Body Parts (Rye & Claire 1) (16 page)

“Sorry, I was stocking some new tapes. What can I help you with?”

He was relieved to be greeted
by a pleasantly plump, slightly balding, fifty-something man wearing
creased slacks and a bright red polo shirt.

“Hi, yeah, well actually I need some information.”

Rye braced himself for the man’s reaction, but for the second time was pleasantly surprised.

“Sure, I’ve been in this
location for thirty years. Had to move the store from downtown LA about
the same time the city started getting too big for its own good. So, I’m
here. Lost some foot traffic, but you can’t beat the rent. Sorry,
sorry, I go on forever if I’m not careful. What can I tell you?”

“Have you ever heard of a film company called Lewd and Lascivious?”

“Yep. What do you want to know?”

“Location, maybe some names.”

“Uh oh, sounds like a
daughter gone astray. That’s how I found out about them. Not my
daughter, course. My goddaughter, actually. Best friend’s daughter. He
came to me cuz he knew I was in the biz.”

A bell rang interrupting his monologue.

“Scuse me, delivery at the back door. Take just a minute.”

Rye knew there was no way to get off easy; one way or another he was going to have to pay for any information.

It turned out the owner of
“Adult Books” knew quite a bit, and was willing to tell it for free. He
said that Lewd and Lascivious was six blocks down, but it was only the
business office. Rumor was the film set was somewhere in Oregon. He
heard through the grapevine that it was financed by a doctor and was
operated by some kind of nymphomaniac who demanded sex from all the male
actors as part of their interviews.

That was enough for Rye, who
only really wanted the address. Abruptly he looked at his watch. “Oh,
I’ve got to run, but thanks for the information.”

Six blocks later, the street
looked like it was on a different planet. Trees lined the sidewalks and
there were no deserted cars stripped and left to rust. He almost drove
past his destination because the sign was so high, mounted two stories
up. He had to get out of the car to read it. He was disappointed that
there was no phone number on the sign, but maybe that would have made
things too easy.

He walked slowly up to the
door, taking a minute to rehearse his lines, but never got the chance.
He found out the door was metal by the ring it made when his head was
slammed against it.

Without hesitation, Rye
executed a rear heel scoop kick and was rewarded with a grunt, when he
spun around he was looking down the barrel of a very large caliber gun
and an angry set of eyes. The gunman kept changing weight from one leg
to the other, like a little kid that had to go to the bathroom. Reaching
with his empty hand, the gunman wadded up Rye’s shirt and placed the
barrel of the gun firmly against his forehead.

“Now, moving your eyes, not
your head, look to your left and you’ll see a black SUV. That’s your
goal. You want to reach your goal without me blowing your fucking head
off, got it? Don’t nod.”

“I…I understand.”

“Good, then let’s go, and don’t forget your goal.”

The two men walked sideways
toward the car, the gunman cross stepping, Rye crabbing along as best he
could. He observed his captor’s appearance: coal black hair tied up in a
ponytail, bull neck and a muscular build bulging out of an open sport
coat. Maybe a former pro athlete, Rye thought. When they got within a
couple feet of the rear of the SUV, the double back doors flew open. A
man reached out, grabbed Rye by his shoulders and dragged him in the
back. The gunman slammed the doors closed.

Rye landed on his back facing the rear doors and raised himself up on his elbows.

“Turn around nice and slow.”

Rye pulled his knees up under
him as he turned so that he was sitting upright and on his heels. The
windows in the back of the SUV were blacked out, the passenger seats
were folded down and the entire inside looked so clean it could have
come right out of the showroom.

When he turned to look at his
second captor, he was once again looking into the barrel of a gun.
Moments later the passenger side door opened and the first gunman got
in, sitting braced against the back of the passenger seat.

“What’s your name?”

“Rye.”

“Well Mr. Rye, how long you been working for Lewd and Lascivious?”

Before he could answer the
closest gunman turned to look at the other, they seemed to be agreeing
on something and Rye knew that he’d given himself away. Claire had
always said that he couldn’t keep a secret because it was always written
all over his face.

It was the first gunman, the
one Rye had scoop kicked, who did all the talking. Although they were
both formidable in size, the one who walked him across the street was
definitely the boss.

“I don’t work for Lewd and Lascivious, I’m trying to find them.”

“What exactly do you mean, you’re trying to find them? You looking for a job or something?” The two men grinned at each other.

Rye was getting fired up but didn’t want to piss off his captors.

“I think they’ve killed a man, an actor in one of their films, and they’re going to kill again.”

The two thugs exchanged looks again.

“You ain’t no cop and definitely not a bounty hunter. What’s it to you?”

“Their next victim could be a
woman who came to me asking for help. Look, this guy had his liver cut
out, but I don’t know if there is really a connection between the
company and the guy’s death. All I know for sure is that the woman I’m
looking for asked me for help. She appeared in a film made by these
guys—and so did the guy.” Rye suddenly realized he’d been talking a mile
a minute, something Claire said he did when he was nervous. He paused
and took a deep breath. “I don’t know what you think, but I’m not
associated with Lewd and Lascivious in any way.”

“OK, Mr. Rye. I see you’re
pretty excited; hey, two guns in my face and I’d be pretty excited, too.
I’m gonna tell you some things cuz I think we may be able to help each
other. Whatchu think?”

Rye didn’t know if he was
expected to answer, but was willing to do anything at this point in
order to get the guns pointed somewhere else.

“Sure, glad to help. Could you put those guns away?”

The two men smiled at the request. “Put the guns away, sure why not. First put your hands on the ceiling.”

Rye raised his hands until his fingers touched the padded headliner. One of the men waved his gun under Rye’s nose.

“Palms flat and don’t move or Rock here will blow a hole in you. And at this range I’d get a face fulla guts.”

If the gunman was trying to frighten him, he’d done a good job.

He felt the man’s hands lightly run up his sides, around behind his neck, around his waist and his crotch.

“Now sit back on your butt and bring your feet around in front, nice ‘n slow.”

The process of bringing his
feet around pulled Rye’s pant legs half way up his calf. It was plain to
see that he wasn’t wearing an ankle holster.

“Good, now we put the guns away. Bring your hands down. Now, tell me, when did this guy get his liver cut out?”

“I don’t know exactly, but I found him day before yesterday, and he hadn’t been dead more than twenty-four hours.”

“How would you know how long he’d been dead? You a doctor or sumpin’?”

Rye was steamed and at the
end of his patience with all the questions. Now that the guns were out
of sight, he was feeling a little braver, but not a lot.

“I’m an emergency medical
technician. But what has all this got to do with you? And how do you
figure we can help each other? You can help me right now by letting me
go.”

His two captors looked at each other as if trying to make up their minds about something.

“An emergency medical… you mean an ambulance driver?”

“Basically, yeah,” Rye said, trying to hide his anger.

“OK then. My ol’ man is dyin’
of a liver disease. He needs a new liver, can’t wait. The odds of
gettin’ picked from an organ donor list in time to save his life ain’t
so good. My ol’ man’s doctor says he can get a liver through other
channels, says leave it to him. What do you know, I get a call the next
day saying if I want a liver, bring a hundred gees to Pier 39, San
Francisco, midnight, cash. Maybe the liver I bought and your dead guy’s
liver are one in the same?”

Rye could feel the sweat
trickling down his side and beading across his forehead. He could hear
his own heart beat, but knew he couldn’t panic. Both his captors were
built like linebackers and both still had their guns, and although he no
longer felt his life was in immediate danger, he was far from safe.
This man was talking about black market organ sales and he had to know
it was a federal offense. The other guy had called him by name. They’d
revealed too much to let him go.

Chapter Twenty Seven

Rye was right
,
it was no problem getting the license number of the Dodge Caravan.
Claire simply asked Jake Bradshaw, her good buddy at the fire
department, to run it through the DMV for a name and address.
Apparently, the vehicle had been caught in a surveillance tape as it
crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, and he was able to provide a crude image
of the driver and the passenger. Now she had a face to match the name.
Jake had pulled the face of the woman Rye identified as asking for help
off the tape, but as Claire left Medford, Oregon, heading north, she
began having doubts. What was she going to do when she got to this guy’s
house? All she knew was Crystal’s name.

Claire pulled onto the shoulder of the freeway and dialed Paul Casey’s number on her cell phone. She got his answering machine.

“Paul, this is Claire. Rye
went to LA in search of a porn company and I’m headed for 20415 Pericolo
Lane. It’s just above Denton near the coast.” Claire pulled the phone
away from her ear to avoid the static that suddenly came on the line.

“Great, well it was a good try,” she said and pressed the end button and put the phone back on the passenger seat.

She ran through several
scenarios for getting into the house on Pericolo Lane. But who was this
girl Rye wanted so desperately to help? Would she even be there and more
importantly, who were these people she was involved with? She finally
let it go; the whole idea was insane anyway. Paul had even told Rye that
there was nothing either of them could do. Great, the message she left,
outlining her intention of locating the girl, flew in the face of
Paul’s advice. But, she figured, this far up the coast and having left a
message for Paul—if his machine even recorded it—she sure as hell
wasn’t going to turn back now.

It was while leaving the rest
stop just above the little town of Cottage Grove that Claire had an
idea that she thought just might work. She’d say she was a private
investigator hired by an attorney to locate the two people who assisted
with a multi-car accident on I-5. The victims and their families had put
together a reward of $10,000, to split between the two. She wouldn’t
even show the picture, she’d explain how she traced the license plate of
the Dodge and had only a description of a tall, slightly balding man
and a woman with long blonde hair. Claire ran the scenario over and
over, even practicing what she’d say. When she reached Denton, she
gassed up and drove a couple blocks without finding her turn off, then
pulled into the parking lot of the Book Nook and asked for directions to
Pericolo Lane.

The occasional house or
mailbox became more and more infrequent as she drove on, until she
hadn’t seen a house in twenty minutes. She was beginning to think that
she had gone too far until she came to a hairpin curve and passed a
steel reinforced mailbox with the correct address. A fifteen-foot high
iron gate blocked the paved driveway. Attached on either side of the
driveway were twenty-foot high stone pillars.

She parked a foot or two from the gate, got out and gave the iron bars a shake.

“Wow this is really made to keep people out,” Claire said, to no one in particular.

To the left and right of the
pillars, barbed wire fencing lead off into the woods. Imbedded in one of
the pillars was a speaker with a keypad.

Claire pressed the button marked “intercom.” “Hello, I need to speak to the owner of a black and red Dodge Caravan.”

The speaker crackled as a tinny sounding voice responded. “State your name and business.”

“My name is Claire Anderson
and I’m a private investigator authorized to give the owner of the black
and red Dodge Caravan a reward of ten thousand dollars.”

There was no immediate
response and Claire was beginning to wonder if the speaker worked. When
the tinny sounding voice caught her by surprise, she could feel her
pulse pound in her ears.

“I’m sorry the owner of the Dodge isn’t here at this time.”

“Could I pass through? I just need to find out who the owner is.”

This time the response was immediate.

“Just mail the check to this address.”

Claire jabbed at the button. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. I have to deliver the check in person.”

The reply wasn’t so congenial this time. “Then you’re out of luck.”

She tried several different
approaches but the person at the other end either wasn’t responding or
wasn’t there. She got into her car and drove slowly along Pericolo Lane
until she found a break in the barbed wire.

She started to wonder if the
young woman who asked Rye for help was being held against her will. She
hadn’t really expected an open invitation to come inside, but it was
obvious that these people had something to hide—and it wasn’t just
pornography.

Pulling onto the shoulder of the road, she left a note under the windshield wiper—Won’t start, caught a ride into town.

Reaching behind the seat,
Claire grabbed her butt pack and pulled on a down vest. Checking up and
down the road, she quickly made her way down the little slope that led
to the barbed wire fence where the top two strands had come undone from
one of the fence posts. High stepping, Claire leapt over the fence and
into the forest, quickly moving out of sight from the road. She made her
way in the direction of the driveway, figuring that she’d need to come
up on the house from behind. She’d been jogging for nearly twenty
minutes, finally stopping to catch her breath. Bent over with her hands
on her knees she looked up and began scanning the woods for a house.
Spotting the driveway, she figured if she just stayed parallel to it,
she’d eventually run into one.