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Where Roses Bloom
CHAPTER 1 Boston, MA Monday June 10, 1985 9:30 p.m. Buddy and Jessie, were drinking beer while watching the sports review of Sunday’s game. The Lakers had snatched victory in the last few minutes of the game with the Celtics, 111 to 100, and the National Championship. Behind them a young girl, nude, tied up and gagged, laying on a broken down couch, moaned as she regained consciousness, then began crying through the cloth stuffed in her mouth and kicking her legs helplessly. “Shut up, bitch!” Buddy yelled at her. “Wait ‘til Eddie gets back to take some more pictures. We still got some more shots to do, you know, if you want to make it big time in this business you got to start cooperating a little. Oh, that’s right. You didn’t want to, did you?” “He will be back in an hour or so, babe. Let me finish this beer and we’ll start rehearsing, maybe both of us at the same time. Don’t that sound like fun? I’ll know you’re going to like it.” Jessie said, looking at her soft white breast, then down the rest of her trim body, marked now with bruises beginning to darken. “Eddie will powder all those up, and you’ll look re-e-e-al go-o-o-o-od.” “What’s keeping him,” Buddy asked. “I thought we had it all set. Ray said it was.” “It’s a long drive, clear across the Pike. Besides, he just wants to make sure it all goes off together. That’s the way he planned it. The best investigator in the whole world couldn’t tell the difference.” Buddy gurgled out a drunken laugh. “He’s pissed about the mirror part, broke that thing in a million pieces.” Jessie smiled a crooked grin. “I told you he’s not the only smart one. We got him on film now, just in case he decides to cut us out.” “You think we’ll really get a lot of— “ “The girl had loosened the gag enough to scream, and she did so at the top of her lungs. “Damn it!” Jessie said, as he whirled around and hit her across the forehead with his beer bottle. “Now see what you’ve done!” Buddy yelled. “You’ve knocked her out and made her bleed again. Eddie’s going to be mad when he sees that.” “I don’t care. He’s out burning everything up and left us here with her.” The girl slowly regained consciousness and began again to cry softly. “I think instead of knocking her out again I might just knock her up. Ha. What would Eddie think about that?” Jessie said, and threw his empty against the broken mirror. Both were beyond their limit with the beers, but Jessie could still stand. He did so, turned and began striping off what clothes he still had on. She could only moan as he ripped the bindings from her ankles Buddy watched long enough to finish his own beer then joined him, taking the empty bottle with him. The girl’s eyes, red, swollen, and wide with fear, closed tightly as he approached. An hour later both men were sprawled out on the floor, completely wasted, and the girl, still nude left un-shackled, lay watching them until they began to snore. Ten minutes later she was stumbling barefoot through tangled bushes and dodging trees, afraid to take the road leading back to town for fear Eddie would discover her on his return. All she had to protect her from the biting cold was a small throw they used for a backdrop, but it was enough. She would have run using nothing if she had been forced to. A long half hour later she stumbled through a thick hedge way onto a county road and fell helplessly to the ground. A local farmer, returning home late from a prayer meeting found her and rushed her to a hospital. *** Wednesday June 17th, 1987 12:30 a.m. Long Beach California A man in a dark Lincoln Town Car pulled to the side of the road and watched as the cab in front of him pulled down a sloping drive on the right, the lights go off, and come to a halt at the rear of a darkened building. As the woman driver got out and started for the door, he dowsed the lights, turned the engine off, eased himself out, and walked quickly in pursuit. He couldn’t believe the drug had worn off so quickly, or, he cautioned himself, had it worked at all? She should never have been conscious enough to drive an automobile. She should be stumbling or crawling, but no, she stood erect, pausing at the door, withdrawing something from her handbag, and pushed the door slowly open. He moved closer, close as he dared, as she slipped into the soft light inside. The man approached quickly then, stepped to the door, tried the knob, and opened it outward just a crack, to peer inside. It was as he had feared. Time for him and the others had run out. He had to do something and he had to do it now. Just then the first gunshot popped like a firecracker inside. He stepped back, closing the door as he did so, and another gunshot echoed from inside, then nothing. He waited a long moment, tried the door once more and peered in. He smiled and stepped in. The drug had finally taken effect. She was passed out in a chair, with the gun still gripped in one hand. He could not have planned it better. He approached her as quickly and quietly as possible, but just as he was reaching for the gun she opened her eyes, raised the gun instantly and pointed it in his direction. He froze at first, then stepped backward one step. “Where’s the other one?” she asked. He saw the two motionless bodies in his peripheral vision, but kept his gaze on her. “Careful,” he cautioned. “I only want the pictures.” “Me too,” she said. “They said they didn’t have them. Said you or the other one did. It could save your life, maybe, maybe not.” Before he could respond she slumped in the chair and the gun clattered to the floor. He reached to retrieve it and push her back in the chair in one motion. From one pocket he fished out a pair of plastic gloves, and from another a plastic bag. “You did me a favor, sweetheart. Those two have been a pain in my butt ever since we took all those pictures, and that movie, boy you were some hot stuff! Too bad we don’t have a camera man this time. The film we could make would sell a million, but at least I can get some stills with their camera stand here. It snaps automaticaly” *** Wednesday June 17th. 2:45 a.m. A seasonally warm night in Long Beach California, and Mike Wolf was struggling through a nightmare he’d had many times before. He was in the midst of a wildfire in the northern mountains of California, and someone was down. He was fighting his way through thick smoke while someone he could not find kept calling “Lobo! I’m over here! Help!” He was telling himself this had to be a dream, the fires were out a year ago, but at the same time he still tried desperately to find the one calling him. Then a bell began ringing and the whole thing vanished. Eventually he realized the ringing was actually the phone on the nightstand. Reluctantly he leaned over to switch on the light. He glared at the cold black plastic monster as it jingled again. “God,” mumbled Tracy lying next to him, her chin covered with the comforter, “Who’s calling in the middle of the night? What time is it anyway?” “Almost three,” Mike answered, then anticipating some over-zealous tele-marketer calling from someplace on the East coast to offer him better rates of some kind, he growled a “Hello,” into the mouthpiece. “Mike? It’s me, Barney. Did I wake you?” His words were halting, his voice strained, high-pitched for him, but deadly serious. “It’s Barney,” he said softly to Tracy, and then back to the phone, “Yes, but are you in trouble?” knowing he had to be, to call at such an unholy hour. Tracy moved immediately closer to listen, pressing the length of her body against him. “A little,” he said. “I think someone stole my cab. Can you come pick me up?” Mike’s head cleared instantly. He lurched up to a sitting position, pulling the covers with him and baring Tracy down to her navel. She jumped up, grabbing at the quilt, following the phone, intent on listening in. “Are you okay?” Mike asked Barney, envisioning him at gunpoint while someone car-jacked his cab. Before he could answer, he added. “Where are you?” “I’m not sure,” Barney said. “Everything’s screwed up. This girl jumped in my cab down by the Terrace Theatre, you know they let out around eleven and I always get some fares there, only she jumps in and says ‘Follow that car,’ right out of some gangster movie, and you know me. I’ve been waiting for something like that to happen ever since I got the cab. So I took off, followed this blue Toyota clear up to Norwalk, some dive up there called the Cover Club, where they get out and she asks me to go in with her, buy her a drink. So I do that. I could tell she wanted to see what they were up to, but didn’t want to go in alone, so I thought I’d help her out—hold on a second—” He made some coughing and gagging noises, which sounded like dry heaves. “Where are you now?” Mike asked, and then had to repeat it. There was a moment of silence. “I don’t know,” he groaned painfully, “God, I don’t even know. It’s some motel.” “Did you call the police?” “Are you kidding? Me, an ex-con? What am I going to tell them?” “Tell ‘em someone stole your cab. I’m an ex-con, too, Barney, and if someone stole my car I’d sure as hell call the police. That is if it actually is stolen,” rationalizing that if he didn’t know where he was, how did he know his cab wasn’t parked outside? “Yeah, but you’re not on parole. Can you come and get me?” “Sure. First I’ll have to know where you are, but if your cab is still missing we’re calling the police.” “We won’t need to. I know how to find her,” he said, then “Hold on just a minute.” The phone clatterer as he laid it down. Tracy pulled away, scooted across to the other side of the bed, and grabbed a couple of cigarettes and a lighter. “I don’t believe this,” she said, lighting one, handing it to Mike, then lighting the other for herself. Then he was back. “Okay. I looked out the window. I’m at the Easy-In up on Rosecrans, next to the truck stop, you know, where the tracks are in Norwalk. Room one-twelve. Can you come right away? They put something in my drink and I’ve been sick all over the room.” “Be there in twenty minutes,” Mike said. “You sure you’re all right?” “No, but I will be. Just come, soon as you can, okay?”
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