by Dee Dawning
Connie blew a bubble and answered haughtily, "I thought detectives were supposed to be smart. How could I bring up someone I don't even know? I know she was very pretty and I kind of look like her. I used to look more like her until I took this desk job and put on twenty pounds. I get so bored, I snack too much."
Goodwin and Carboni glanced at each other. There was consensus in their eyes. More smart than ditzy. Smart alecky too!
Carboni took a stab. "You should apply for police work. The Police Academy would shape you up."
"I don't know. I've seen some pretty corpulent cops. All those doughnuts, you know."
This girl's a riot. "Miss…Connie. About the search warrant. Technically, you're correct, but we have reason to believe that your elderly dreamboat may have been the victim of foul play. We need to see what's in his office."
"Hmm! That puts a new light on things. I believe if the door is unlocked, you don't need a warrant. Right?"
"Right." They both said.
Connie reached in the center desk drawer and palmed something. "If you gentlemen will have seat and read a magazine, I'm going to go to the little girl's room and when I get back you can see if Mr. Stevens left his door unlocked."
They both sat and watched Connie disappear down the hall to the right.
She came back in a minute. "Ah, that's better. I drank too much coffee this morning. Where were we now? Oh yes, Mr. Stevens's office. You may go and see if Mr. Stevens's door is unlocked if you wish." She dropped a key into her desk drawer. "It's suite 9."
"What was the key you dropped into the drawer," asked Goodwin.
"I went to the restroom. Remember? They keep the restrooms locked, keeps the transients and druggies out."
As the detectives strode towards suite 9, Carboni saw Connie slip a second key into the drawer. He smiled.
~* *~
Drew opened his eyes, but saw nothing. Uncertain where he was, he suspected it was the Babylon Hotel. At his attempt to scoot up a little, his left arm shot intense pain and fire through him. Gently he felt his left shoulder with his right hand. Surprised to find it bandaged, he racked his brain to remember what happened. With no idea how long he'd been asleep or how his shoulder was injured, he elevated himself to his elbow using only his right arm.
Light crept under the door. After flipping his left leg over his right, he rolled over and off the bed. When he stood on his feet, he cringed as searing white pain tore through his skull. Almost collapsed, he lay back on the bed and racked his memory. What the hell happened? How did I get here? I need to get up and find out.
Drew stood up once more. Even though his head was splitting, he rushed to the door. What the…the door is locked. He flipped the light switch and blinded threw up his right hand as a shield. When his eyes grew accustomed to the sudden brightness, he scanned the room. Nothing was familiar; It wasn't his suite.
He banged on the door. "Hey, let me out. Where am I? Why is the door locked?"
The door opened and there stood Musa and Mustafa, two bull sized men. Behind the two behemoths stood Jamal, his face etched with concern.
"Jamal, am I glad to see you. Why am I locked up?"
He stepped in and shut the door on the giant guards. "Boy, you really did it."
"Did what? What happened to my arm? How come I'm locked in this room instead of in my suite?"
"Don't you remember what you did?"
"No, Jamal, tell me what happened?"
"You fucked the lady, the Prince's fiancée, he knows it and is royally pissed. That's what happened."
Chapter Nine
Campbell ushered two girls into the room, then shut and locked the door behind them. She put a finger to her lips, signaling Mallory not to speak as she took her hand and led her to the walk-in closet. The girls followed. Campbell said, "That's better. I think the rooms are bugged." She gestured to her companions. "Mallory, this is Brenna Thompson and Tiffany O'Brien." After they nodded and hugged, Campbell sat down cross-legged and the others followed her example.
Having come from the pool area, all three wore mini bikinis with matching cover-ups. They were lovely. Brenna was around five-three, short blonde hair and brown eyes. Raven haired Tiffany, was five-six and had the piercing light blue eyes sometimes reminiscent of Irish backgrounds. Brenna's figure was shapely and reminded Mallory of Paige. It made her wonder if Paige knew she was missing.
"These are the girls I told you about," Campbell said. "I told them about Khalid and they want to help."
Mallory bent forward and hugged Brenna and Tiffany. "Thank you. I can use all the help I can find. I don't even know where to begin. Campbell, how can we even find out where they are keeping him?"
"My guess is it would be on one of the two floors below. Where, I have no idea."
"Okay, finding out where Khalid is must be our first priority. Anybody have any ideas."
Tiffany ventured, "The time I was with him, he told me he wished he could show me his suite on the twenty-eighth floor. Do you think he could be in his suite?"
"I doubt it," replied Campbell, "They're sending him to Saudi Arabia to be beheaded. I don't think they would give him a suite. I don't think they'd even give him a room because he could break the window and jump out."
Brenna looked horrified. "But he would die from the fall."
"Beats losing your head," said Campbell.
"I wonder if Morina would help," Mallory wondered aloud.
Tiffany frowned and asked, "Why would she help?"
Mallory shrugged. "I'm not sure, but I think she has a crush on him. When I talked to her this morning she seemed pretty upset when we talked about him, and when she talked about Khalid being executed, her eyes teared up."
Campbell asked, "Really? She would certainly know, or could find out, where Khalid is. Do you think she could be coaxed into helping?"
Mallory responded, "I don't know. I could give it a try."
"All right, you do that. What else?" asked Campbell.
Mallory shifted. "We've got to find a way to contact the outside. Any ideas there?"
Campbell sighed. "Ideas? I've been agonizing over that since the day I was brought here. If we could make contact with the authorities we could be rescued."
~**~
"God damnit, Kelsey! Don't keep it a secret. Tell me what happened," exclaimed Paige excitedly.
"I'll do better than that. I'll show you." Kelsey got up and went to her purse. She retrieved a little white card and offered it.
Paige read it, then looked at the woman who smiled and shrugged. She looked back at the card and read the five cannily provocative words that may have caused everything.
If you love cunnilingus.
Smile!
Perplexed, a sudden flush passed through Paige's body, terminating in places that made her squirm. Experiencing carnal urges of her own, she imagined the card aroused Mallory the way it did her.
"Ah-hum." Kelsey cleared her throat.
Paige's gaze shifted from the card to Kelsey. "He told her that he would do it to her, anyplace, anytime, no strings attached. He said he was very good at it. He was pretty foreword, but Mallory just kept listening to him. She left for few minutes to go to the ladies room. I figured that was it, but she came back and asked if he'd changed his mind and he said no, she grasped his hand and walked back toward the restrooms."
She could understand Mallory taking the handsome man who'd given her that card somewhere to be alone, but a restroom? "My God, they did it in a restroom?"
"No. I don't think so. There are stairs by the restrooms going down to the all purpose room and offices." Standing next to her in nothing, but her thin, skimpy, peignoir, Kelsey put her arm on her shoulder.
The combination of the card, how Mallory had ostensibly responded and Kelsey's titillating proximity, inflamed Paige. Why do I suddenly find Kelsey so attractive? "I…ah…think I…better call Sergeant Carboni. I'll be right back.
~* *~
The office of Stevens Investigations con
sisted of a single twelve by fourteen room, housing a five-foot Formica desk, a leather executive chair, two fabric chairs facing the desk and a leather couch on the opposite wall. In addition, there were two end tables, a mini stereo, a dozen or so CDs, a TV/DVD combo and three four drawer legal sized file cabinets.
"Take a look at this, Carboni," exclaimed Goodwin, a few seconds after opening the first file cabinet.
"Wha'cha got?" asked Carboni who pause looking through the desk.
"A file on Mallory Robbins."
"Really? Let me see."
Goodwin proffered the large cumbersome file.
Carboni who sat down at the desk before opening it. "John, see if you can find something, anything around here that would indicate what blood type Steven's is." His partner started checking around as Carboni perused the sizable file, which had three dividers in it, each containing a separate letter sized manila folder.
He pulled out one folder and it had a hundred or so clippings of Mallory from magazines and newspapers. Carboni admired the photos. God she is beautiful! Where are you Mallory? His musing was interrupted by the sound of his partner's agitated voice.
"What do you mean you can't tell me? I told you, this could be life or death." Goodwin screamed into his cell phone.
Carboni glanced over to his red-faced partner and waved to get his attention. "We don't have time to come over there. We are at Mr. Stevens's office right now looking for clues to his whereabouts. Just a second please. Yes, Ritchie?"
"What's the problem?"
"I've got his doctor's office on the phone and they don't want to give information over the phone."
"Is it the Doctor?"
"No, it's the office manager."
"I've got an idea. Give me your phone."
Looking unconvinced, Goodwin handed the phone to his partner.
"Hi, this is Sergeant Carboni. To whom am I talking? Rose. Okay, Rose I understand why you don't want to give out information over the phone, but we're hot on the trail of a kidnapping and possible assault. Unfortunately, we don't have time to come down there. I'll tell you what. Instead of you telling me what blood type Mr. Stevens has, I'll tell you the Blood type we found and if Mr. Stevens blood type is something else, you say no and if it isn't, don't say anything. All right?"
"Good. Type O Positive."
Silence
"Thanks for your help, Rose."
"Well?" asked Goodwin.
"Our guy is O Positive." The second manila folder contained dozens of receipts and an itemization of expenses. A glance at the receipts didn't reveal anything though he needed to look at them closer when he had more time. The third folder contained forty-five photos of Mallory surreptitiously taken in various attire and locations. A scrapbook crashed down on top of the folder. Startled, Carboni looked up.
Goodwin grinned from ear to ear sardonically. "You ain't seen nothing yet, partner. Check out your beauty queen's portfolio."
"Where did you find it?"
"Same file drawer, stuck behind all the other files." He pointed to the highest drawer in the middle file cabinet.
"Good job." Carboni opened the booklet. It was Mallory all right. A little younger, a little less sure of herself, more girl-like, but still fabulous.
"I gotta admit, she is a looker." Goodwin reached over and flipped the pages to the back of the book. "Check out the nudes on the last six pages."
Carboni immersed himself in the tasteful nudes taken of a younger, not yet famous Mallory Robbins. God, she is spectacular. I've just got to find her. He sensed Goodwin studying him as he ogled the Robbins portfolio.
"You're not getting personally involved, are you?" he inquired.
Carboni was excused from responding when his phone rang. "Sergeant Carboni…Yes, Miss Dillon…All right. Paige…Wonderful…Yes, go ahead." He wrote the address in his notebook. "Got it. Give us an hour and Detective Goodwin and I will be over."
"What was that about?"
"That was Miss Dillon. She has some information. She said she couldn't tell me. I had to see it."
"Couldn't give the information over the phone, huh? I told you she was hot for you. Are you gonna bonk that babe or what?"
Once more Carboni was saved from answering his partner's embarrassing question as his cellular phone rang. "Sergeant Carboni…Yes, Captain…All right, Captain…We've only been on this a few hours. We're not sure what happened yet…Yes, go ahead." Carboni sighed. "Got it. Give us a few more hours and Detective Goodwin and I will give you a preliminary report."
"What gives?"
"That was the Captain."
"I could tell that much. What's going on?"
"The councilman for this area called the Mayor and the Chief. It seems Ms. Robbins's agent is friend of his and he wants action. We can look around for another half hour, then we need to go. We need to question the bartender. We can come back later if we need to. I'm going to bring this file and scrapbook plus the laptop I found under the desk. Was there anything else you came across?"
A frown formed on Goodwin's brow. "Actually, no. And that in itself is curious. Except for a few minor investigations—a couple of infidelity cases, an identity verification, some investigative work for a Westwood attorney and a child custody claim, Miss Robbins was his only case. I would suspect it wasn't even a case and he had a fixation on her, except he received a lot, and I mean a lot of money from one client."
"How much and who?"
"Three hundred seventy thousand from the Babylon Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas."
Carboni whistled. "Babylon Hotel. Say, isn't that owned by some Saudi bigwig? What could Stevens have done for them that he earned that much money?"
"Maybe it's for what he was going to do. Maybe it's for kidnapping or killing Robbins. Let's face it. He was stalking her like a hit man."
"I hope not. Before we go, you didn't see a safe anywhere did you?"
"No, why?"
"I looked through this address book and found what looks like computer passwords and a combination to a safe. The middle file cabinet looks a half-inch higher. Let's try to move it."
They went over and pulled on it. To their obvious surprise, it slid out between the other two cabinets easy. Located in the wall behind, they discovered a safe.
"Well, I'll be. Good find, Carb."
"Thanks. You're closer. Try 15-24-16."
"Got it. Wow. Look at that."
Inside were several bundles of hundred dollar bills and two small notebooks.
"How much is there?" asked Carboni.
Goodwin leafed through the banded bundles. "There's fifty- six bundles. Let's see, that would be a hundred-twelve thousand buckaroos."
"Good, grab those notebooks and let's go see Paige."
Chapter Ten – Babylon
Mallory glanced at Campbell. "I've been meaning to ask you, Campbell. How did they kidnap you and how did they get you here?" Mallory asked.
"In my case, it was the easiest thing in the world. I came to them. I was a showgirl in Bally's Jubilee show and word went around that The Babylon was willing to pay top dollar for showgirls." Campbell grimaced. "My application was worded in such a way that it let them know I was unattached and my parents were deceased, something many of the abductees seem to have in common. After the audition, they told me they needed me right away and I should quit Bally's, then report for practice the next morning. They said I was going to be practicing a lot and they would provide me a room so I should let my apartment go. I never even got to practice." Tears welled up in her eyes. "They drugged me and when I awoke, I was naked in the Prince's bed."
"That's awful." Mallory looked at Brenna and Tiffany. "Is that how they got you girls, too?"
Brenna nodded.
Tiffany spoke, "Pretty much, except I was an orphan from Bend, Oregon. My audition was in a warehouse in Portland. It was supposedly for some hush hush new show being developed for an unnamed Las Vegas hotel. They hired me and gave me airline tickets to McCarran Airport. There was a dar
ling set of twins from Astoria on the same plane, with a contract for the production, too. I thought ,being from Oregon, we would all be good friends. We were picked up by the hotel van, and the next thing I knew, I was a harem sex slave. I have no idea what happened to the twins. I never saw them again."
Campbell continued Tiffany's thought, "Believe it or not, I've heard rumors that we are the lucky ones. The word around here is that scores more girls, maybe hundreds, have been taken, then sold as slaves in the Orient, Latin America, the Middle East, etc. and if we displease Prince Ali, that's where we could end up."
"My God!" said Mallory dejectedly as her shoulders slumped, "What can we do? We can't just sit here and do nothing."
They all sighed and shook their heads. Campbell shifted. "There is absolutely nothing we can do in here. But like you said, maybe we can save Khalid and if we save Khalid and get him away from here, who knows."
Mallory grew excited. "Yes, he's on our side. Just before I was kidnapped, he did say he wanted to protect me, but I didn't know what he meant at the time. I do now."
~* *~
When the doorbell rang, Kelsey jumped. "Who's that?"
Paige sighed, "Oh, it's just Detective Carboni. I told you he was coming. Wait until you see him. He's pretty cute. Partner's not bad either."
