“Yeah? You actually want me to come?” asks Noah.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll see what the flights are like. And I also have to check my schedule. You know what that’s like.”
“I’d appreciate that ... But another thing Noah. Things haven’t changed ... you know. It’s just ... I want you to be here.”
So if I’m not your boyfriend and you’re not my girlfriend, why is it such a big deal for me to come to New York? “Of course. Good friends and all that.” Noah can’t hide the disappointment in his voice.
“I also want you to meet someone. You’ll find her interesting.”
You could just send an email. “Well any friend of yours is well, a friend of yours.”
“Noah, don’t be like that. This is the biggest performance I’ve ever done, Noah. Please try and make it.”
“No promises.”
CLICK.
Sam rolls his eyes. “Now are you dumb or are you dumb? You need another trip to New York like you need a root canal. You need a sixteen-hour plane ride like you need a hole in the head.”
“I’m not going to go. I’m not going to jump just because Olivia says to jump,” says Noah defiantly. Right. “It was the only way to shut her up.”
Wangdan looks up from his autograph signing. He has heard every word of Noah’s side of the conversation.
“I’d like to go to New York,” interjects Wangdan. “It is the center of the universe.”
“Not any more, Wangdan. Stuff’s happening everywhere now.”
“I want to find out for myself. See what the Big Apple is like.”
“You’ve been to Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong. One massive metropolis is the same as another.”
“Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Carnegie Hall, 9/11 Memorial, the best bagels in the world. And there’s something else I want to experience.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes, Noah. I have never been any place where I was a minority. Anywhere I go, Chinese are everywhere, Chinese food is the main food, Chinese movies are the main movies, and Chinese music is on the radio.”
“You’re killing me, Wangdan,” sighs Noah. He also knows there is no way he would ever miss Olivia’s New York debut at a major club and he knows that Wangdan will go nuts over the big city. Noah knows he’s just being petty. “Okay, okay. We’ll go.”
Sam groans. “Talk about misplaced priorities. Olivia, the love of your life, asks you to go and you say ‘no.’ No offense Wangdan, but you are not in Olivia’s league. Noah, this guy asks you to go, and you say ‘yes.’”
“That’s about right,” nods Noah.
“How about me? You need me. Who else is going to protect you?”
Both Wangdan and Noah look at each other, then say in unison, “No.”
“C’mon, guys. Please?”
“I saw your report card. Try passing a few classes first.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Queenie sits in front of Benjamin’s huge mahogany desk. It hasn’t moved out of this office since great grandfather Abraham moved it in during the 1920’s. A ton of deals have been done in this room. Musicians’ contracts negotiated, rental contracts with the tenants above the club, booze deals from Canada during Prohibition ... and there is a long, soft, brown leather couch where other kinds of deals were consummated, including one that Benjamin is trying to do with Queenie.
“I delivered. Your turn, Queenie,” says the landlord.
“Not so fast. I need another favor,” says Queenie. “I want you to close off the club to outsiders on Monday night.”
“Are you crazy?” says Benjamin. “It’s showcase night. It’s a New York tradition. I’ll get crucified if I do that.”
“It’ll still be a showcase night but I want to bring in my own people for the audience. They’ll still buy a ton of food and drink,” promises Queenie. “And won’t that be great promo for you? That you had to shut the club down because there were too many patrons? That sounds pretty damn good.”
“We get coverage from all the blogs, magazines and newspapers. Not to mention the actors, producers, directors and musicians wanting to check out the new hot product. If we don’t let them in ... I don’t know, Queenie. My ass’ll be grass.”
Playing hard to get is Benjamin’s strategy. Both he and Queenie know he will do it but the question is what he can get for this. In fact, Benjamin would welcome a break from the media. They always expect freebies. Not only do they not pay cover, if he doesn’t give them free drinks? Well, he’s suffered those nasty reviews. However, if they get turned away because the club is just too damn busy? That can hardly be called bad publicity.
“I hear you.” Queenie reaches into her purse and pulls out a strange pointed object. “Know what this is, Benjamin? This is the beak of a red-crowned crane. I have it honed so sharp that it would be easier for me to slice you to the heart than for a fat man to break his diet at a cruise ship buffet. This is my lucky pecker. Worked every one of the twenty times I’ve used it. Understand?”
With a lightning fast motion, Benjamin pulls out a gun from the desk drawer and points it at Queenie. “I got a pecker too, babe.”
Queenie smiles. “That’s why I like you, Benjie.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“You want in on my action. I can call you any damn thing I want.”
Now we’re talking. While Benjamin’s libido just wants to pick up Queenie and toss her on the couch, his brain screams, Yes!
“What kind of action you got in mind?” says Benjamin as he eases his gun down.
“Hard candy? Southeast Asian. The best.”
Benjamin’s brain goes into overtime. While sex is what he thought Queenie was talking about, money is even better. It lasts longer.
“I’m listening. What’s the offer?”
“One million five up front. Delivery in a month.” Long enough for me to pay Alexei then split town with half a mil and forget this music bullshit.
“I’ll do it but I need ten days to come up with that kind of cash.”
“No cash, no deal.”
“I can get you a hundred and fifty in two hours. Best I can do. We can entertain ourselves while we wait.”
Damn. Back to Plan A. Queenie’s eyes drill into Benjamin. “From now on, you and I are strictly business.” She glances at the couch. “Sex messes up business so you got a choice. Which one you want?”
“Do you even need to ask?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Two hours later with $150,000 in cash hidden inside her feathered vest, Queenie’s sixth sense is tingling as she walks the six blocks to her next destination. Problem is she’s no fortune teller so she doesn’t know whether it’s tingling good or tingling bad. She is sure of one thing. Forget the one week extension that Alexei gave her. Her whole future will be determined by what happens in the next forty-eight hours. She will be going big or she will be going home.
And that’s why this meeting is so important. Handling Benjamin was relatively simple compared to what’s about to happen.
She arrives at the Vector Building. Fifteen stories tall with elaborate curly window ledges on the top two floors, it’s one of those mysterious New York buildings that have been around forever. The second to the top floor is being visibly renovated, with stacks of materials visible through a hole in the exterior. The building never has a lot of people going in and out of it, but if one watches the entrance closely, one will see a diverse mix including music superstars, unsavory types from all nationalities and some of the most expensive suits, handbags and dresses in New York City—a very select group of customers, clients and tenants.
The security in this building is tight, tight, tight.
There’s a small lobby where a security guard grills potential entrants extensively if they haven’t been there before. Queenie doesn’t fall into that category but upon entering the building, she still has to pass through a metal detector and go through a pat down in a security room. The screening process preca
utions here are such that if any weapons or explosive devices are found on the person, entry is immediately rejected. Queenie smiles inwardly—they’ll never catch her peckers.
Accepting that she has no guns, knives, or grenades on her person, the guards let her through to the elevator. The security guard punches in a code and the elevator zooms directly to the fifteenth floor. When the doors open, there is a large sign that says Skyscape in front of a counter where yet another security guard is stationed.
The fifteenth floor is a sonic and technological gem. Little expense has been spared here. State-of-the-art equipment combines with the best of vintage to provide some of the best sound reproduction services available in the world. Digital and analog recording devices stand side by side to be used per client’s preference. A selection of two hundred and fifty microphones achieves the warmest or crispest sound with any vocalist or instrumentalist.
In its short existence, Skyscape has become one of the most desired spaces anywhere for musicians to record, desired and intriguing. Desired because of its spectacular views from the fifteenth floor of the Vector Building, its exceptional equipment, world class in-house engineers, and “client relations” that take service to a whole new level—nothing is too kinky or too absurd to demand and get. Intriguing, well ... because of the people that hang around the place. In addition to Grammy award-winning musicians and rich wannabes that have more money than talent, there are the alleged gangster and white-collar criminals. They add a certain color to the studio’s ambience. Why are they here?
The answer is easy. Everyone loves the music biz but there is an even greater attraction for the criminal element, those who need special banking services that Citibank or Goldman Sachs are not going to provide.
Their presence is tied to a dirty little secret that few know about but of course Queenie knows: Skyscape has a background much like many of the other mysterious tenants in the Vector Building. That is, the studio doesn’t need to make money and the owners actually couldn’t care less about the music industry. The owners, who include the Russian Alexei, are much bigger fish than Queenie in the drug game. The studio launders their money. There are fake clients being charged for hundreds upon hundreds of hours of studio usage when all the while the studio sits empty or is used for any of the engineers’ or producers’ pet projects. It’s a commonly used ploy that unfortunately re-enforces the stereotype about the music industry and crime being closely linked. At the same time, “real” artists will be offered enticing rates to record here, advancing the studio’s reputation and making its falsified claims of expenses seem more legitimate to any auditor that is assigned to the studio file. The studio has been open for less than a year and business is booming. Plans are to step up the renovation of the fourteenth floor and have it ready in six months, not the year and a half originally planned.
Getting off the elevator, Queenie is acknowledged by Jonny, the muscular Chinese guard. For most persons entering Skyscape, a second even more thorough frisk occurs here, but not for Queenie. Jonny allows her to walk directly to the gleaming office of Hassan, another of the studio’s owners. She seats herself without waiting for an invitation. She’s the youngest person ever to have this easy access to the Iraqi. This is because over the years her father and Hassan have done many deals together.
“I want in, Hassan,” says Queenie firmly. “Have you considered my proposal?”
“You don’t know the first thing about running a studio, let alone anything about music,” sneers Hassan.
“As far as I remember, your sole claim to musical fame is pimping drugs to X Link just before he died.” X Link was a rap artist who, like so many, got caught up in the image of being a gangsta rappa.
Queenie places $100,000 of Benjamin’s money on the desk. “This is your last chance, Hassan. I will kill you if you don’t sell out to me. Here’s a down payment.”
Hassan snarls, “You insult me with this? Get out and take your peanuts with you. And your threats? The metal detector shows you have no weapons. And even if you did, you think you can do anything to me?” Hassan prides himself on being able to kill anybody with one hand, a quality lacking in probably every other studio owner in the world.
“I’m just wanting to do a deal.”
Hassan makes a phone call. It rings and rings and rings without answer. He clicks it off. “That was your father’s direct line. He and I already have a deal going and I can’t get a hold of him. Word is that he’s out of commission.”
This is a problem.
Suddenly, Queenie springs out of her chair, quickly reaching into her bag and grabbing the sharpened crane’s beak that she showed to Benjamin. It comes down hard on Hassan’s chest.
Hassan’s bleeding badly now but the wound is not deep enough to be lethal. Hassan swings hard with his famed killer left hand.
Years of sharpening reflexes through martial arts training make danger avoidance easy for Queenie.
She leaps up while delivering a kick to Hassan’s head. He turns to the side, avoiding the full brunt of her stiletto boots.
He is angry at himself as well as her. While he has a gun in his desk drawer, damned if he’s going to let a woman defeat him in a street fight.
And Hassan’s male chauvinism is exactly what Queenie is counting on.
Hassan pulls the pecker out of his chest, leaps up from his desk and lunges at Queenie.
She smirks—this is her territory. She quickly sidesteps and grabs his hand. With precisely the right angle and pressure, she squeezes and Hassan’s hand gets sliced to the bone. A follow up karate chop from Queenie causes the pecker to slice off several of Hassan’s fingers.
Hassan’s not finished yet though. An elbow from his other arm lands on Queenie’s jaw, sending her reeling. He follows with a swift power kick to her mid-section, causing her to buckle.
He raises both arms and brings them down hard but the nimble Queenie rolls out of the way. She pulls off her feather boa, jumps behind the Iraqi, and quickly wraps it around Hassan’s thick neck.
She pulls and pulls as Hassan flails wildly. However, Hassan is more clever than Alexei, the last person Queenie tried to garrote. He falls backward, crushing Queenie against the floor.
Queenie gasps and releases her hold. Hassan pulls his dangerous hand back and is about to pound Queenie’s nose into the back of her head when a Shaolin star flies though the air and embeds into the middle of the Iraqi’s forehead.
Completely weakened, Hassan cannot follow through. Queenie pushes him off her. She grabs her pecker and slashes the Iraqi across the throat, severing the jugular, carotid artery and trachea.
Jonny walks over.
The dying Hassan’s eyes light with hate at his employee. “I knew I should never have trusted a Chinaman.”
Jonny puts his boot onto Hassan’s neck, pushes down and snaps it. “Actually, your mistake was to not trust me more. If you had, then you wouldn’t be dead, asshole.”
Hassan expires.
Queenie looks at her savior. “Took you long enough, Jonny.”
“I enjoyed watching him suffer. Wanted to catch every moment of it.”
“It was easy. Hassan is so full of himself that he never thought that I was a danger. So are you ready, Jonny?”
“Of course.” The security guard whistles loudly and five illegal Middle Eastern minions bring in a body bag and cleaning materials. They start the clean-up and disposal process.
Another dirty secret of Vector’s. Not everybody who enters the building leaves it. And of course, the owners will help dispose of the remains for an appropriate fee.
Jonny will do whatever Queenie wants, legal or illegal. She has owned him since she and King smuggled him here from China four years ago and got him the job with Hassan. After all, the Iraqi needed people who didn’t ask a lot of questions. She knows where Jonny’s family in Chinatown lives and what restaurant they work at. Even though King is gone, she knows that she can easily find out where Jonny’s other family members in China
are.
But that’s just insurance. Jonny ain’t going anywhere. He’s got too good a deal going with Queenie. For starters, while he’s an illegal, he’s not one of the indentured slaves under snakehead control.
Because before he came to New York, he was one of her father’s martial arts gangsters and it never hurts to have the dark side of the Shaolin on your side. However, he wanted to move to America and get into the music biz. He cut a deal with King and Queenie to bring him in. They would get him to New York and find a job for him in the industry. In return, he would be their in-house muscle and enforcer.
Not a bad deal. Jonny’s services were needed at least once a week. Queenie got him a job when Skyscape first opened, asking Hassan if Jonny could be their security guard. Hassan agreed, hoping that doing Chin’s child a favor would lead to more business for himself. The additional business never materialized but Jonny was a definite asset. It wasn’t just Queenie who needed his services.
“You’re sure you know how to run a session, Jonny?”
“I spend a hundred hours a week here. I’ve been assisting the engineers and even produced a few demos. This is going to be my job forever. I know Skyscape inside out.”
“So you could fake it pretty good then?”
“No need to fake it. I got it down. When you’re ready to rock, I’m ready to roll.”
To get Jonny onboard, Queenie told him she was thinking of opening an Asian American label. The idea was to bring rich artists from China and have them record in Skyscape. This actually is a pretty cool business idea that would make dough.
“Good. You are now President of Skyscape Enterprises, answerable only to me.”
“Thank you, Queenie.”
“Are the rest of your group ready?”
“All five, including me.”
“Get them over. We will have a session in 6 hours.”
“You got it, boss.”
The good thing about doing bad things to bad people is that if they’re dead, it’s hard to go after anyone, especially if the operation was built with illegal cash to start with.
The Noah Reid Series: Books 1-3: The Noah Reid Action Thriller Series Boxset Page 45
