyguard fiddled with the touchscreen remote for the television. ‘Yeah, guess you wouldn’t see much change from fifteen or twenty grand for the night. Chump change for this guy.’
‘How long you been working for him?’
The fiddling stopped and the bodyguard’s head rotated slowly towards him. ‘Why you wanna know?’
Lock held up open palms. ‘Don’t worry, I’m quite happy with the gig I got. I’m not looking to get in on your action here.’
The bodyguard’s lips peeled back to reveal a gummy smile and a couple of gold caps. ‘I bet you are. You sleep with her yet?’
‘No, man.’
‘You sure? I could see the way she looked at you.’
‘And how was that?’
‘Like you was a pork chop. So, you ain’t hit it?’
Lock laughed and shook his head.
‘You gay or something? Not that there’s anything wrong with that as a lifestyle choice, know what I’m saying?’
Lock was going to mention Carrie, then realized he had an opportunity to put the guy a little off balance. ‘Yeah. I am. I’m gay. How’d you guess?’
The bodyguard’s eyes widened and the smile evaporated. ‘For real?’
‘That’s one of the reasons she hired me, brother. Didn’t want someone hitting on her.’
‘I’ll be damned. I ain’t never heard of a gay bodyguard before,’ he said, checking his watch and pushing up the volume on the TV.
There was something about the gesture that put Lock on guard. The two actions seemed premeditated. Who looks at their watch before they decide to turn up the volume on the TV? he asked himself. There was only one answer. Someone who knew that there was about to be some kind of loud noise they didn’t want the other person in the room to hear.
He hoped he was wrong – and he needed a way to check his suspicions without antagonizing the guy.
‘The Redskins’ game on?’ he asked.
The bodyguard shrugged. ‘Thought they were playing later.’
‘Here, I know the channel number,’ Lock said, plucking the remote from the edge of the couch before the other had a chance to object.
He quickly hit the mute button. The blaring crowd noise and chatter of the commentators gave way to a woman’s piercing scream. Then everything in the room went on to fast forward.
As the bodyguard grabbed for the remote, Lock spun round, put his hands on the man’s shoulders, pulled his head and torso down and brought up a knee as hard as he could into his groin.
The bodyguard let out something between a yell and a grunt. Lock kept the man’s downward momentum going, grabbed the back of his neck and pulled his head down to the level of his waist. Then he kneed him as hard as he could in the face. Once. Twice. The third time there was the splinter of teeth.
Lock let him go and he fell to the floor. Moving quickly out of his reach, Lock bent down to retrieve his gun, which he jammed into the folds of fat at the back of the guy’s neck. ‘Get up.’
Shakily, the bodyguard rose to his feet. Lock pushed him towards the door of the suite.
In the corridor, Raven’s screams were louder.
Lock shoved him towards the door of the Chairman’s Suite. ‘Open it,’ he said.
One hand massaging a broken nose, the bodyguard used the other to slide an electronic key card into a slot. The door opened and Lock pushed him through it.
Inside, the screaming went on. Lock looked round for other security personnel but the suite seemed to be empty, apart from the man who had Raven pinned down on a vast super-king-sized bed in a room fifty feet to their left. He was bare-chested, middle-aged, but with a squat, powerful physique. He straddled Raven who was clawing at his chest with her long nails as he raised his open palm to slap her.
‘Tell me,’ he shouted. ‘Tell me who’s doing this.’
Raven struggled, shifting her face as best she could to avoid the blow. It caught her hard on the side of her head.
Lock thrust the bodyguard out of the way – he fell over a coffee-table and landed on the marble floor. Then he raised the gun and pointed it at the back of the Russian’s head. ‘Hit her again and I’ll blow what few brains you possess all over this nice room,’ he said.
The Russian looked up at the mirror that hung over the bed. He must have caught Lock’s reflection straight away because he relaxed enough for Raven to struggle out from under him. As she fell to the floor, she grabbed one of her shoes and whacked the Russian with the heel. ‘You asshole.’
‘Get dressed,’ Lock said to her, pointing to the clothes strewn on the floor.
He turned his attention to the Russian, who stared at him, terror stamped on his features. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘How much? I’ll give you as much as you want. Just don’t kill me. She’s yours. I know. I’m sorry.’
Lock ignored him. Clearly he had Lock mixed up with someone else. ‘She’s coming with me. And I want you to know that, even if you kill me, I have a friend who will make it his life’s work to ensure that very bad things happen to you very slowly before you die.’
‘Please. I know all this. Just leave. Take her.’
At the edge of his vision, Lock could see the bodyguard crawling on to a plush couch, next to which was an end table with a phone on it.
Lock aimed the gun at him. ‘Same goes for you. You’re an accessory to felony, assault and rape. You make that phone call, I might be going to prison but you’re coming with me and the sentence will be a lot less for me.’
The bodyguard slumped down on to his knees.
‘Go into the bathroom and wipe some of the blood off,’ Lock said to Raven. ‘Quick as you can. Don’t worry about makeup.’ He turned to the bodyguard. ‘Check the closets. Find me a sweatshirt or something with a hood. And remember what I said.’
The bodyguard lumbered off and returned a minute later with a hooded top. Raven came out of the bathroom and Lock threw it to her. He could see she was still shaking, a reaction to the adrenaline pumping through her system from the shock of being attacked. ‘You have sunglasses?’
‘Yes,’ she choked out.
‘Then throw those on as well after you put the hood up.’
He waited as she grabbed her things and got herself together as best she could. The Russian and his bodyguard stayed where they were.
‘I’m ready,’ she said finally.
Lock kept hold of the Glock until they were out of the suite, then dropped it into Raven’s bag. They took the elevator down and moved swiftly through the lobby, which seemed even more surreal this time. There was no sign of hotel security or anyone else who mattered. The Russian was clearly too smart or too scared to pursue them – for now, anyway.
