Forced Entry (46 page)

She frowned and turned away to pick up a pad and pencil. “It can’t be Najowski. I never gave him my phone number. He had to go through Wang.”

Moodrow folded his arms across his chest. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I won’t be embarrassed at what I hear.”

Realizing that he had no intention of moving until she retrieved her messages, Marie rewound the tape and pushed the play button. The first message was from the pimp.

“Guess what, Marie? Marek loves you so much, he wants you to do a special trick. Plus he’s going to pay for not being home this afternoon. Call me as soon as you get in.”

“Bingo,” Moodrow said, his face lighting up with a grin that seemed even more dangerous (though not to her, thank God) than the Freak’s hatred. “Call the pimp, Marie. He sounds like he’s in a hurry to hear from you.”

Resigned, she picked up the receiver, only to have the big cop order her to use the speaker phone. “I wanna hear both ends,” he announced. “There shouldn’t be any mistakes here. No mistakes at all.”

“George,” Marie said, when the pimp answered on the third ring, “it’s Marie.”

“You’re on for tomorrow,” Wang crowed happily. His voice was sharp despite a severe echo. “Marek says he’s ready to pay for everything.”

“All day?” Marie groaned, looking over at Moodrow.

“Yes.” Wang, reveling in the potential profit, ignored her tone. “The only thing is, you have to pretend you don’t know what’s happening. Marek says when you try to leave, he’s going to pretend to hold you prisoner. You’re not supposed to know this, by the way. I’m supposed to say it’s a regular two-hour trick, but I never lie to my girls. You pretend you’re a prisoner. Make the customer happy.”

“And if I don’t want to?” Marie asked, noting the startled look on the big cop’s face.

“You have to go.” Wang’s voice jumped a full octave. “Marek won’t pay for today unless you come. We’re talking about fifteen hundred bucks here, understand? He’s willing to pay a grand for his upstate adventure. Must be real horny, right? He told me that only Marie can supply what he needs. I swear I think the man’s in love with you.”

Marie sighed loudly, playing George Wang as smoothly as she played her tricks. “Give me the address, George. I’ll take care of it.”

The pimp’s directions involved a train ride upstate, then a taxi to the “Schroeder House” located in the hills north of Kingston. Najowski would deal with her as usual, right up until it was time to leave. Then he would refuse to let her go, holding her against her will, threatening to keep her indefinitely. While it was up to Marie to prepare a suitable response to her imprisonment, George Wang felt defiance, followed by groveling fear, was more than appropriate.

“Do you really do that shit?” the big cop asked in wonder after she’d hung up.

“I’m a specialist,” Marie explained. “I give folks the fantasy as well as the fuck.”

“You mean the whole fucking fantasy?” Moodrow giggled again. “You gotta be an actress.”

“It’s more acting than sex,” she responded. “That’s for sure. That’s what all the money’s about.”

“That’s right. That’s why I say you gotta be good and why I feel safe in asking that you help us out some more.”

“Yeah.” Even though she was hoping for just this, she feigned wariness. “I gave you the address. I don’t owe you anything else.”

“You didn’t owe me anything to begin with,” Moodrow responded, his tone dropping suspiciously.

“Tell me what you want,” Marie said quickly.

“I want you to go in and get him talking about what made him run away from New York. Talk about the building in Queens. Think you can do it?”

Marie sat on the bed without answering the question. “And he plans to hold me prisoner,” she said, more to herself than to Moodrow. “The mother-fucker wants to hold me against my will. He offers money to Wang like I was a machine he was renting for the day.” She sat silently for a moment, remembering the feel of his hands, the grunt of satisfaction as he penetrated her, the gesture of dismissal as he paid her. “Why not?” she said, looking up at Moodrow. “I can get the bastard to say anything. You want me to wear a tape recorder?”

“A transmitter,” Moodrow said. “We’ll tape it in the car. If you get in trouble, we’ll come in. Do you have to strip for him? Can you conceal it on your body?”

“He never touches my breasts. I don’t know why, but he never does. How big is the transmitter?”

“A matchbox.”

She nodded. “I can do it. No problem.”

“I want you to stay with me tonight. Don’t take it the wrong way, but I have to make sure you don’t get in touch with Najowski. And we should talk about what you’re gonna do.”

“I have another appointment tonight, but I’ll cancel it.” She smiled brightly. “I’ll claim the whore’s only legitimate excuse—menstruation.”

“Call it ‘the curse,’ ” Moodrow advised. “It’ll go over better.”

Marie laughed brightly. “See? All I have to do is
think
about that and I need to use the little girl’s room. Excuse me for a minute.” She forced herself to stroll into the bathroom, to shut the door slowly before locking herself inside. She even took a quick glance at her reflection in the mirror over the sink. Then, her heart racing with desire, she reached behind the toilet and removed the Smith & Wesson revolver taped to the tank. A Model .38 Bodyguard with a two-inch barrel, it fit easily into her oversized purse, its fourteen ounces barely noticeable. The man who’d given it to her was a retired cop with a strong need to be raped. So strong that he’d insisted the gun be loaded, and she knew, theoretically, how to use it. The cop had finally disappeared, as customers tend to do, but she’d kept the gun. Now, as she sat on the edge of the tub remembering the Freak, she knew why.

Moodrow and Marie were on their way back to Brooklyn and Jim Tilley, when the news about William Holtz came on over the radio. According to the announcer, Holtz was being transported from his office to an ordinary patrol car when he bolted, running between the patrol car and a double-parked van into the path of an M101 bus. The incident, gory enough to attract attention all by itself, was made even more newsworthy by Holtz’s association with the drive-by shooting in Jackson Heights. According to the newscaster, Holtz was to have been charged with several violations of New York State securities law when the incident occurred. A spokesman for the NYPD was quoted as saying that proper procedure had been followed and Holtz, who had been handcuffed, had given no warning before running away from the stunned officers.

“Is that about Marek?” Marie asked, when the report was finished.

“Yeah,” Moodrow admitted. “That was Marek’s lawyer.”

“Does it mean I’m the only game in town?”

“That’s what it means.”

“It also means that Marek will know it was me who set him up.”

“Don’t worry about Marek. Once we take him, he won’t come back out to bother you.”

“But he’ll
know
it was me, right?”

“Yeah, he’ll know.”

“Good. I like that very much.”

M
AREK NAJOWSKI SAT IN
the kitchen of the small summerhome belonging to his former adviser, William Holtz, and stared between pale yellow curtains at the raw spring day. The small yard, extending less than forty feet before surrendering to the winter forest, revealed no hint of the caressing warmth that had inspired Marie Porter on the previous day. This far north and west of the Atlantic coast, the cold days usually stretched out until mid-May. True, a few hyacinths, short and spare, hugged the earth, waiting for intrepid honeybees despite the weather, but their colors were muted, their fragrance smothered by a ground fog that refused to lift.

Not that Marek Najowski was aware of the scenery or the weather. In his own way, he was celebrating. Celebrating the death of William Holtz. He’d spoken to Holtz’s personal secretary less than an hour before and, though details were scarce, it was clear that Holtz, the last person able to link Najowski to the violence at the Jackson Arms, was dead. At one time, Najowski had wanted to eliminate Holtz the way he’d eliminated Blanks (he’d enjoyed that tremendously) and now fate had stepped in to do the job for him. Holtz’s accident (or his suicide), had miraculous overtones; Marek felt like a child waking up to find a hated rival moved to another state.

In a few days, he’d return to his home in Brooklyn Heights. When the authorities put the name of Marek Najowski to the Jackson Arms and its twins (it wouldn’t take long; with Holtz dead, he’d have to reveal himself to Precision Management immediately), he, as an absentee landlord, would shrug his shoulders and point to William Holtz.

“I trusted the man…”

Marek began to imagine the scene, fleshing it out with detectives (
real
detectives, not like the private cop who had Marty Blanks peeing his pants). The interview would take place in the offices of his lawyer (his
new
lawyer) and the detectives would be suspicious: “Do you mean to tell me that you weren’t involved in the day-to-day management of your own property?”

“That’s why I used a management company, officer. Because I didn’t
want
to get involved. I’ve never been the sort of landlord to go from door to door collecting rents. Finding good, efficient management is the key to success in real estate.”

The cops, of course, would know that he was lying, they could tell that much from his sneering smile, but they’d write their reports and go back to more profitable investigations, leaving Marek to congratulate himself on the first decision he’d made after deciding to pursue the adventure. Except for the literal ownership of stock, he’d never put anything in writing, never spoken to anyone, but William Holtz or Marty Blanks. Now that he was free and clear, with sole possession of Bolt Realty—Holtz’s last act on behalf of his client had been the transfer of Blanks’ stock to Marek Najowski—he would move to put space between himself and Jackson Heights as quickly as possible. He would sell the property, count his profit (and his blessings) and move on.

The idea of profit warmed him as surely as the coffee percolating on the kitchen table, and he began to drift into his favorite daydream. It was ten years into the future, a year or two after the moral majority woke up to assert its might. America’s southern border was sealed now, except for official checkpoints. Sealed by an army committed to fire at anything moving through the deserts of northern Mexico. Legal immigration was limited to white Europeans who would eventually become white Americans. The founding of America had
always
been the historical and spiritual mission of Europe.

There were camps, of course, but not the death camps predicted by the doomsayers. These were work camps, created for the tens of thousands of junkies when America decided it couldn’t afford to support a permanently unemployed, (permanently stoned) underclass. There was plenty of work to be done in America. The cities were filthy with human garbage while the countryside was dotted with toxic dumps. Inner city bridges were falling apart; the interstates were dotted with crater-deep potholes; the nation’s rivers were polluted with the detritus of industrial profits.

It was nearly noon and ferociously hot in the desert. The convicts, mostly black, though there were nearly as many women as men, were stumbling out of the buses. Wasn’t it amazing how quickly most of them had lost that ferocious look? How their innate aggression had been transformed into fear and confusion? They’d been packed in for days and, unlike the Jews of Germany, the stronger ones had refused to share a daily ration of water sufficient for the needs of all. In fact, the dominant males had doled out food and water like jailhouse kings dealing passes to the evening movie.

The young women, girls, really, had suffered especially. He watched them, dazed and frightened, as they looked to something or someone for support.

When the order to strip followed immediately (the de-lousing process began, as it should,
before
the animals were brought into the zoo), they looked up in despair. Most of the bitches, as Marek expected, were heavy. Their breasts sagged to where the smooth skin of their abdomens should have been, while their abdomens, in a parody of modest concern, hung down over bloated thighs. Fortunately, there were a few teenage girls with lithe muscular bodies that begged for humiliation: miraculous bodies, bursting with sexual vitality.

The sergeant walking alongside Marek noted the numbers as he pointed to this or that girl. They would be brought to the special barracks (
his
barracks, his due as Camp Warden) where he would confront them with the hope of escaping the worst aspects of the camp. Yes, they could live comfortably, sleep in a real bed, eat enough to maintain body weight, but the requirements were strict. Obedience, immediate and absolute, of course, but beyond obedience, a (hopefully feigned) sexual enthusiasm vigorous enough to convince a nasty old cynic like Marek Najowski.

Leaning back into his chair, Marek looked at his watch and calculated the time until Marie would appear. His crotch was on fire.

Stanley Moodrow, sitting in the front seat of Jim Tilley’s Buick, with the engine running and the heater on, was parked behind a thick stand of young hemlocks a hundred yards from the cottage where Marek waited for Marie Porter. Despite the short distance, the car, enclosed by the heavy forest, was invisible from the house. Moodrow, in the driver’s seat, was close to the road, but he couldn’t see the rented car Marie Porter drove toward the front door. He could hear her, though; the transmitter concealed between her breasts was broadcasting an amazingly clear signal. It had been designed to work in the unpredictable canyons of New York, where signals echo crazily and contact with street cops is routinely broken.

Marie had the car radio tuned to a light rock station and Moodrow listened quietly while John Lennon advised the world to “Imagine.” He was at the end of the chase, as he’d been so often in his career, and he could almost taste the exhilaration. And the triumph. He’d given up the badge—they’d made him give it up, that was the truth of it—but he could still hunt. It might not be the
only
thing that mattered to him, but without the hunt, he wouldn’t be able to enjoy the rest. Food, sex, love, friendship—all depended on the administration of justice. His administration. His justice. It was stupid, but he’d long ago stopped denying it, especially to himself.