Flesh Market

by Kate Lowell

  He’d laid the problem in his team’s lap and hoped they or the special agent in charge could come up with a solution that didn’t involve pulling him out. In the meantime, he made excuse after excuse and redoubled his efforts to track the missing kids. He wanted more than just these four brothels.

  Now he wondered if he’d even have enough warning to put an escape plan in play, let alone find the information he needed to tear this organization down to its foundation.

  Lately he’d noticed whispers, low conversations that stopped when he entered a room. Fewer special assignments came his way. He was left behind to run the brothels more often while the others were out, and some of the looks from the others were decidedly unnerving. Then the extra tail had arrived. He hated knowing he’d screwed up, but there was no reason to believe that it meant anything else.

  When he’d prepped his last drop to his contact at the dog track, he’d passed on not only what little he’d learned, but he’d given the FBI a heads-up that his cover was in danger of being blown and they needed to be ready to implement his extraction plan. He hoped to hear back today. It was shit luck, when he thought he’d been making headway in the place, and he wanted to know what he did wrong. Just, not enough to stick around and find out where the bodies of the last two agents they’d tried to insert had disappeared to. After this long, for sure they were dead.

  The guy ahead of him tapped his lottery tickets into a neat pile and slid them into his wallet, then stepped out of Leo’s way. Leo recognized the man behind the counter, but he still checked the ring finger of the man’s right hand, looking for the twisted gray-and-black dragon. He lived with the constant low-level fear that he’d arrive for his drop and find someone else waiting at the counter, someone who wasn’t associated with the FBI. Most undercover work was a day job, with occasional evenings or weekends. This one had taken over his entire life.

  He’d never been in so deep or had such a tenuous connection to any help if things went bad. And yet, he wouldn’t want to do anything else. He loved pitting his brain and his balls against criminals. He’d never lost yet, and he wasn’t planning on breaking the streak.

  Leo pulled out his own tickets. “Check these,” he said brusquely. He pushed a stack of Powerball tickets across the counter. “And gimme some of those scratches.” He shoved a couple of twenties over too and spent the next five minutes picking out scratch tickets with the help of the agent.

  The blond waited patiently behind him.

  Some careful sleight of hand put one very special ticket in Leo’s grasp. Leo stepped to an empty stretch of counter to scratch off the silver coating with his “lucky” fifty-cent piece. He didn’t start with the communiqué—the blond man was at the counter now and could see what Leo was looking at. Instead, he scratched a few of the other ones, tossing the winners to the left and the losers to his right. It was just luck that the blond man took his own tickets and walked away, because the eighth one was the message from the bureau.

  Hold on. Sending help.

  Supply Problems

  Leo stared at the ticket in shock. What was Harrow thinking? He hadn’t asked for a second agent—he’d asked that they be ready to pull him out at short notice. There wasn’t time to get a second agent in place. Damn it. He wished he could take a break from the cover to talk to someone in charge, really fill them in. Yell at them for a while, even, if only for fun.

  No helping it, though. Maybe tomorrow’s trip to the dog track would fill in the blanks; he always got better briefings there. Assuming he survived that long.

  Leo sighed and tossed the ticket on the loser pile, then scratched the rest off at the same deliberate pace, maintaining his cover.

  The agent slid Leo’s Powerball tickets and scanty winnings in front of him and scooped up the losing pile. He ran them through the machine, tossing them in the garbage with each taunting “you lose” tone from the scanner. “You want any more Powerballs?” he asked in a disinterested tone.

  “Yeah.” Leo nodded toward the small stack of bills, then added another couple of twenties and the scan-cards from his wallet. If this were for real, he’d be broke now on his government wage. The traffickers paid better than the bureau, and all that money went to finance his false identity. The irony of it all wasn’t lost on him. “Put that on it, and make the rest up on scratches.”

  “Any particular ones?” The agent dropped the scan-cards into the machine, his hand going automatically to grab the tickets it spat out.

  “A couple of the five dollars and the rest in twos.”

  “Gotcha.” The agent dealt out a stack of scratch cards and handed them and the Powerballs over to Leo. “There you go, sir. Anything else?”

  “Not for now.” Leo finished scratching his tickets, cashed in the winners, then wandered off down the mall with his half-melted smoothie in hand. Afternoon shift at the downtown brothel started soon; he had to get moving.

  His tails followed right behind him.

  As soon as he got back to the brothel, he was pulled aside by Vanderzwaag, a tall blond man whose broken nose came courtesy of Leo’s fist. They’d had a run-in back when Leo’d started at the brothel, but no hard feelings lingered. If anything, the men respected him more. He didn’t start anything, but they’d all quickly learned that anything they started, Leo put a stop to. Fast.

  “You’re wanted in the office,” Vanderzwaag said, his tone brisk and curious.

  Leo kept his expression bland, but his heart sped up, and it was an effort to keep his hand away from his gun. “Yeah? What’s up?” Shit, shit, shit.

  “Boss got a question for you. Don’t keep him waiting.”

  “Right. Thanks.” Leo started down the hallway, wondering if this was the end of the line or the break he’d been waiting for. He didn’t make it more than a couple of steps before the angry rumble of a man’s voice came to his ears, followed by the thump of something heavy hitting the floor right above him. He spun on his heel and took the stairs to the second floor two at a time, beating Vanderzwaag to the top despite the man having been ten feet closer to the stairs when the noise happened.

  A muffled shriek echoed down the hall. Leo skidded to a halt in front of the first door on the right and listened. A choked gurgling noise seeped through the wooden panels.

  “Everything all right in there?” He didn’t wait for an answer, just turned the knob and entered as another thump reverberated through the door.

  One of the girls lay on the floor at the side of the bed. She was naked, curled into a ball with one arm protecting her head, the other held in the grip of the middle-aged businessman standing over her. Her john turned at Leo’s entrance, his face a mask of frustrated anger.

  “Good, maybe I can get some service here. I paid good money, and this bitch—”

  He never got the chance to finish his tirade. Leo, taking in the damage in one quick glance, grabbed the man’s wrist and squeezed until he let go with a gasp.

  “What the—” he yelled. Leo tossed him toward Vanderzwaag and went to crouch next to the girl. She was bruised—finger marks and bite marks, most of them fresh. She smelled of sex and sweat and urine. None of that was important to the ring; they simply charged extra for the privilege. But the ring of rapidly discoloring flesh around her throat was another matter entirely. A brief flash of guilty relief rolled through him—it was so rare that he could actually stand up for one of these kids and not break his cover. He was damn well going to take the opportunity.

  He gathered up the man’s clothing and threw it at him. “Get out.”

  “You can’t do this—”

  Leo left the girl on the floor and stalked back across the room to loom over the john. “We don’t do snuff here.” He glanced at Vanderzwaag, who nodded and dragged the protesting man out of the room. Leo went back to the girl and pulled her arm away from her face.

  She shivered, but there was no resistance at all as he moved her about to check for more damage. Tears rolled silently down her face, but she knew
better than to make noise when she cried. He wondered if she would be one of the ones who disappeared—she had all the hallmarks.

  “What happened?” he asked, his tone sharp with the edge of his own frustration, though she couldn’t have known that.

  The girl gulped air and answered in a shaky voice. “It hurt so much.” She gestured toward her shoulder, where one of the bite marks trickled blood down into the crease of her armpit, then at the other, closer to the curve of her throat. “I’m sorry. I pushed before I thought.” Finally she met his gaze, her eyes bleary and red, pupils dilated with panic and adrenaline. “I won’t do it again. Please! Bring him back, and I’ll be good. I promise!” She reached out to him.

  What he had to do next sickened him. Leo pulled the skin of Dale Leon closer, burying himself beneath it, a thick, poisonous shield that had so far kept him safe, though it had worked for no one else. “You know your job.”

  She nodded, sobbing, knowing already what was coming.

  Leo stood up and pulled her to her feet.

  * * * *

  Leo stopped in one of the social rooms, his mood curling around him like nuclear fallout. It scared the boy occupying the chair in the corner of the room, and somewhere far beneath Dale Leon’s cold exterior, Leo flinched away from the boy’s frightened scuttle as he bolted out of the room, though nothing showed on the outside.

  Leo closed the door behind him and took a few deep breaths, leaning against the frame with his face buried in the crook of his elbow like a child who wants to believe that the world can’t see him if he can’t see it. It didn’t help; the sickness and self-hatred were too strong, had made themselves too much at home over the past six months. Some days, he didn’t know how much of Dale Leon was fiction and how much was parts of himself he didn’t want to admit to. It made him wonder if he’d be able to bring himself to do what was necessary, and if he did, would he be able to come back from it.

  He was starting to scare himself.

  The thought thrust him away from the door. He made a beeline for the liquor cabinet in the corner. The door creaked as he yanked it out of the way and reached inside with the most ungodly sense of relief to grab the neck of a bottle of Grey Goose. He drank, even knowing it was a bad idea. It was getting so he couldn’t go a day without a drink to dull the misery that clouded the air and fogged his mind. Dammit, but he needed to find something fucking useful.

  One more solid mouthful and he capped the bottle, the knot of anger in his chest uncoiling ever so slightly, just enough to let him do his job. He wasn’t drunk, not nearly, but it was enough to still those voices in the back of his mind. It was things like that which got agents killed, distracting them at the worst possible moment.

  Leo wasn’t going to go down that easy.

  He followed the hallway to the back of the building, passing the other two social rooms. They were near empty, no customers, just a couple of young women and the young man, who couldn’t have been more than fifteen. One of the other “security experts” perched on a chair arm next to one of the girls, running his palm up and down her arm and over her breasts. It looked more like habit to Leo than any real interest. Later, if it still wasn’t busy, the guy would likely take her into one of the back rooms to entertain him. But for now, afternoon talk shows were on, and he could have the girl anytime he wanted. The girl herself sat quietly, wearing a smile that was obviously faked, though Leo doubted the man molesting her noticed the difference. Not that she’d resist—anyone in the front of the house had long since had any fight taken out of them.

  Maybe he should have had another drink.

  He went through the heavy paneled door that separated the business area from the management side, remembering to nod to the man guarding the inner sanctum. The office lay on the far right, well away from the smells and noises of the kitchen and laundry room.

  Leo knocked.

  “Come in.”

  The room was almost unfurnished, save for a modern glass desk centered in front of the far wall. The blinds were drawn on the window behind it, two lamps—one at each corner of the desk—providing the only light in the room. A man the size of an industrial refrigerator stood in the far corner, easily visible, his hands clasped loosely in front of him like any of a million bodyguards. He came forward and patted Leo down, removing his gun in the process, then went back to his corner. Another man sat at his ease in a chair tucked into the opposite corner, almost invisible behind the glare of the lamps on the desk. Leo squinted into the light and recognized the blond tail from the mall.

  Shit. I’m done for. He calculated his odds and realized he should have called it quits last week when blondie had started following him. At least he’d made his drop this morning. They’d know tomorrow when he didn’t make it to the track that Leo’d been burned. Well, fuck it. If I’m going down, I’ll take as many of these assholes as I can with me. Adrenaline roared through his veins, and he had to work to keep the grin off his face. Nothing like losing all your options to make things real simple.

  He turned his attention to the man sitting behind the desk, an open laptop casting its frozen blue gleam over his face. Leo’d only seen him once before in passing, though he’d heard his name often enough. Adam Carragher. High-class name for someone so low he’d have to look up to see a scumbag’s belly. He dressed like an accountant, though he was far from being one. Leo had been looking forward to slapping cuffs on this guy. If it went bad, that was who he was going for first.

  Leo stopped in front of the desk, arms loose at his sides, ready in case Carragher’s hard-looking bodyguard moved. “You wanted to see me, sir?” He kept a wary eye on the guy in the chair.

  Carragher closed his laptop and set it aside. “Yes, I did.” He looked Leo up and down. “Dale Leon. You look like a cop.”

  “Ex-cop.”

  “So I’m told. Still playing the ponies?”

  “Dogs mostly. I keep it under control.” The betting wouldn’t have given him away. Where had he misstepped?

  Carragher leaned back in his chair, totally relaxed. “Where’s the fun in that? I pay you enough to indulge your little passion. In fact, I can pay you more if you’re interested in a change of job description.”

  Leo’s plans to do as much damage as he could before they got him came to a screeching halt. “More, sir?” Maybe he wasn’t screwed after all. This sounded promising.

  Dale Leon was a broken-down half-alcoholic junkie with no family who wanted to own him. A few black marks on his record and rumors of other things that were never proved had kept him from advancing in the ranks. He’d been busted for taking bribes to cover his gambling addiction, his wife had divorced him, and he had child-support payments and a mortgage on a house he’d never see the inside of again. Leon would definitely be interested in more money, a means of achieving that big score that would mean retirement to a beach in Mexico with a pretty young thing who liked money enough to overlook any age-related sagging, and an end to the nagging phone calls from the angry ex.

  Carragher waved a hand in a gesture that took in the whole building. “I’ve heard good things about you, and I have to be careful who I put in this section. The men respect you; the customers like you, for the most part; and from what I hear, you can keep things from getting out of hand without getting rough, but you do a good job of it when you have to. You do what you’re asked, and you do it well. You’re even careful when you handle the merchandise. In fact”—and here Carragher leaned forward, his arms stretching across the desk as if to point to Leo—“that kind of bothers me. I don’t think I’ve ever had a fella in the houses that didn’t indulge even once in a while. You one of them asexuals? You don’t like sex at all, or you just need a bit of strange? I can get you a she-male if that’s what turns you on. We cater to our customers; I don’t mind throwing in a bit for the boys on the floor.”

  “No, sir. Thank you, but I’m fine.”

  Carragher sat back in his chair with a thump and propped an elbow on the chair arm. “The
n you’re still thinking like a cop. Maybe you aren’t what I’m looking for.” He flicked his fingers, almost like calling up a dog, though Leo saw no movement on the part of the other two men.

  “I was a cop, sir.”

  “The key word there is was. You and I both know you aren’t getting a badge back ever again. Might as well get comfortable in your new profession, learn to enjoy life a little. With your experience and training, you could go far. I hired you because you understand how cops do things, and that’s important as the business grows. I’d like you to get a little more involved with the product. More hands-on.”

  It was bullshit, but Leo didn’t let on he knew. Carragher had Leon hooked on the money, but get him hooked on money and sex, and he had an even more secure grip on Leon’s loyalty. He wondered idly if drugs were next, given Leon’s history, though he hadn’t seen any sign of them yet. That was probably coming, but the sex was cheaper to offer. After all, it was still a business. And what the hell did “more hands-on” mean? Only one way to find out. “Yes, sir. I can do that.” He’d have to let Bert know, and it was fifty-fifty whether the man would let him keep on with the operation or would call it quits. Try to, anyway. Leo wasn’t giving up without a fight.

  “Good man. But here’s the deal. If you move up in this part of the organization, you never move back down. I only put men there when I know they can’t screw me over. But I pay them well. Very well. And there are some specialized…perks to the position that I’m told are worth more than the pay raise.” Carragher sat back, tapping his fingers against the desk in an odd repeating pattern. “You interested?”