The Inglorious Arts

by Alan Hruska

  “You ever been in combat?”

  “No.”

  “Then you can’t know.” Townsend pours some more coffee for himself. “Sorry. Just trying to get this job done.” He drinks it black and sips it. “I understand, it’s your daughter, it’s your sister-in-law, you’re a lawyer, you want to negotiate. And suppose you get up to the house, what do you have to give him? Your daughter’s inheritance and your life?”

  “Neither, if I can help it,” Alec says.

  “Oh, really?” Harvey says, now joining in opposition with Townsend. “You’ll just think of something on the spot? Just wing it when you get there?”

  “I’ll know a lot more than I do now.”

  The phone rings, Townsend picks up. He listens, then addresses the group, his expression never moving off grave. “Angiapello has made contact through one of his lieutenants. He’ll permit you, Alec, to come onto the island alone.”

  As Nicoli escorts Jesse and Sarah from the room upstairs, two dark young men with serious weapons fall in behind them. Jesse lags a bit on the landing to scan the house and receives a gun butt in the spine. They descend a curved, open staircase and walk on gleaming wood floors past whitewashed walls, passing furnishings decked out in bright colors. The main room is ringed in French doors, framing island views in three directions. A corner door opens onto Sal’s study. From behind his desk, Sal waves the men to leave him alone with the two women. He invites neither to sit, though there are chairs in front of his desk, and Sarah and Jesse remain standing.

  Sal points to Sarah. “Your adoptive father—”

  “He will punish you!” Sarah blurts out. “For this! For doing this to us!”

  “At the moment,” Sal says calmly, “he’s on a ship.”

  “That’s what I said! I knew he’d come! With men, right? And you’re scared!”

  Sal gives her a curious look, like a wolf touching a window with his tongue. “He’s coming at my invitation. The ship is about a mile offshore, and he’ll be here very shortly. Alone. My condition for allowing him to see you. And when he steps on this island, he’ll be subject to my wish, to do with what I want. As are you.”

  Jesse’s anger is too hot to be hidden. “What the hell do you want?” she says loudly.

  “Now? To give you a chance to save his life. And your own.” Sal says this as if genuinely believing he’s offering kindness. He gestures to the chairs, which they take reluctantly. “I thought it best to explain to you now how you might do that. So listen. Carefully. It will be good for everyone. When he arrives, I will tell him what he must do, which is to go back to his ship, sail it away, and never return. I will state this demand flatly. You—both of you—will urge it most passionately. In terms he cannot fail to comply with. You understand?”

  Jesse says, “So there are men on that ship. Men with guns.”

  “No doubt.”

  “And they’re what? Police? Coast Guard?” asks Jesse. “Where are we? Your island, presumably. Near Sicily, right? So I suppose it’s the Italian police. And if you kill him, they’ll execute you!”

  “We’d be well out of here, as would be his corpse.”

  “They’ll intercept your flight,” Jesse says.

  Sal shakes his head with impatience. “You may have such hopes, if you like.”

  “And what are your… plans for us?”

  “As I’m trying to tell you, my dear young woman, that rather depends on his cooperation and yours. If he does what he’s told, and you help persuade him to do it, he will be unharmed and you will live out your years in ease.”

  Sarah says, “We’ll be free to leave? You will give us transportation off this island?”

  “No,” Sal says abruptly. “You are no longer free. Either of you. But the conditions of your captivity can vary. In fact, over a wide range. All my clients expect their women to provide pleasure, to be sure. Many, however, can enjoy them only by methods you would find extremely… unpleasant.”

  Jesse tries to show nothing. “It’s true, then,” she says. “You’re a sex slaver.”

  Sal nods, as if tiring of this conversation. “There are less pejorative terms, but, yes, I deal in… young women. An adjunct to my other businesses. Customers of the one—drugs or arms—tend to buy more extravagantly when supplied with the other. Although the inclinations of some of these people, well….”

  “They’re sadists,” Jesse says with disgust.

  “Yes. You would regard them as sadists.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No,” Sal says, “I would agree. They like giving pain. And the death rate in their households is not inconsiderable. They need fresh supplies at least monthly. So you see what your decision amounts to? Choose wrong, it’s your death sentence. And Mr. Brno’s. To deliver you to such people, or him to the sport of my men, are not things I would do for amusement. I’m a businessman.” His manner is cordial. “Now we’ve talked enough.”

  Sal presses a button on his desk, and Nicoli Gura enters at once. Sal says, “These two have matters to mull over. Bring them to the basement and let me know when you have Brno.”

  Alec is changing into Navy fatigues when Ned Townsend enters his cabin. The commander of the ship carries shoe boxes under both arms. “The high jump, right? That was your event?”

  “A very long time ago.”

  “Well, these might be useful,” Townsend says. “What’s your size?” He drops the boxes on the bed, and Alec chooses one.

  “These are tennis shoes,” Alec says, “but thanks.”

  “Just be careful how you handle them.”

  “Why’s that?” Alec says. Then, as if cracking a joke, “They have knives springing out of them?”

  “That’s right,” Townsend says.

  “What?”

  “They are equipped with retractable blades.”

  Alec puts the shoes down carefully. “What the fuck?”

  “Stand easy, fella. Lock’s on. You’re thinking this is a bit James Bondish. Actually OSS, then CIA, had been working on these way before Fleming even started writing the series. We, the Navy, picked it up toward the end of the war. World War II. It’s now standard Seals equipment. So let’s make sure these fit and you know how to use them.” Townsend pulls the size-eleven shoes from the box Alec selected, holds one up, and points. “You bang the heel on the ground, it releases the lock, and a lever pops out. You scrape the heel to your left, moves the lever to the right, and the blade springs out of the toe. Like so.” He demonstrates. “It’s very sharp. So be careful who you’re aiming it at. To get the knife back into the shoe, flip the lever to center, and bang it closed.” Again, a demonstration. “Got it?”

  “Let me try,” Alec says, and starts putting the shoe on.

  “Actually, we usually give a bit of training with these things.”

  “You have a boat ready for me to get into?”

  “Pulling into starboard now.”

  “Then I’d better get on it. I’ll practice while going in.”

  Townsend nods, and Alec laces the shoes. Townsend leads him down a narrow corridor to a ladder that they climb to the deck. It’s not quite nightfall, but there’s no sun, and the wind is like a beast smacking out of hiding. Townsend shouts over it, “We’re getting a storm.”

  Alec gazes down the side of the ship to what looks like a lifeboat equipped with an outboard motor. Though roped to the ladder, the boat bobs like the proverbial cork in the sea. Townsend shouts again into the wind, “It’s a relic—an inflatable seven-man landing craft. Best we can do for this job. You know how to work one of those motors?”

  “Yeah, I do,” Alec says.

  “This is a deep channel, and we’re in fairly close. With that motor, which is souped, you’ll be landing pretty fast.”

  “Faster the better.”

  “You know what you’re doing is suicidal?”

  “I know the risks,” Alec says.

  “With the shoes, maybe you can take out a couple of those bastards. Then… I doub
t they’ll just kill you. And I have nothing on board, no magic capsule to put an end to it. What they do to you, you will feel.”

  Alec’s breath feels raw in his throat. “I know the likely result of this for myself.”

  “And what? You think Angiapello will take you in trade and release the women? Is that what you’re planning to offer him?” Townsend’s tone, even at the top of his voice, properly demarks such a plan as preposterous.

  “No,” Alec says loudly, trying to be heard over the sound of the ship’s motor, the wind, and the sea. “I’ve no idea right now how, if at all, this can be done. I’ve got to get there to find out.” At Townsend’s sad shake of the head, Alec adds, “Look, I don’t like this any more than you think I should. If there were any alternative less awful, I’d take it.”

  “I’ve given you one,” Townsend says.

  Climbing onto the ladder, Alec says. “By all means, get your men ready for a landing. If I can’t get Sarah and Jesse safe on this ship, then you can start blasting away. What I need to stop before you can mobilize and get there is what they might be doing to them now.”

  A cramped room, mostly underground, with stone walls and floors, and one small window near the ceiling. The room is furnished with a wide bed, a tall wooden cabinet, and one large ladder-back chair. On it, Lou DiBrazzi sits waiting. Gura, releasing the women to this man, gives him a warning look before leaving.

  DiBrazzi says sharply to the women, “Stand away from the door.” With belligerent stares at the man, they stand firm. DiBrazzi thrusts himself up, and they scatter. He removes a key from his pocket and locks them all in. “I have the impression,” he says, walking back to the chair, “that you two don’t understand your situation.” He looks at them as if he might expect a response, but, receiving none, continues. “Well, you will. Eventually. What’s required is training. Obedience training. That’s my job. Which I do well, as you will see.”

  He goes to the cabinet, opens it, gestures for them to look inside. It is filled with stock, almost comical, objects of sadomasochistic play. At their reaction, he smiles. “The object is to teach you not simply obedience, but how to deliver obedience with charm.” His eyes light up with the prospect. “There’s nothing complicated to the process. It entails pain. Fear of pain. Fear of many things far worse than compliance. So… we have some time before your hero arrives. I think we should use it. Get started, what do you say? First lesson? Maybe you’ll learn quickly. And maybe we’ll bring Brno in later to watch, hmm?”

  He pulls a riding crop from the cabinet. “We are in what is known as the whip room. There are other whips in this cabinet that cut. There are other rooms in this basement that offer harsher—” a thought comes to him, at which he smiles—“and you might say, more pointed, even more heated… learning experiences.” He laughs in appreciation of his own double meaning. “But we’re still at an early stage. So, to start, I’ll use this comparatively”—he whacks it in his palm—“gentle device, for which I will need both of you to lie face down on the bed.”

  “Fuck you,” says Sarah.

  DiBrazzi laughs again. “Yes, of course, you would resist. Because you don’t yet know the alternative. You will soon lie facedown on the bed. The only question is, will you do so voluntarily, or because the several men I will call in here—and who would like nothing better than to witness your humiliation—will lift you up and toss you there. They will then need to stay, to hold you down, to remove your clothes, etcetera. I personally would prefer we do this without the fuss and the audience, but it’s up to you. So tell me. What’s your choice?”

  Most of the trip in, Alec practices opening the shoe blades as directed. It’s amazingly simple, and they work perfectly. Close to the shore, Alec realizes he’s drifting away from it and west of it. His brain flashes, riptide! Doubly frustrating, because there are jetties that might protect him if he could motor inside. Somewhere from the recesses of memory comes the thought: Do not fight a rip current! Go with it! And that’s what he does, allowing the inflated craft to race parallel to the beach, but farther and farther away from it. Breakers crash over him, and the storm beats down, stinging his eyes, clasping his shirt to his body. He knows he must try turning into the shore, though he’s now well past it. But turning in might find a break in this current! he thinks. It doesn’t on his first attempt, and the boat is thrown even farther off course.

  But now, past the breakers again, he can make out, if just barely, a blue patch in the green water, and he swings the boat to it. No riptide! He races the motor toward shore, then skims back toward the beach. As fast as it came, the storm stops. And in five minutes, Alec cruises in safely.

  Nicoli Gura waits onshore as Alec struggles to beach the landing craft. Gura pulls a radiophone from his pocket, reports on Alec’s arrival, then wades into the surf to help. No words of greeting or introduction, Gura simply takes the opposite side of the boat and assists in the motions necessary to bring the small craft from the water against the current and the wind. With the job done, and the two of them, both soaked, gathering breath on the beach, Gura says, “Raise your arms.”

  “You want to search me?”

  “Of course.”

  “If I had a gun,” Alec says, “I’d already have shot you.”

  “If you were stupid enough to use it now, then you would be shot by the guns trained on you from the house.”

  “You’re suggesting I use it later,” Alec says.

  “Raise your arms,” Gura says with asperity, and conducts the search.

  Alec says, “You’ve done this before.”

  “You will want to follow me,” Gura says, registering no sign of humor.

  In the wind and dark they trudge on the sand toward the house. Alec says, “You of course work for Sal Angiapello.”

  “Don Salvatore. I am the manager of this island.”

  “Would you tell me your name?” Alec asks.

  “I am Nicoli Gura.”

  “You’ve seen my daughter and sister-in-law?”

  “I just left them. They had not been harmed.”

  “Had not been?” Alec repeats. “Is there a ‘yet’ in that sentence?”

  “What do you think?” Nicoli says. “They’ve been brought here for a vacation?”

  “No,” Alec says. “I do not think that. And would you mind if we increased our pace?”

  Gura stops. “I’ve given notice of your arrival. The two young women have been brought to Don Salvatore. What happens to them now depends entirely on what you say and do. If it’s bad, increasing our pace will only make it happen sooner.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Sarah and Jesse are herded into the study by three soldati, Lou DiBrazzi leading the way. Sal Angiapello is still working at his desk. The chairs that once stood in front of it have been moved against the interior wall. Sal briefly nods toward the chairs before resuming his work, and the women are shoved there by the guards, who step to the back of the room. Jesse says, “Why are you mistreating us like this?”

  Sal looks up. “Mistreating? How have you been mistreated?”

  “You’re unaware of what’s happening?” she says, flamed with indignation. “We were not offered these chairs. We were manhandled into them. Thrown here like sacks of dirt. Perhaps you think we are sacks of dirt.”

  “I have no such thought,” Sal says.

  “And in your basement. That man”—she points to DiBrazzi—“was threatening to thrash us with riding crops.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes? Women are beaten in your home, and ho hum? How ordinary? What kind of monster are you?”

  “A busy one,” Sal says and returns to his papers.

  “This is bullshit,” Jesse says. “A billionaire gangster does paperwork? You have the nerve to let sadists torture us, but not to look us in the face?”

  “It’s my understanding that you were not whipped.”

  “And it’s mine that it was a temporary reprieve.”

  Sal turns to Sarah. “And what d
o you think?”

  Sarah closes her eyes, then blinks, as if coming out of a coma. “What do I think? After being kidnapped, brutalized, threatened with God knows what else? You want to know what I think? ” She gives a laugh one would not associate with a sixteen-year-old. “I want to go home,” she says, suddenly overcome by fatigue. “What do you think?”

  “Maybe it will happen. Eventually. Let’s see how persuasive you are. When Mr. Brno arrives.”

  Nicoli Gura leads Alec to a side door of the house. “Why not the front?” Alec asks.

  “This is closer to Don Salvatore’s study.”

  “Where the women are now?”

  “Yes.”

  “And so it’s also the closest exit.”

  “That would be a logical conclusion,” Gura says.

  “Are you trying to tell me something?”

  “Only the facts.”

  “The women will be guarded by soldiers?” Alec asks.

  “You’ll see soon enough.”

  “How many?”

  “As I said.”

  “All armed?”

  “Just go inside.”

  Alec puts his hand on the door handle. “And you, Nicoli,” he says, “do you approve of what’s happening here?”

  Gura says, “I think you had better go in.”

  The door opens to a small mudroom, which leads to a living room lit dimly by several lamps. Across the room, light blazes from the open door to the study. Alec enters that room with the demeanor of a houseguest joining the party. There’s Sal smiling at the desk, DiBrazzi smirking, their armed men coming alert. “Tell me what you can,” Alec says quickly to Jesse, who, like Sarah, is startled by his casual entry.

  “It’s bad,” Jesse says, “and will get worse. A lot worse.”

  “Sarah?”

  “Get us out of here, Alec!” she pleads, her voice careening off the walls.

  He turns to Sal. “You’ve seen the destroyer in your channel?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “There’s an aircraft carrier two knots away.”

  Sal spreads his hands, as if to say he would be surprised by anything less.