Body Parts (Rye & Claire 1) (10 page)

Her thoughts were interrupted
by more knocking at the door. She was reminded of the knocking from her
nightmare and wondered who was at her door, and how long they’d been
there. For a heartbeat, she thought it might be Jan, but Jan would have
said something by now.

“Hold on,” Crystal yelled, popping the first stick of gum of the day in her mouth and chewing vigorously.

But the knocking continued.
She pulled on one of her long T-shirts, then realized as she moved
toward the door that she had no idea who it was. The only people who
knew where she was staying were from Lewd and Lascivious.

“Shit.”

Leaning her shoulder against the door she inched it open, the chain still latched, and peeked out.

“You! I’m finished, not coming back. So fuck the contract and keep the money,” Crystal shouted, and slammed the door.

She turned and leaned her back against the door.

“I have word from Jan,” said the muffled voice.

Crystal turned, unhooked the
security chain and flung the door open. She’d started another stick of
gum and was chewing faster then ever.

Hubble stood in the doorway, not attempting to enter.

“Come in, but I warn you, you’d better not be lying, cuz no matter what you say I’m not going back to the set.”

Hubble stepped across the threshold but made no attempt to enter the room.

“This has nothing to do with
your contract. Jan is sick, apparently got a little food poisoning—
maybe from salmon at the big dinner at the mansion. Not sick enough to
need medical care, but pretty sick. Anyway she asked if we could come
get you.”

Crystal was thunderstruck;
she’d spent the past twenty-four hours vilifying everyone at Lewd and
Lascivious, in particular the director, and especially Hubble who she
viewed as the person who started her in the business.

“If you draw me a map to the
mansion,” she said, “I’ll leave right away. I’ve got a rental car. Do
you know how long it’ll take to get there?”

Hubble could see that he’d won her over and slowly entered the room.

“Mr. Simms feels responsible
and sent me to provide transportation. I’ll follow you to the rental
place in town where we can turn in your car. I’ll drive you from there.”

Jan must have gotten sick
during the day, too sick to stay up until eleven. But why didn’t she
call during the day and leave a message or something? Jan knew she’d
worry.

“Sure, I just need to shower and change, you don’t need to wait,” Crystal said.

“You sure you’ll be alright?” Crystal just glared her answer.

“OK, sure. I’ll just wait for
you in the front of the Hertz lot. If I don’t see you pulling in within
the hour I’ll come looking,” Hubble said, with a smile.

Crystal stood in the middle
of the room watching Hubble walk out the door, then walked to the window
and pulled the curtain aside, peeking through to watch him pull out of
the motel parking lot.

Jan had said in her last phone call that she had to keep her cell phone on her so no one would find it.

Picking up the motel phone,
Crystal dialed 0 to get an outside line then punched in Jan’s cell
number. She let it ring twenty times. Nothing.

As she climbed out of the
shower and began toweling off a wave of relief passed through her. She
was going to see Jan and be free from this horrible pornography
business. But as she dressed and packed, she began to wonder just how
sick Jan was. Hubble had said not sick enough to need a doctor. It
didn’t matter; she’d bundle her up, throw her stuff in the Subaru and
take her home.

She spotted Hubble in a black
and red Dodge Caravan and gave him a feeble wave as she drove into the
Hertz Rent-a-Car parking lot. Hubble’s intentions seemed OK, but
something just didn’t feel right.

Fifteen minutes later when he
opened the rear hatch of the Caravan so she could stash her two
suitcases, she couldn’t help but notice that the entire back was packed
with cardboard boxes filled with videotapes. She shuddered and could
only guess the contents.

Hubble caught her hesitation at seeing the boxes of tapes and with a leering smile said, “You’re in some of those.”

She ignored the comment,
tossed her two bags on the boxes of tapes and walked around to the
passenger side of the van, got in and fastened her shoulder harness.

She ran scenarios about how sick Jan was through her mind until finally she knew she’d drive herself crazy if she kept it up.

“How far to the mansion, I mean how long will it take?”

Hubble didn’t answer for a minute and she was about to repeat her question when he spoke.

“Sorry, just doing a little
figuring. About six hours to the turn off, then another half an hour to
the property. You might as well get comfortable.”

But she couldn’t get
comfortable and began chewing her gum. She couldn’t stop thinking about
Jan, and the feeling that something just wasn’t right.

“Did you see Jan? How sick was she?”

“Actually, I was still in
L.A. when I got the call from Dr. Simms. You know most of the women that
fulfill their contracts and end up at the mansion could drop off the
face of the earth and no one would care. But Dr. Simms really takes an
interest in the welfare of the girls, considers them like family. Your
friend is lucky.”

She felt a cold chill at Hubble’s drop off the face of the earth comment.

“Jan and I have a lot of friends and family,” Crystal bleated.

“Yeah right, your parents are
eagerly awaiting the next release from Lewd and Lascivious to see who
their daughter’s banging,” Hubble said.

Crystal was suddenly
frightened and now began popping her gum. Hubble’s attitude had changed.
But she was determined to put up a strong front.

“Well, maybe not our parents. Shit, but a lot of friends. I’ve been calling them almost every night.”

Hubble gave a little laugh,
then turned a half smile on Crystal. “Sure you have. Hey, remember me?
I’m the guy who recruited you.”

He changed his voice to a falsetto.

“Oh Mr. Hubble, I wouldn’t be
doing this but I need the money.” Then with a sneer, in his own voice
he said, “If I’d laid out the money you’d have blown me on the spot. So
don’t lie to me.”

Crystal felt revealed and vulnerable, but most of all pissed.

“Get fucked,” Crystal said.

“Don’t tempt me, bitch. There’s a rest stop up ahead.”

As they sped down the
freeway, her heart pounded and once again her mind went into overdrive.
And so did her jaw, chomping on her gum until she had rendered it to a
tasteless pulp.

“Hey, get rid of that fucking gum.” Hubble hit the switch that rolled down the passenger side window. “Right now!”

She gave Hubble the finger as
she took the gum from her mouth, and rolling it into a ball between her
thumb and index finger, flicked it out the window.

Just as the rest stop came
into sight, Hubble slowed and put on his turn signal, turned and looked
at Crystal cowering in the space between the seat and the door, then
started laughing. He turned off the blinker and accelerated. “Just
kidding, don’t pee your pants. Simms wants you delivered unmolested.”

Crystal was in a panic. Delivered? What’s that supposed to mean?

“Oh shit,” Crystal said. She
wasn’t responding to Hubble’s taunts but was looking at traffic.
Suddenly the cars that had been jockeying for position, each trying to
get ahead of the other, began to collide. Crystal gasped then began to
point. “Stop the van.”

Hubble was looking at Crystal, who was now bouncing in her seat as she pointed.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Then he looked back at traffic. “Holy shit!”

“Pull over!

“Forget it, there’ll be a cop along in a minute,” Hubble said.

Crystal unbuckled her seat belt and began climbing into the back with the tapes

“Hey, what the hell are you doing?” Hubble yelled.

“Goddamn it, pull over or these tapes go out the back.”

Hubble swung a vicious backhand intended for her face. “You bitch, when I get my hands on you.”

Just out of reach, Crystal struck out at Hubble’s hand with a tape smacking him on the knuckles. “Pull over. Now!”

“OK, I’m pulling over, calm down.”

Chapter Seventeen

Brad myers sped up
to within two feet of the rear bumper of a shiny silver SUV then tapped
the brake of his BMW for the tenth time, creating another few feet
between them. He was desperate to get around the SUV or get him to speed
up. His way was totally blocked, an ageing VW bus, an SUV and a line of
18-wheelers bogged the slow lane.

Brad eyed the silver SUV.
“Sport Utility Vehicle. I bet they don’t even take that thing off-road,”
he said, speaking to no one in particular. He accelerated even closer.
“Come on, goddamn it, take a hint.”

Dan Roman was also in a hurry
as he drove north up I-5. The four 18-wheelers in the right lane made
it impossible to pass, and there was no excuse for the BMW ahead of him
to be dragging its heels as it kept surging forward then slowing, then
blasting forward again.

“I’m just going to follow
that BMW next time it speeds up, maybe he’ll take the hint,” Dan
whispered to his two sleeping passengers.

Dan was taking his
girlfriend, Kim, and her younger sister, Judy, up the coast to a popular
bed and breakfast; he’d been driving for hours.

Two of the big rigs were
loaded to capacity, two were empty and heading home but stuck behind a
Dodge Caravan trapped behind a ‘68 VW bus driving wide open at
fifty-eight miles an hour. The driver of the silver SUV glanced in his
rear view mirror as the BMW rode up to within a couple of feet of his
rear bumper.

“Would you look at that, Marge?” George Shepherd turned to his wife. “We’re being tailgated.”

Marge kept crocheting as she
turned in her seat to have a look at the BMW. “Just tap your brakes,
then when he backs off, slow down, that’ll teach him.” Marge turned her
huge bulk around, unbuckling her seat belt in order to reach the skein
of yarn that had tangled at her feet.

As the VW neared the crest of the hill, the driver had to down shift, dropping his speed to forty-five.

At first, it seemed
that Marge’s advice had worked; as soon as George tapped his brakes, the
BMW dropped back several car lengths.

When Brad Meyers, the driver
of the BMW, glanced into his rear view mirror, he was shocked. There was
a Chevy Nova so close that he couldn’t see the hood.

The Dodge Caravan in
the right lane saw George slow his SUV and took the opportunity to cut
in front just as the big rig immediately behind him spotted the same
opening. Unfortunately, he did not notice the Caravan’s lane change and
accelerated toward the space. The Dodge swerved back into the slow lane
leaving the space for the semi.

Brad stomped on the gas just as George hit the brakes of his SUV, slowing from seventy down to fifty-five.

When Brad shifted his vision
from the rear view mirror to the windshield, he hit the brakes,
simultaneously cranking the wheel of the BMW hard to the left to avoid
colliding with the SUV.

“Oh shit!” Brad shouted

The angle Brad intended
to put him just left of the huge SUV was drastically altered when the
Chevy Nova, following Brad’s deceleration, was too close to avoid
slamming into the rear end of the BMW, pushing it to right angles with
the SUV and into a roll.

George instinctively hit the
gas of his SUV when he saw the BMW roll, sending the big vehicle surging
forward, filling the space it had just created, that was about to be
filled by the eighteen-wheeler.

The truck driver saw the
space vanish. With his forward momentum working against him, he braced
for collision, sounding his air horn seconds before he rammed the SUV
just forward of the rear wheel, tossing the sport utility vehicle onto
its side.

The black BMW and the silver SUV looked like a pair of dice as they rolled, one in front of the other, at nearly fifty mph.

Just as the Chevy Nova
slowed, the big rig’s trailer began to slide around until it shimmied
and skidded into the Nova’s rear with such force that the Chevy was
launched into the tumbling BMW. Dan’s girlfriend and sister lay curled
up on the back seat of the Chevy Nova, spooning, nestled against the
padded back, seat belts long forgotten and pushed out of the way, sound
asleep.

When the careening big rig’s
trailer slammed the Chevy, the two girls were pressed into the deeply
padded backrest from the acceleration. As their forward motion slammed
the vehicle into the tumbling BMW, the Nova’s forward speed instantly
dropped from eighty-five to less than twenty. The girls flew over the
passenger backrest at sixty miles per hour where they pierced the
windshield, shot across the hood and hit the BMW with flailing motions,
falling listlessly to the ground.

For nearly a mile, the
thousands of pounds of steel that made up the SUV, BMW, Chevy Nova and
big rig skidded and rolled until the grade of the hill they were
climbing brought the macabre parade of vehicles to a stand still.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my
God,” Crystal whispered, viewing the carnage through the huge windshield
of the Dodge Caravan. Hubble had pulled onto the shoulder of the
highway having forgotten Crystal’s defiance at the sight of the
accident.

“Goddamn.”

Crystal found a bundle of flares in the back, leaned forward and dropped them into Hubble’s lap. “Here, make yourself useful.”

He glared at her for an instant then got out of the van, flares in hand, without a word.

Chapter Eighteen

“Unit 88, multiple vehicle accident
, respond.”

Claire unclipped the handheld
mic and got the location from dispatch. “Medford Ambulance must be out
of the area,” she said, looking across at Rye with a sly smile. “I think
we just moved up the ladder.”