by Ophidia Cox
“Go round to the front,” she suggested.
Victor walked ahead, carrying the jar. Sylvia followed, enjoying how his butt moved and his thighs brushed together in his tight trousers. She hadn’t brought a beau to this place for a long time. Not since when the world had looked brighter and it had seemed anything was possible.
As they approached the door, a loud woof and a thump of paws hitting the other side of the door greeted them. Max squeezed through the gap as soon as Sylvia opened the door. He jumped up and licked madly at her hands as she synced herself to him.
Victor held up the jar once they were inside with the door shut behind them.
Sylvia looked at it, then back at Max who was still bouncing. “We only get one shot at this. Let’s wait until he’s calmed down and got over the excitement of us just coming home.”
Sylvia showed Victor to the living room. It was immediately apparent to her that he wouldn’t fit into the very small wooden-framed armchairs she’d picked up from a secondhand furniture shops some years back, so she offered him the place she normally occupied on the two-seat sofa instead.
Max wiped his nose against Victor’s knees while Sylvia made drinks in the kitchen. When she returned, the dog had seated himself in front of Victor and was having his ears rubbed. Sylvia took one of the chairs, glad to learn that Victor got on with dogs. Probably it would never have worked out had he turned out to be more of a cat person.
She watched him furtively as he drank. A sideshow freak in a pirate costume whose bottom nearly took up both cushions on the sofa in her house. And the same freak had that morning given her the most intense orgasm she’d ever had, and that all just made it surreal. He sat with his knees apart, his belly spilling over his belt between his thighs. When he leaned forward and set down his glass on the coffee table, he rested both his hands palm-down on his knees. The posture was reminiscent of a Sumo wrestler girding himself for a match: strong, confident, his weight giving him undeniable presence.
Sylvia couldn’t stop looking at him, and a rush of contradictory urges came over her. She wanted to rip his clothes off and torment him with unbearable pleasure, explore every inch of that abundant physique and, at the same time, she wanted him dominating her, every sensation at the mercy of that calm, assertive air of power he had to him, his thick, deft fingers driving her wild, unable to resist.
Max, apparently unperturbed by the maelstrom of bleedback he must be receiving through her interface, curled himself up on the floor space between the sofa and Sylvia’s armchair.
“I think he’s okay now,” said Sylvia. “Let’s try this.”
Victor got the jar ready while Sylvia positioned the dog in front of her chair. “Max, sit. Good lad. Wait.”
At a nod from Sylvia, Victor jacked the lid open and pushed the jar over Max’s muzzle.
“Max, smell it.”
Max’s nose twitched inside the jar. The generic odor of people was the first thing that hit Sylvia through his interface. Then his recognition of the signature of her own scent, then somebody else–that was Victor–and finally two other separate smells, one of them stale and barely rising above the concentration of the background smells. Max recognized one of them, and his memory of the dungeon a few nights earlier rushed back. That was Vaughn. He had no recognition of the other one. All Sylvia could tell from him was that it had come from a male Caucasian who most likely wasn’t vegetarian.
“He can smell someone,” Sylvia said after waiting a few more minutes to see if he would analyze the smells any more. “It’s not anyone he recognizes though.”
Victor took the jar away from the dog’s nose and jangled the clamps idly in the bottom of it. “Were you expecting someone?”
“I don’t know.” Sylvia laid a hand on the back of Max’s neck. “I suppose I kind of hoped it would be Pikesley who’d been in there.”
“It’s not anyone you know? You’re sure this Pikesley is involved in it?”
Sylvia didn’t speak for several seconds. “It all fits together. It just seems too obvious, now I see it, for it not to be him.” There were banks at the police station, where records of known offenders’ DNA and fingerprints were kept, and phials containing samples of their sweat. A match to the signature Max had detected might be found there, but there were so many of them it would be next to impossible to identify a single one without more evidence to narrow it down. And, besides, if Pikesley was involved with this, it was likely the person who stole Victor’s fish jewelry was someone he’d hired to do it, and he’d be a fool to hire a known criminal.
“Do you have any proof that he’s involved? Anything you could use as leverage?”
Sylvia shook her head. “It’s not just that at any rate. It’s getting him on his own in order to apply the leverage. Where I work, that’s his domain. He’s safe there. He’ll have people on his side, who have accepted his bribes, or maybe who bribed him. Things like this–they’re just the tip of the iceberg. Pikesley will be sitting on the top of a whole pyramid of corruption, and while that’s supporting him it’d be madness to try anything. Unless...”
“Unless what?”
“It’s Friday, right?”
“It is indeed.”
“Every Friday night, Pikesley goes to the red-light district. I’ve seen his car. The traffic cops pretend they don’t see it. That’s our chance to get him alone.”
* * * *
So that evening, Sylvia found herself sitting in the middle of the back seat of Vaughn’s Jeep. Victor sat on her right, still wearing his pirate outfit. Max sat smartly on the seat on her other side, tongue lolling and making the car smell rather distinctly of dog. Seated beside Vaughn in the passenger seat was one of the snake-charmer ladies, wearing fishnet stockings, a leather miniskirt and a scarlet Lycra boob tube.
The sodium streetlamps cast a sickly yellow hue upon stone of the cluttered Victorian facades of Highfields. Leicester sweltered in the clammy grip of an airless summer evening. Cool air blasted from the car’s air-conditioning vents as Vaughn steered over the iron bridge crossing the railway and turned into a side-road off Sparkenhoe Street.
“That’s his car, over there.” Sylvia pointed to the dark saloon car pulled up at the curb.
“Go past it and find somewhere to stop,” Victor suggested.
Vaughn pulled into the car park of a tower block. He switched off the engine and lights.
“Go on, then,” he told the snake-charmer lady. “Your number’s up.”
The woman got out of the car and pushed the door closed silently behind her. She stalked across the concrete in her high-heeled boots, brushing her long black hair from her face with the back of one hand. With a dull click, Vaughn opened his door slightly, leaving it ajar.
Sylvia leaned over Max and wound down the back window. Pikesley had stopped just short of a streetlamp hidden by the corner of the building, leaving his car in easy sight. The edge of the high-rise cast the car park in inky shadow.
The woman approached the open passenger window. She leaned her elbows on the sill and pushed her face and breasts through the gap. She said something Sylvia didn’t catch, what with her head in the car. She straightened and stared at the rear of Pikesley’s car and said something about a puncture.
Pikesley’s graying light-brown hair looked sickly in the streetlight as he got out of the car and walked around examine the back tire. As the superintendent bent over, Vaughn pushed open his door. He slipped out into shadow, a hessian bag gripped in both hands, its opening folded over into a loose tire. Vaughn was out of the shadow in two strides, and he flung the bag down over Pikesley’s head at the same instant the woman took hold of his arm and sidestepped. Her ankle had hooked around his, pulling his leg across his body when she moved. Pikesley flung out his arms as he lost his balance and Vaughn wrenched them behind his back and bound them there.
Vaughn dragged the hostage back to the Jeep while the woman switched off Pikesley’s car’s engine and shut the door. Behind Sylvia, the Jeep’s
boot door was flung open and Pikesley landed on his back behind the seats, on top of a tarpaulin and an assortment of plywood boards.
The vehicle’s suspension lurched as Vaughn reseated himself at the wheel. The snake woman ran back to the car and got into the passenger seat. Behind the back seat, Pikesley made muffled yells of indignation. Max turned his head to look over the headrest and let out a low bark.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.” Vaughn reached for the keys under the wheel. The start-up motor whinnied and the engine roared to life. Vaughn pulled away with a squeal of tires. Pikesley rolled up against the back of the boot door with a thud. Max lost his balance and slipped forward on the seat, one of his forelegs sliding into the foot well. He scrambled back up and barked again at Pikesley, louder this time.
“What’s the matter with him?” Victor shouted over the noise of Vaughn’s driving.
Sylvia put her hand out to Max. “What’s wrong, lad?”
Max pulled away from her and barked again, now at full volume. Sylvia put her fingers to the interface on her forehead and synced herself to his signal.
“Does he recognize the smell from the dungeon?” said Victor.
“No, it’s not that. He’s smelled Pikesley before, several times in the station.” Pikesley didn’t seem to care for dogs, and with Max the feeling had been mutual. But this was more than Max merely disliking Pikesley. It wasn’t a smell either. It was an electromagnetic signature the dog had picked up.
“It’s electronic contraband,” she realized.
Back at the garden festival, Vaughn hauled Pikesley to his feet and pushed him ahead into the tents and down the stairs to the dungeon. He manacled his arms to the metal spider-web wheel before pulling the bag off his head.
Pikesley squinted about the room, his hair bristling with static. “Price! You’ll never work in this country again!”
Max began to bark again, at Pikesley. Sylvia pressed her hands to his chest on either side, just under his arms, and slid them down. She came upon an odd lump in the pocket of his expensive jacket. When she reached inside to take it out, she recognized it as a memory bank, the same as the sort she’d seen in his office. Max stretched his nose toward the device and began to whine.
“What are you doing hanging around the red-light district with this?” Sylvia demanded.
Pikesley gave his arms a useless yank against the restraints. “I’m your superior; I don’t have to answer to you!”
“Yes, you do,” said Victor from where he stood just behind Sylvia. His voice was not loud, but it had a certain power to it that commanded the attention of everyone in the room. “Because this is my Sideshow. It doesn’t work the same way your world outside does. In here, I make the rules.”
Pikesley looked past Sylvia and at Victor. He scowled. “Fat...pirate...freak!”
Vaughn stepped over to a coat rack hanging by the steps with leather costumes and whips hanging from it. He pulled off the tight t-shirt he’d worn while driving and put his executioner’s hood back on.
Something had moved above the entrance to the stairs, blotting the light there. “You two!” Vaughn called up. “Want to join us?”
The Hermaphrodite Twins descended into view. Both wore ordinary clothes, and without their masks it was obvious they weren’t in actuality related at all, although it was still not obvious which sex either might have started life as.
“You’re not coming in my dungeon dressed like that!” Vaughn roared. “Go and put your costumes on!”
The pair disappeared back up the stairs. While they waited for them to return, Pikesley’s breathing became very noisy and his Adam’s apple began to jerk up and down under the skin of his throat.
He mouthed for words for several seconds before finding his voice. “You’d be mad...to do anything...to hurt me.”
Vaughn’s jaw clenched into a grin. “If you like, I’ll give you the number of that bird who sectioned me. You can discuss it with her.” He grabbed a pair of surgical scissors off a table and began hacking Pikesley’s clothes off him. He cut as little as possible, relying mainly on grabbing the superintendent’s shirt and trousers and ripping them off him.
“You fucking pervert!” Pikesley yelled as Vaughn scissored the seams of his hideous Paisley y-fronts and flipped them onto the floor. Sylvia stared at Pikesley’s naked body as Vaughn turned away and began to sort through racks of nasty metal implements. He had sparse chest hair that ran in a denser line down his navel and into the graying, unsavory pubic mop from which his tackle dangled. From the definition around his stomach and pectorals and biceps, she divined he probably worked out. He had no tattoos, no piercings, no unusual features to make his body unique and interesting, no soft fatty areas to play with and probe with one’s fingers. He was sterile and bland, boring, ordinary, unsexy.
Vaughn turned back to face Pikesley. He held a digital camera, and it looked little and silly in his huge gauntleted hands. “Would anyone care to pose with this ’orrible chap?”
First the snake charmer and his ladies posed next to Pikesley. One of the ladies held Pikesley’s dick and the other held a snake. Then the zebra woman posed with her bosom in his face, her back turned to the camera to show off her broad, striped flanks and tail. The Hermaphrodite Twins, who had returned in their costumes, then posed on either side of him, and the contortionist sat on his shoulders naked with her legs wrapped around his neck. All the time Pikesley yelled and made noises of protest and disgust. Finally Vaughn handed the camera to Sylvia and posed next to the hostage, holding up his cat-o’-nine-tails in one hand and a thumbs-up in the other.
“Now,” said Sylvia, “if you should try to accuse anyone here of anything, we will happily email these photographs to all the major tabloids in the country.” She passed the camera to the zebra woman. “Make sure this is backed up in a few safe places.”
After the woman had gone, Vaughn spun the wheel over a few times, apparently deliberating what to do with Pikesley. Leaving the wheel turning slowly, he strode over to one of the racks and selected something.
“Ever seen one of these before?” Vaughn held a long thin sound close to Pikesley’s face. “It’s a...” He gave his other hand a dismissive wave. “Never mind, you’ll see what it’s for.”
He reached up and grabbed Pikesley by the cock. The superintendent screamed and his body went rigid the instant the steel began to press into him. “Stop! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know! Please!”
“All right,” said Sylvia. She motioned for Vaughn to step down. “Who stole Victor’s fish and planted it with those memory banks?”
“Some guy I know who I told to plant them. You don’t really think I go to Highfields so I can fuck whores?”
“Who is this guy?” Victor asked.
“I don’t know his name.” Pikesley’s eyes darted from side to side. “I helped him. He wanted to kill prostitutes, so I schooled him in when and where to do it so it would be overlooked and how to destroy the evidence trail, and I twisted a few arms when investigations down the station looked to be cutting too close.”
“You conniving piece of scum!” Vaughn burst out.
“They’re drug-addicted whores!” Pikesley’s face turned redder than it already was from being suspended upside down. “They’re poisoning our society. You want your kids growing up in a world where they’re allowed to carry that on?”
“They’re humans, the same as you and I!” Victor shouted.
“Wait,” said Sylvia. “Don’t let him drag your emotions into it. There’s something else, isn’t there, Pikesley? This ‘guy’ isn’t through yet. You were going to meet him, to give him that memory bank, weren’t you? What’s on the memory bank and what’s he going to do with it?”
Pikesley relaxed his neck and grimaced. He didn’t speak.
Vaughn picked up a P-spot stimulator and leered at him. Pikesley’s mouth jerked back into action. “It’s information on the construction of different types of information terrorist weapons. He’s...he�
��s going to plant a Compton bomb tomorrow.” The superintendent’s speech segued into breathless laughter, which intensified into loud, humorless guffaws.
Sylvia looked away from him, turning wordlessly to Victor, his face full of alarm.
Vaughn spun the wheel over, righting Pikesley, and untied him from the wheel. “Get this worthless bastard out of my sight,” he ordered the Hermaphrodite Twins.
As they dragged Pikesley up the steps, Victor said, “Compton bomb. How much do you know about Compton bombs?”
“There are a few different types,” Sylvia recounted her training on the matter. “The older types physically detonate. Something like that could kill everyone in the vicinity.”
Victor shrugged. “It’s no good then. They’ve won. We’ll have to cancel tomorrow’s event. We’ll lose no end of money.”
“No, wait. You’ve got two options. Either we close the Sideshow and avoid the risk, and let this terrorist murderer go free to murder and commit acts of terrorism again, or we don’t let them get the better of us, and we open as usual and we use it to make damn well sure we trap him and stop him for good.”
Victor stared at her for several moments. “What makes you sure you can find this man?”
Sylvia reached out to touch Max’s head where he stood beside her. “Because my dog knows what he smells like.”
Victor rested his thumbs on his belt and shifted his weight onto one heel. He looked confident and sexy in that pose. Sylvia pushed back down the urge to tear his pirate costume off and have her way with him then and there. “We’re going to have to really think this through. I don’t know I’d be prepared to take that risk with members of the public. Let’s talk in my caravan.”
He moved toward the stairs. “I’ll catch you up there later,” Sylvia told him. She waited until the others had gone. There was something she wanted to ask the dungeon master.
“Vaughn, did you know I was the same person when you saw me in the auction, after I’d been down here the night before?”
Vaughn didn’t avert his eyes from her and his expression did not change. “Aye.”
