“A Gift from Jackie”
Chapter 13
I managed to wake up before the girls and walk back to the rest of the house. I admired the work the girls had done once again as I passed through the rooms. I went to my office, and took the hidden door to the stairs down to the basement. Entering my code, I opened the steel door to the growing room.
Tim looked rather silly in the white lab coat, but if it made him feel more confident, fine by me. I observed quietly as he stared intently at a small glass jar with the help of a magnifying glass. Nearby was a large desk on which dozens of books, new and old, lay open on top of each other. A large computer display, a whiteboard covered with notes, even a microfilm reader, also displayed information of various sorts.
“It’s taking,” he said, not looking up, but gesturing for me to come closer. I looked at the tiny green shoot, suspended in the gel-like substance, light green bits of new growth visible at the top. He picked up the container and carefully returned it to its lighted, climate-controlled chamber, one of several along one wall. Three contained sprouts like this, and one contained the original plant, still in the same plastic pot. Tim had received a crash course in botany over the last weeks, and was in charge of getting the plant to propagate. I was eager to have several plants that I could stash for a rainy day.
“Great,” I said, slapping him on the back, “as soon as everything is in order, we’ll get you a nice vacation.” He sighed, and his face took a dreamy look, obviously considering the possibilities of the vacations I might send my employees on.
“Hey, it’s not like being stuck in the house with five sex crazed beauties is so bad!” I joked.
“Five?” He asked, his eyes lighting up.
“Yes, Dawn is the new one, but she’s not completely in yet.” I flipped on the nearby security console and re-wound the footage to a frame showing Dawn exiting the pool.
“You just let me know,” he said dreamily.
“I guess the girls are making dinner. You coming up or should I send some down?”
Tim looked at the plants, then gestured at the pile of food wrappers and dirty dishes. “I don’t want to miss any of my cultures, and I know if I go up there I’ll get distracted.”
“Alright, I’ll send down some dinner, and some dessert. Shelly?”
Tim grinned and nodded. I headed back up to find the girls showering and getting cleaned up. When Dawn was done, she headed back home, promising to return. We had a veritable feast for dinner and dessert was vanilla ice cream, served downstairs from Shelly’s body, and upstairs from Cindy’s. I slept well that night – until being woken up at 4am by a hungry mouth. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.
Over the next several days, the girls were busy with planning our group wedding. I turned my attention to the man who was stalking me. The best lead I had was the location of one of the coordinators of the mercenary network – an address in New York City. I borrowed Ed’s jet and flew in under his name. From JFK airport, I took a taxi to within a couple blocks of the address. Sitting in a café across the street, I searched the minds around me, trying to ensure that they weren’t expecting me. It was nearly impossible to be sure, considering the sheer number of people, but I did my best. I had lunch at the cafe and made my way to the building.
It was a shiny new 35-story building which primarily housed the NY branch of a large insurance company. I casually glanced at the directory – the suite I was headed for, on the 18th floor, was under the name of “Pegasus Imports”. I did a quick check of everyone in the lobby and the guy watching the security cameras – all clear. I hopped in the elevator and headed for the 17th floor. From the 17th floor lobby, I did a careful scan of the floor above. I couldn’t find anyone in Pegasus or around it, or anyone who was looking out for me. I walked up the stairs and headed to the suite. Since nobody was inside the room, I didn’t have a good way to know if it was safe to enter. I stood back a few feet and used my telekinesis to release the lock from the inside (which took a few guesses) and then open the door
Everything looked safe, so I walked in and shut the door behind me. The small office was normal enough – row of filling cabinets, desk, sofa. I started with the files, and the contents looked like they belonged to a real import company of some sort. I used my digital camera to take pictures of a few documents.
Moving to the desk, I found more normal stuff – stationary, work in progress, a drawer full of headache and heartburn medications. The only thing I found that was slightly out of the ordinary was several 9mm x 19 shell casings – like from the MP5s that the men who were looking for me carried. I took more pictures and then turned my attention to the top of the desk. There was no computer, but there was an Ethernet cable and power adapter – whoever worked there used a laptop. I checked the phone – it was a digital PBX phone, and I pulled three speed-dial numbers and the call history. I searched around the room a little longer and then left.
Thanks to Ed I knew of a guy in NY who knew a private investigator by the name of Carl Ford. I met with Carl and with a little mental push and a big wad of cash I had him working for me on the info I had gotten from the office. I got a hotel room – the nicest place I could find that would go on cash only. I called the girls and checked in, then had dinner at a little diner near the hotel. I had pie for dessert and sat with a cup of coffee, watching people and making a game of predicting their thoughts.
Carl showed up a little while later. Once the waitress brought his coffee, he debriefed.
“Pegasus is a one-man operation, guy by the name of Samuel Peck. Peck brings all kinds of crap from Asia and sells it to distributors who sell it to boutiques. I double-checked, though, and it looks like he’s padding his receipts to launder money. Here’s everything I found on Pegasus, and on Peck.”
I looked over his printouts.
“On the phone, the speed dials were two take-out places and Peck’s mother in Jersey. The last dialed is an escort service, from last night. The rest are mostly his clients. That’s about it.”
I thought a moment. “The escort service, anything on them?”
Carl shook his head. “They’re in the phone book, that’s all I know.”
“Any chance you can tell me where the office is?”
“Maybe. Tomorrow okay?”
“You know what, I have a better idea. I’ll be in touch.”
I dropped Carl a few more bills. I got another motel room nearby and made a call to the escort service.
“Full Monty Escort.”
“Hi, I’m looking for some company tonight.”
“Sure, have you worked with us before?”
“No, but a friend referred me. Lives over on Park, name of Sam.”
“Sure, sure, he’s a real good customer, Walter, always referring us.”
“I was wondering if I could see the girl he saw last night.”
“I’m not sure if she’s available...”
“I’ll pay you five hundred if you can get her, and an extra five hundred for her, too.”
“I’ll call her,” said the man.
“Just send her over,” I said, and told him where I was.
An hour later there was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” I said, lounging back on the bed.
The young lady who entered looked to be in her early 20s, tall and thin with medium-length blonde hair and large fake breasts. She wore a slinky black dress that was fairly classy.
“Hi, you must be James.”
I jumped up and shook her hand. “Indeed. And you are…”
“Amber, nice to meet you. So what’s the plan, James?” She stood slightly awkwardly near the door.
“I’m sorry, have a seat.” We sat on opposite sides of the little table. She crossed her legs, still not quite comfortable.
“So, Amber, I need to ask you a few questions. First of all, just to satisfy my curiosity, how long have you been doing the escort thing?”
“Six months,” she replied without hesitating, “but I took a month off to get these,” she put her hands on her breasts, lifting them for emphasis.
“I see. Do you sleep with most of your clients?”
“Some,” she said casually, “some guys will take me out and then be too nervous to put the moves on. A few just call me up to their hotel and get right to it. Some of the nervous ones, I take pity and help them along – usually I make the guy try though, I have to be sure they’re not cops. I’m not quite sure which kind you are.”
I smiled. “Honestly, I’m not either, tonight. I’m not a huge fan of fake tits but yours are pretty nice. That’s later, though. I’m a friend of Sam Peck’s, he told me about you.”
“Yeah, Sam works with the boss or something. He had me over last night. It was weird, he wanted to wrap me up in plastic wrap. I didn’t go for it, tried to do it the old fashioned way but he couldn’t get off. Kind of an insult if you ask me. Not sure why he’d be talking about me. You don’t have some weird kink, do you?”
“No, not that weird anyway. Now tell me about the boss.”
“Vic DeSilva, owns the escort service, among other things. This is the only business he manages himself, though. The others he has guys like Sam for. He’s pretty loaded, but he’s always blowing his money on gambling or buying drugs for the girls who have sex with him.” She let out a little shudder.
“Is he there now?”
She shrugged. “I only go in to drop off after a date. We dispatch with cell phones.” She patted her purse. “But he usually is.”
I nodded. “Okay, I think I’ll go visit him.”
She got a confused look on her face. “Are we gonna screw? Cause for some reason, I feel really horny right now.”
I stood up. “Sure, how do you want it?”
“Well, it depends on your equipment,” she said, standing and walking to me, tentatively reaching for my belt. I nodded, and she went right to it, dropping to her knees and lowering my pants quickly. She smiled when she saw my cock, taking it lightly in one hand before wrapping her mouth around it, slobbering over my cock as she noisily slurped on it. She stopped, considering it.
“You, know, I don’t know why, but I have this odd urge for you to fuck my ass.” She opened her purse and withdrew a tube of lube and handed it to me. Stepping up to the bed, she reached under her dress and pulled down her panties. She got on to the bed on all fours, exposing her backside to me. I applied some lube to my cock, then knelt on the bed behind her, squirting a gob of lube over her puckered asshole and working it in with my index finger. Once she had opened up to my finger, I switched to my thumb, gradually expanding her back door. She moaned loudly, head down on her crossed arms, and pushed back against me. After a minute, I moved forward, pressing the head of my cock against her hole and pressing gently. My slippery cock slid inside her and I slowly worked it back and forth until her ass was used to the invasion. Once she was ready, I began fucking in and out. The sensation was nice, and it was interesting that she seemed to be enjoying it so much, moaning and pushing back against me.
I stopped after a moment and pulled out, and she took my lead, turning over and lifting her legs up into the air. I re-lubed and took her by the ankles, pushing her legs towards her head as I slid my cock back into her asshole. I pulled the top of the dress down, and then the cups of her black bra, exposing her breasts to me. They were nice looking, but obviously fake. I palmed them with one hand, testing the feeling of the implants. I continued to fuck her ass, and she continued to enjoy it, rubbing her clit with her right middle finger.
I took my time, enjoying myself. After several minutes, I felt that she was close to climaxing, and I stopped holding back, fucking her swiftly for several seconds before her orgasm triggered mine. I pulled out of her ass and jerked my load over her body. Since it had been a whole day since I had gotten off, the quantity was quite impressive, and she was left with six white lines tracing the way from her pussy across the black dress to her tits, neck, and face, a string even having made it to her golden blond hair. I collapsed next to her, breathing hard and watching her scooping the mess from her body and licking it from her fingers.
“Jesus,” she said, “you should bottle this stuff and sell it.”
I paid Amber well and had her write down what she knew about the boss. To my amusement, she also wrote her personal cell number and a note – “call me some time! Next time, I’ll pay you!”
I cleaned up and checked out. I got a cab and headed for the escort office. I did my usual routine to look for spotters and then headed up.
DeSilva was there, and he was not expecting me. Standing in the hallway, I reached in to his mind to find out what I could. I found that he was not the boss, just another pawn in the whole thing. He used his escort service to interface between rich clients and the mercenary network. The difference was, he knew how to get in contact with the next rung. He wasn’t supposed to know anything about his contact except a phone number, but somewhere along the line he had learned the man’s true identity.
I called Carl again, waking him up.
“I need to find out everything I can about a Stephen Richter, lives in Los Angeles.”
“Wait, you don’t mean Stephen Richter the movie producer, do you?”
“Maybe, not sure. Hang on.”
I commandeered a computer from a business nearby. I searched the net and found a movie clip of an interview with Richter the producer. I compared the voice to DeSilva’s memory, and it seemed like a match.
“I think I do mean him, Carl. I’m going to be in LA in about ten hours, e-mail me whatever you can find by then.”
“Check.”
I picked up my stuff and headed back to the airport. A call ahead had the Falcon 50 jet ready for me when I got there. A half hour later we were in the air. I hopped in to the pull-out bed and went to sleep.
The plane’s descent woke me just as the co-pilot was getting ready to come back to have me buckle in. I had a limo waiting this time. Since I had my laptop with me, I used a wireless Internet card to download my e-mail. There was a file on Richter waiting.
Carl had indeed found a link between DeSilva and Richter the producer. He had a house in Santa Monica, and was famous for bedding starlets just before they got their big break – as a result, much of the young female talent in the country wanted to spend the night with him.
A quick drive to Santa Monica told me that Richter wasn’t home, but his housekeeper was, and I learned from her that he was planning to attend a party in Hollywood that night. I got the address and headed for Hollywood. My driver thought I was nuts, driving to Santa Monica only to park in front of a big house for a minute and then leave.
I had some time to kill, so I went to get a new suit. The sales girl at the Men’s store was ecstatic when I walked in and declared I didn’t know what I wanted and didn’t care what it cost. Evenually the time came for me to head to the party. The location was a rental house that some record label had rented for the party to kick-off some pop singer’s new album. The place was crawling with young stars and numerous photographers. Access Hollywood was doing a report. I sat back and sampled the hours devours, taking it all in, and waiting for Richter to show up.
And show up he did, with a girl on each arm, and many in the party flocked to greet him. I stayed out of his sight and avoided his security. Several actresses and a couple actors came by to introduce themselves, thinking I was some kind of exec. Making idle chatter with all the fake people while being able to tell what they were really thinking was partly amusing and partly sickening.
A couple hours later, Richter had broken off from the crowd and gone to a quiet area to sit with a couple young starlets – not the two he had brought with him. I sat fairly close and introduced myself to his mind.
It turned out Richter was a psychopath, and his thoughts as he chatted with the young ladies led me to his history. Before his power afforded him his choice of bed partners he used to drug women and take advantage of them. He had killed three of them and buried their bodies before being scared straight by the investigation – temporarily, anyway. Before he could kill again, his newfound power made it unnecessary to take unwilling partners – although he had been known to get pretty kinky with the girls he brought home. Then again, murder aside, who am I to talk?
As to the mercenary network, he was indeed the top man, but only interacted with a few underlings who did the real work. He also interfaced with some of the clients, including the one who wanted the plant.
Unfortunately, he knew little about this client. I thought maybe I could make him willing and get him to talk about him. I walked outside to Richter’s limo and helped his driver not notice as I got in the back of the limo and waited. Some time later, Richter opened the door and got in with the two girls.
“Girls, I think you might want to find another ride. In fact, head to my limo over there and the driver will take you home.”
They cooperated without a word. Richter looked both ways, wondering where his security guys had gone.
“They are both rather busy at the moment,” I said, sitting opposite him, “turning themselves in to the police, I believe. Don’t worry, you’re safe. I just have a few questions.”
“Yeah, fuck you man,” he said, going for a semi-automatic pistol I hadn’t noticed in his jacket pocket.
My smug smile disappeared as I realized that while I could read his mind, he wasn’t responding to my suggestions or even a frantic burst of control I shot out at him. I concentrated on holding the gun in the holster, but he was strong, and I couldn’t restrain him for long. I released, and he aimed the Glock at me.
“What the hell is this all about?” He asked.
“Shit, you have to turn out to be resistant. Of course, that’s why he picked you.”
“What – oh, shit, you’re him!” He grinned. “He told me you were nuts. Now where the hell are my guys?”
I smiled again, narrowed my eyes, and pushed the clip release down. That left one round in the chamber, which I released by pushing the slide back on the gun. He started to grab for the clip, but I pulled it towards me. As he looked up at me, I had drawn my P90. He raised his hands.
“Jesus, “ he said.
“Now look, if you help me find him, maybe you won’t spend the rest of your life in jail. But if you jerk me around, I’m sure they will love you on the inside. You know one of those girls was only sixteen? Of course you know, I found out from your mind.”
He swallowed hard. “Alvin, that’s what I call him, because he uses a voice disguiser that makes him sound like a chipmunk. He uses anonymous wire transfers to pay me, and uses public fax machines. He usually calls me from a disposable cell phone. He has a dog, a small one it sounds like. Where are we going?”
“Your place. I knew all that from reading your mind. I need something that will help me find the guy.”
He stopped to think. “The only way I can think that he would show up is if I told him that I’d found you.”
I raised my eyebrow at that.
An hour later, with a combination of intimidation and access to his mind, I had every last document that Richter had on me. I made him draw a map to the place where he had buried the girls – it served as his suicide note.
It was messier than I thought it would be, standing five feet away as I levitated his gun to his head and pulled the trigger with a gentle thought. I got brains on my brand new suit.