Donna Joy Usher - Chanel 02 - Goons 'n' Roses (7 page)

We both stood and headed back to the Softail to put on our protective gear.

‘Where are you staying?’ he asked.

‘The Luxor.’

‘Nice.’

He helped me onto the bike behind him and turned right onto The Strip, heading towards The Luxor. It didn’t take long before he was pulling up in front of the giant, black pyramid.

‘See you tomorrow?’ he asked once I was off the bike.

‘Sure. Do you want to go for a drink?’ There was no
way
I was having coffee with him again.

‘Sounds good. I’ll meet you here at, what, four?’

‘In the afternoon?’

He nodded and pulled his helmet back on before kicking his bike into gear. I waited till he was out of sight before hurrying up to Martine’s room.

***

It took a few moments for Martine to answer her door after I’d pounded on it. From the way her wig was askew I could tell she had put it on in a hurry.

‘So while I’m out potentially being tortured and raped you’re sleeping?’ I said.

‘I was tired.’

‘Didn’t you get any sleep before?’

‘Who could sleep?’ she said, pointing at the connecting wall to Mum and Trent’s room. ‘They’re like a couple of teenagers.’

‘Lalalalalalalala,’ I said, putting my fingers in my ears until I was sure she was finished with
that
particular conversation.

‘How’d you go?’ she asked.

‘Billy bought me the worst cup of coffee I’ve ever had.’

‘That’s his name? Billy?’

‘Yep. Where’s Trent?’

‘Ringing his Interpol buddies.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘I think I found where Mum’s being held.’

‘Get out!’ she shrieked. ‘Where?’

‘Billy took me to a café up near the Stratosphere.’

‘The hotel with that huge thrill ride?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Martyn would hate that thing.’

‘Me too.’ I shuddered at the memory. ‘Anyway, while we were sitting there Tommy Tiger turned up. He went into a building across the road and a few minutes later came out with a briefcase.’

‘Did Billy notice you watching?’

‘Billy was watching him as well,’ I said.

‘Different arms of crime,’ she said.

I nodded my head. ‘I want to go back as soon as it’s dark.’

‘Count me in.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Are you kidding me? As if I’d let you do something like this without me.’

‘This isn’t a game,’ I said.

She looked a bit offended. ‘I know that. But I’m still not letting you go in there without me. What if something happened to you? I’d never forgive myself.’

I didn’t know if it was such a wise idea. Hell, I didn’t know if
my
going in was such a good idea. As police went, I was pretty lame. My style was more stumbling and bumbling than investigative genius. So I didn’t say anything, I’d let Trent make that decision.

‘What time is it now?’ she asked.

‘Two hours till sundown.’ I had asked at the reception desk before I came up. ‘Get some rest. I’ll ring Trent and we’ll go at seven.’

She nodded her head thoughtfully.

‘Oh and Martine,’ I said, ‘wear sensible shoes.’

***

I rang Mum and Trent’s room as soon as I got into mine. There was no answer. I hadn’t really expected Trent to be there. I was surprised, though, that his mobile was switched off. I sent a text informing him that we needed to talk and then lay down on my bed.

I thought over what had happened and what I was planning to do and I felt sick. What if Dr Shooten was right? What if I froze when I was needed the most? What if I caused Mum’s death? Suddenly, I was
really
wishing I had taken those therapy sessions seriously.

At seven I knocked on Mum and Trent’s room door. When there was no answer, I swiped my pass card and opened the door. Trent was nowhere to be seen. I pulled the door closed behind me and then knocked on Martine’s door.

I was wearing cargo pants, sneakers and a black t-shirt. I had tied my hair back in a pony-tail. She was wearing a navy-blue plaited skirt, three-inch-high wedge sneakers, a black, ruffled, button-up blouse and her day wig.

I looked at her shoes with my eyebrows raised.

‘They’re the most sensible shoes I have,’ she said. ‘Where’s Trent?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What are we going to do?’

I’d thought long and hard about that question for the last few hours, and the only thing I knew for certain was this – I sure as hell wasn’t leaving Mum with those goons for any longer than I had to.

‘We’re going to sneak in there and get Mum out,’ I said.

‘What have you got?’

‘A torch. What about you?’

‘A pen knife, a can of pepper spray, a knuckleduster, a packet of matches, a mag light, some rope and some wire cutters.’

‘You brought wire cutters with you on holidays?’

‘You didn’t?’

I shook my head.

‘You never know when you might need a pair of wire cutters.’

‘Well, I realise that now,’ I said.

‘I’ve left my wallet in the safe in case we get searched,’ Martine said. ‘I’m taking a key card and some cash.’

I didn’t like the being searched part, but she had a point. I ducked back into my room and placed my wallet in the safe, stuffing some cash and my credit card into the side pocket of my bag. On a whim I placed my room card in the back pocket of my pants.

We stopped in at reception to see if Trent had left either of us a message. He hadn’t, so we asked for them to call a cab to take us to the Stratosphere.

Las Vegas by night was a psychedelic fairyland. Wherever you looked different coloured lights shone and flashed. People crowded the streets and the casinos glowed. For a few, brief, glorious moments I forgot where we were going and what we were planning.

The cab pulled up in front of the Stratosphere and Martine and I climbed out. This end of town was a little different from the main part of The Strip. A few unsavoury characters could be seen lurking around and I suddenly wondered if the Mafia were going to be our biggest threat that night.

You
know
you’re having a good time when you get to think things like
that
.

We waited for the cab to leave before crossing the road a block down from the building I had seen Tommy enter. There was a black SUV parked out the front with its engine running.

I could hear screaming coming from the tower and glanced over to see a platform with people strapped onto it sliding down the top of the tower. It stopped descending, and, as I watched, was catapulted back up to the tip of the tower. I had to stop myself from squealing.

‘Christ, look at that,’ Martine whispered in my ear, pointing to another part of the tower. A huge mechanical arm pivoted off the top. It had four extensions hanging beneath it. As we watched they started to spin, faster and faster. Shrieks filled the night air.

‘Holy shit,’ I said, tearing my eyes off the terrifying spectacle.

‘How fun would that be?’ Martine whispered.

‘You’re kidding right?’ I looked over my shoulder at her. Her eyes gleamed with crazy excitement in the dim light. ‘You like that sort of thing?’

‘I’ve never tried it. Martyn’s scared of heights.’

We hid in the shadows and watched the car. After about five minutes a couple of burly men came out of the building and hopped into the car. I didn’t recognise either of them in the glow from the Stratosphere.

We waited for the car to turn back onto the strip and then we crept along the side of the building till we were in the yard. ‘Let’s go around the back,’ I whispered.

Martine nodded and followed me down a narrow lane. It was an old, double-storey, brick building that sprawled over the majority of the land it was built on. I could see light glowing out of a few of the windows on the second floor, but the bottom floor windows, which were barred, were dark.

After we had completed our circuit of the building we crept back up the road to formulate our plan. I didn’t think it would be possible to hear us over the blood curdling screams, but was working on a you-can-never-be-too-careful theory.

‘Plan A,’ I said, ‘we see if the front door is locked.’

‘What’s Plan B?’

‘We see if the back door is locked.’

‘They’re the best plans you’ve got?’

‘You got a better one?’

Martine was silent for a second before saying, ‘Nope.’

We crept back to the front of the building and I tiptoed up the steps and slowly turned the front door knob. It was unlocked. I looked at Martine with my eyebrows raised. For all my talk of rescuing Mum, a part of me, a very small part, had been kind of hoping both the doors would be locked.

I took a deep breath and, with Martine right behind me, entered the building.

I paused inside the entry for my eyes to adjust to the diminished light. It wouldn’t do to be fumbling around bumping into furniture. Once I could see in the faint glimmer coming through the windows, I started creeping down the hallway. I could hear the soft clump of Martine’s wedge sneakers behind me.

I was trying to be brave but I felt like my heart was going to leap out of my throat and free dive to the floor. My hands were icy cold, and my breathing came in short sharp rasps.

A door opened off the hallway to the right and I paused for a second, summoning up my courage before I reached out a hand and twisted the knob. It creaked as I pushed it open and I froze in fear, waiting to see if we had been heard. When a few seconds passed, with no cries of alarm, I stuck my head into the room.

I could see the shape of a desk with a chair on the far wall. Apart from that, the room was empty. It had been too much to hope that Mum would be being held prisoner in this room. I looked back at Martine and saw the gleaming of the knuckledusters on her right hand. In her left she clutched a can I was assuming was her pepper spray.

We progressed slowly down the hallway, checking the rooms to the left and the right. The farther we went the darker it got, until finally I couldn’t see at all. I froze as I heard the floor above us creaking. The sound moved over us before finally stopping and I reminded myself to breathe.

Did I dare turn on my torch? What if I did and the first thing I saw was somebody watching me?

That thought did nothing to ease my anxiety and my terror continued to grow. My breathing got heavier and louder and I wasn’t sure if I could keep going. I
really
didn’t like the dark.

I took a few deep breaths and concentrated on my memories of Mum and eventually I managed to regain control of my limbs. I pulled my torch out of my handbag and switched it on, twisting the front till the minimum amount of light possible shone out of it.

The light bobbed and danced on the walls in time with my shaking hands and in its glow we could see a set of stairs winding up to the next floor. Did we dare? Did we dare to go up there?

I didn’t know if I were going to be able to make my shaking limbs climb them. I was willing up the courage, urging myself to put a foot on the first stair, when my phone started to ring.

‘Shit,’ I swore, digging frantically around in my handbag. ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ blared from its depths. Was it possible they wouldn’t hear it upstairs?

The sudden, rapid creaking of the floor above us told me we weren’t going to be that lucky. We both turned and sprinted back down the hall. I could hear multiple footsteps pounding down the stairs behind us as we raced towards the front door.

As I clutched at the front door handle, Martine let out a low growl. I heard the sound of her pepper spray discharging and a man’s roar of pain. Wrenching open the door, I turned to see her ram a three-inch-wedge sneaker into the middle of the man’s chest. I was guessing by the fact that he was clutching his eyes that her aim had been true. She kicked hard, sending him crashing back into the man behind him. Then the two of us raced down the stairs, across the car park, and straight into the firing arc of a shotgun barrel.

***

‘Fuck,’ I said, placing my hands in the air. The black SUV was back.

Martine dropped her can of pepper spray and shook the knuckleduster off her fingers.

The men who had been chasing us came down the stairs. One of them, a huge beast of a man, was still wiping his eyes. He looked pretty pissed. That couldn’t be good. He said something to the man holding the shotgun and for a moment I thought the fear had short-circuited my brain. Then I realised they were talking in a different language.

Oh shit.
We had gate-crashed the wrong gangster house.

The tall one grabbed the back of Martine’s neck causing her to yelp in pain. He turned her and marched her back up the stairs and into the building. The one with the shotgun gestured with the barrel, indicating that I should follow. I thought about making a break for it but I couldn’t leave Martine there alone. And besides, I didn’t think my legs would have supported me in a mad dash to safety.

They took us into the house and back down the corridor to the foot of the stairs. With the lights on I could see that we had only made it halfway down the house before my phone had rung. Another corridor started on the opposite side of the small foyer, disappearing towards the back of the house.

Instead of going up the stairs they kicked a rug aside, revealing a trap door. The third man lifted the door and then flicked on a torch, shining it into the hole. I could see a set of stairs disappearing into the darkness and suddenly, I didn’t think our chances of talking our way out of this were so good.

They forced us down the stairs, flicking on a light when they got to the bottom. I was trying to be brave, but my body had other ideas and little whimpers were escaping from my mouth. Martine looked back over her shoulder at me; her eyes were bulging, but she smiled bravely. I felt so stupid. I had dragged her into this mess and she was the one holding it together.

‘I think there has been some sort of mistake,’ I said. I was trying for bright and cheerful, but the trembling in my voice totally ruined it. ‘You see we were just trying to find my mother.’

The tall one let go of Martine and kicked two fold-out chairs towards us. ‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘but I’ve been sitting all day, I’d rather stand.’

He grabbed me by my orange arm, flinging me effortlessly into the chair. I winced and clutched at my pathetic appendage and he grinned maliciously at me. Either he had some sort of genetic disorder or his teeth had been filed to points. I was guessing it was the latter.

‘Thanks big boy,’ Martine said, taking the seat beside me. I couldn’t be sure but I think she fluttered her eyelashes at him.

‘Vat do you vant?’ the man holding the shotgun asked.

‘I told you,’ I said, ‘we’re looking for my mother.’

‘Who sent you?’ His English was halted and heavily accented.

‘Nobody sent us,’ Martine said. ‘Lorraine got taken today and we thought she might be here.’

The three of them spoke for a few moments; a low rumble of foreign dialect.

‘Vy?’

‘Why was she taken? We have no idea,’ I said.

‘No,’ he said angrily, gesturing with his hands, ‘vy vould you tink she vas ere?’

‘I saw a man come here this afternoon,’ I said. ‘He was one of the men who took her.’

They continued their conversation, their voices getting more heated. The Shark was throwing his arms around and Shotgun Man was trying to calm him down. The Third Man wasn’t saying much, but he was watching me with an expression bordering on creepy.

They finished their argument and The Shark wrestled our handbags from us. They tipped the contents out and started pawing through them. The Third Man pulled out a knife and used it to cut the all-cotton lining of my Gucci handbag. He started to feel underneath the lining.

‘That’s a Gucci Soho,’ I said to him, ‘you don’t go slashing a Gucci Soho.’

‘It’s just a bag,’ Martine said to me.

‘It’s the nicest bag I’ve ever owned.’

‘Well, hopefully it won’t be the
last
bag you ever own.’

That put it into perspective.

After they had given her bag the same treatment, The Shark went up the stairs and came back with some cable ties and a roll of Duct Tape. They pulled our arms behind our backs and tied them with the cable ties. The hard plastic dug into my skin.
That
was going to hurt later.

I don’t think the seriousness of the situation really hit home until they went to Duct Tape my mouth.

When I was a little girl I watched old Mr Gates, one of the local farmers, try to stuff a bit into a horse’s mouth. The thing had bucked and kicked and reared and screamed, while froth came out of its mouth and steam out of its nostrils. But in the end it had stood panting, its head drooping, and it hadn’t protested as that piece of metal had been shoved into the back of its mouth.

I never stood a chance.

I threw my head from side to side, rearing away from them. Shotgun Man grabbed my ponytail and held my head still as The Shark shoved the tape over my mouth. The fighting had taken its toll and I snorted air in through my nose, trying not to panic. Asphyxiation on Duct Tape in a Las Vegas dungeon was
not
how I wanted to die.

I looked over at Martine who hung forwards in her seat, hands tied behind her back, gag firmly in place.

‘I’m sorry,’ I tried to say, but it came out as muffled nonsense.

They dragged us to our feet and down a corridor lined with doors. They took Martine into the first room and me into the second. There were thin mattresses lining the walls of the room. Some showed signs of staining from what I had to surmise were body fluids.

The Third Man shoved me onto a mattress and ran a hand slowly up my calf. I kicked out at him, squealing in protest. He pushed me back against the dirty mattress and leaned down over me. My hands pressed uselessly into my back as his found the waist band of my pants. I shoved a knee upwards at his groin and he said something, which, I was guessing by the inflection, was a swear word.

The Shark appeared in the doorway to my room and said something which made the man desist in his attempts to grope me. Instead, he tied a cable tie around my feet and closed the door. I wiggled up against the connecting wall to Martine’s room.

A few moments later it went totally dark.

I tried to remain calm. But I was having trouble breathing, with my nose partially clogged from my crying.

And then there was the dark.

I shut my eyes and tried to pretend the light was still on but I knew it wasn’t. And then the noises started. I shook my head and tried to ignore them. They seared through my ears and into my brain, dredging up memories I had tried to suppress…

A shoe scraping over rock. My heart beating like the blades of a helicopter. A corpse, still warm. Panic, scrabbling and clawing inside me. I clutch my gun with dread, knowing deep inside that I’m no match. No match for him at all.

Tears poured down my face and my body shook as I sobbed convulsively. I fought against my bindings, hysterical, terrified. My breath came in snorts as I writhed and squirmed. I threw myself on my front and tried to rise to my feet, but I ended up on my knees with my forehead pressed against the ground.

I lay like that for a while, too exhausted to struggle any more, and I wept.

***

I was still crying when the lights came back on. I blinked rapidly, trying to adjust my eyes to the light, snorting in fright as my door was flung open. Martine stood there, staring down at me.

‘Stupid Rusky put my cable ties on back to front.’ She strode over to me and picked at the corner of the tape on my face. ‘There’s no pretty way to do this,’ she said, ‘so I’m going to count to three. You ready?’

I nodded my head at her, frantic to get the gag removed.

‘One, two…’

I squealed as she ripped off the tape; but the air I sucked through my mouth and into my lungs more than made up for the stinging on my face.

‘Hey,’ she said, ‘maybe we can do that to your arm.’

‘Don’t even think about it.’

She looked a little harder at my face and then said, ‘You all right?’

I must have looked a sight.

‘I had a moment,’ I said, wiping my nose on the back of my arm. ‘How do you know they’re Russian?’

‘Martyn took Russian language classes for a few months. Honestly, that man is such a nerd.’

‘So could you understand what they were saying?’ I held my bound hands up towards her.

‘The tall one with the freaky-deaky teeth is called Boris. The one with the Shotgun is Vladimir and the other one is Dmitrij.’

‘What else?’

‘I said he was a nerd, not a genius.’ She turned away from me and pulled the front of her skirt up while she moved her hips from side-to-side. ‘Ahh, here it is.’

She turned back to me with her pen knife in her hand.

‘You’re kidding?’ I said, as she bent to cut my ties.

‘I figured no one would frisk me
that
thoroughly.’

I flexed my wrists and my ankles and then clambered to my feet. ‘You still got those other cable ties?’

‘Sure.’

‘Can I have them? I think I need to increase my arsenal.’

I heard her laughing as she disappeared. She came back with a couple of cable ties and handed them to me.

‘I want to see what’s in these other rooms.’ I was hoping we would find either another exit or something we could use as a weapon.

We moved quickly down the corridor checking the other rooms. They were all identically kitted out with stained mattresses. The only exit was the way we’d come in and that was almost too scary to contemplate. However, the thought of being trapped there till the Russians came back was even scarier.

‘You ready to kick some Russian arse?’ Martine asked.

‘Hell yeah.’ My voice was full of bravado.

Our bags lay on the ground amidst their strewn contents. Our phones, money and anything that could be used as a weapon were gone, but the Duct Tape lay where they had discarded it. I threw it into my bag with the rest of the stuff they had left, while Martine crept up the stairs and pushed her body against the trap door.

‘Shit,’ she said. ‘It must be locked from above.’

Damn it. Even though we had chest bumped (which is really hard to do with a six foot drag queen in three-inch heels) and fist bumped, and swore, ‘we’d make those Ruskys pay,’ I’d really been hoping for a clean escape. We hadn’t come off so well in round one, and I didn’t have high hopes for round two.

‘What do we do?’ she said.

‘Well, they have to come back down here sometime, so we turn off the light, hide under the stairs and hit them over the head with the chairs.’

It sounded like a good plan. Of course if more than one of them came down we were in trouble, and if all three of them came we were in all sorts of strife. And then of course there was the dark, but I solved that dilemma by turning on my torch.