Heroine: California Dreamin' (6 page)

“They will learn nothing about it. Nothing will happen. My father wouldn’t care anyway; he won’t give us any headaches. But it will cost you something.” I had taken that into consideration. I knew the price and also the currency.

“What about me. After all, I got you out of here?” Pete protested.

“Boys, I have gotten a job a few days ago. It wasn’t easy to get it and I must also be available for my husband. Could you arrange that all three of us let’s say meet once a week? Otherwise that might become too much for me.” Again silence from the front seats. Then they ‘high fived’ again – or whatever they call it, and yelled “Yippee” again, simultaneously.

Sometimes it is easy to read men. Whereas I couldn’t forget to think that I might have offered too much. Once a month would probably have been sufficient. But most importantly there were no threats pending any longer in the chain between Alan, Robert, Ron and Irene. Whereas she was backed by a true official, Ron was excluded from the chain and in that way I could have my peace and quiet for a while. Three weeks ago I still wanted to stay in this country forever. Now there was the idea growing in me to ask Daniel to return to Germany. Even if the destination was Stuttgart and even if Igor was waiting at the airport.

My car was peacefully parked in the parking lot where I had left it. The wide area had become crowded considerably, obviously most companies had already called it a day. Daniel would come home soon and I wanted to be a good wife to him.

The boys and I said good bye to one another with kisses that took longer than I had planned.

“Next week, will you be OK then?” Pete asked carefully.

“Yes, I will call you guys. Think of something and where we should go and on which day you have off. I can manage my job. I will then take off for the afternoon.”

They looked at one another and then winked at one another.

“Done deal.” They knew exactly that I depended on their confidentiality. However, what they
didn’t
know how much I depended on it. But they wouldn’t use that beyond my offer. Beside that I had set my price so that I would also profit from that deal. Hookers must be able to reckon.

On my way home I turned off the air conditioning and opened the side window. While the wonderful warm late summer wind blew into my hair I became aware that winter was pending back in Germany. Did I really want to leave from here? Just before the front door of my house another realization came to mind.

Next week I would cheat on my husband intentionally for the first time. He was by no means allowed to find out anything about my deal with the boys. Did the game with Irene already constitute adultery? No, not in my view, that was something different. Into my earlier affairs I skidded more or less, most of the time even with a little push from my husband. Now I was on my best way to handle those affairs professionally.

I counted myself lucky to have a currency available that let me handle my affairs by myself. Somehow Robert did indeed manage to turn me into a hooker - beyond his grave. After all he had remained decent enough to not have me imprisoned for life. At this moment I appreciated that.

I parked the car in the garage without further looking for the documents that were still in there. Daniel brought me to bed after he had returned from work later. He was concerned about my condition – his deep lines on his forehead revealed that. The night I woke up from a restless sleep.

Something was still not in order. The key that I had found in Robert’s documents danced before my eyes. And where was the taser that he had taken from me? I saw Robert’s face before me. The power hunger in his eyes. Without a question he would manipulate any situation so that he kept control over it at any given time. Because control is power. Control is when you know everything at any time and when you are able to correct an error under any circumstances. Because errors were not allowed.

There was still another hiding place – I became suddenly aware of that. And that probably contained my weapon and a copy of the autopsy report. It was five o’clock in the morning and my nerves were already strained to a breaking point.

All of a sudden
Norman’s handsome face appeared before my inner eyes.

“
You can do that, I know you can do that! You are strong and wise
!” he told me. I nodded. Robert had the physical edge over me but I had defeated him. I would win the remaining battles too. Now I had allies. Somebody would know what had to be done. If necessary even I myself.  I relaxed. Then I carefully woke up Daniel. I needed him now. Sex relaxes. All refreshed I woke up at eight o’clock in the morning. The bed beside me was empty. There was a note on the nightstand.

“
You slept so beautifully that I didn’t dare to wake you. I am so happy that you have regained some strength. I love you. Daniel. P.S. I have a small surprise for you. Yesterday I learned that I’ve been promoted. I am now head of the department.”

For a while I was happy for him but then I focused again on my plans for this day. Irene wanted to come around noon and talk with me about the job. Then I wanted to find out if the key that I found would perhaps fit a safe deposit box. I saw that once in a murder mystery probably even one from the Lieutenant Columbo series. Obviously Robert knew also about it.

My mood did not at all correspond with my current situation. But what were the facts? Robert was dead I recalled. There was no link between him and me. The documents that incriminated me I had torn and flushed down the toilet. The connection between Ron and me - that could be a remaining proof of contacts to Robert – was so diverted that it couldn’t harm me anymore. And furthermore, I actually might get some enjoyment out of it, I thought to myself quite amused. So what else was there? I still had to find out where and what the key belonged to and the whereabouts of the taser. Perhaps it was in Robert’s house and was of no interest to the police. After all it was a weapon and police officers carry weapons. Could the key fit to a secret vault in my pimp’s house? Then some possible heirs of the deceased could stumble upon that vault and reveal its contents to police. I began feeling queasy again. I needed to write that stuff down or I would mix everything up again.

One piece of the puzzle was still missing. Damn it! The documents in my car’s trunk! I had completely forgotten about them. I ran into the garage as if I had been bitten by a tarantula.

I stopped right in front of the Chevy, panting with excitement. Norman’s image resurfaced once more.

“Stay calm. This hectic rush is only self-induced. With that you signal helplessness and you manage that someone comes to your rescue. And your good looks guarantee that one hundred percent.”
Those were the words that this impertinent guy had attacked me with only a few months ago.

“You are old enough to help yourself. So make sure that you’ll get your feet onto the ground and catch a break. Then you send your panic attack on a vacation for a few seconds and you tell it to come back again when you have enough time for it.”

“Did you actually think of that yourself?”
I had asked back.

“No, my squad leader has told me that during a shootout with drug dealers when I took part in one of my first assignments. I was close to lose my mind when I heard these weapons blasting”,
Norman replied.

“You could have told me that a bit earlier”,
I argued with Norman in my head.

I dragged the flat box and the remaining papers from the car into the house. The green box was locked. The key I had found in Robert’s cabinet did not fit, it was too big. I opened the envelopes that were partially soiled. In some of them I had recognized some photos. Those images were enough to trigger another shock. I sat there for a moment without being able to move. My hands trembled.

The pictures showed exclusively naked young women who were tied up – some with ropes, others with handcuffs. Some of them were bound together so tight in unnatural fashion. The person who shot the pictures obviously focused on their tortured eyes or the welts from the tight ropes on their abdomen. 

“Robert, if you did all that then your death was much too merciful for you”, I hissed through my clenched teeth.

The pictures never revealed the true identity of the women. Their faces were somewhat covered mostly with a hood or you could only view the wide open eyes. There were several copies of each photo and I realized that those photos were ‘promotional images’ for Robert’s perverted customers.

Already at the third envelope I started feeling sick. I recognized the young woman who stood naked with legs spread wide and leaning across a couch. My couch. Then pictures of me stretched out on the bed with legs apart. Photos in detail, whole body photos. But always in a way that my face could not be recognized. My mouth. The gag held by the belt. The wide open eyes in close-ups. While Robert tormented me he had taken pictures of me. But why couldn’t I remember any of that? I wondered if there is perhaps a smart card with these photos somewhere. I went back to the garage where Daniel kept a few tools. A hammer and a screw driver should help me opening the box. After a few strong blows the lid was busted open.

“Hallelujah”, I screamed. The taser lay there right on top. It was mine I recognized it from the scratches on its handle. First I was relieved.

Underneath lay a pack of papers. They were probably printed with a spreadsheet program. The papers featured initials, numerals and numbers. The latter ones were marked “$”. It looked like lists of appointments and expenses for individual items where their meaning was abbreviated.

I felt nauseated when I looked at the last page. The upper edge featured the letters
“Jul.Nou.”
Then numbers. A zip code and my cell phone number. The date on the left side reflected the day when he had raped me. Several other numbers I could not allocate at first. But now I understood what the numbers with a “$” meant. On all other pages they could be found side by side in two columns respectively. And they were assigned to a fixed date and some other abbreviations. Once in red, once in black print. On my page there was only one single red number, the column beside it was empty. Further to the right were more abbreviations and a date. The whole setup was easy to decipher for me. I still had the name of the business man ringing in my ears, the one I was supposed to ‘service’ in the luxury hotel in San Francisco. After his departure his name was printed in the newspaper. I could identify the hotel as well as his name on the paper. It was supposed to be my first ‘assignment’ for Robert. The beating I was going to get would have earned him two thousand dollars. Despite the high summer temperatures I felt a chill down my spine.

After that I compared the other data with mine. I had no doubts that the women in these pictures had already experienced the same fate that was intended for me. Robert didn’t take great pains to encrypt these contents. That puzzled me. Somebody who was such a perfectionist allowed possible links to him and his victims? Our tormentor must have felt pretty safe.

The money amount that had been entered deviated only slightly from one another. I was twice as expensive as the others. From the abbreviations I could only deduce names that sounded Spanish. So behind a “
Mar.Gonz”
was probably a
Maria Gonzalez
, with
“Eva.Juan”
he didn’t even take any further pains, and so on. I was the only one with a European name.

Slowly the whole setup made sense to me. For his perverted customers the pimp blackmailed illegally immigrated women from Middle America. His words about Alan Apala went through my head:
“They received a thousand dollars for one hour enduring pain. Any of these women would do it again immediately if you’d ask them. None of them complained, on the contrary. The money helped them to manage a whole month and longer and they were probably used to this kind of treatment from their husbands …”

With me he had succeeded for the first time to ‘recruit’ somebody from Europe. Apparently that was good enough for him to demand higher prices. I roughly calculated how much money these women had earned him so far. Robert became rich with them because my fellows-in-misery - as I saw them already - had been used for up to twenty times. And as far as I got to know Robert there was hardly any money set aside for the women. They could call themselves lucky if they could stay in this country after all. Strangely enough, with all dossiers with the exception of two he had entered a larger amount of mostly $ 50,000 below the final line. The two exceptions were above mentioned
“Eva.Juan”
and I. Did he intend to release them one day from their slavery and pay them a severance pay?

Something in my head broke out in laughter.
“Robert? Paying a severance pay? Julie don’t be so naïve! I would rather assume that he sold them to a whore house.”

On the one hand this imagination terrified me and then again I realized with great amazement that I was no longer as naïve as I was a few weeks ago.

I had my doubts when I pondered whether I should hand these data over to police. I was still convinced that Robert had hidden some more files somewhere else. If I went to the cops now they would very likely scrutinize my relation with Robert. Even if I hid my personal file; the danger that something else existed linking me to Robert was too great. Therefore it was also out of the question to forward those papers anonymously. And furthermore, I needed to search Robert’s house or apartment for further documents. How could I get the address?

Outside was some grinding sound when Irene’s car drove up our driveway. That was the solution! She was the wife of a prosecutor and I could obtain the needed information through him. I closed the box in a hurry without checking the contents that were hidden underneath the inner flap. Then I stored the box in the dresser underneath my clothes.