Kidnapped! Page 7

  * * * * *

  The address was in an upscale area of Orange County, one Newport Beach by name. It was an area of expensive homes crowded shoulder to shoulder along a network of canals and islands. Every available foot of shoreline was filled with docks and boats. The few streets that serviced the area were always crowded and parking places were hard as hell to find. I had to park three blocks away and walk to the address I had copied from the bill.

  From the street side, the place wasn’t too impressive, a two-story house so closed in on each side by neighbors that you could damned near reach out your bedroom window and touch the next house. I knew the other side had a small dock and maybe a boat, most of them did. My guess was the person who lived here would have a sailboat, probably twenty feet or so in length. I had seen summer weekends when there were so many boats in the channels that you could almost walk from side to side by stepping on the decks.

  The one-car garage was closed, so I had no way to knowing if the person I wanted was home or not. Taking the direct approach, I knocked on the door. It was opened by a dark-haired young lady in a tiny red bikini.

  “Hello, Angelica,” I said.

  She tried to slam the door in my face, but I got my foot in to keep it from shutting. Then I pushed my way in, closing the door behind me.

  Angelica was angry. “Get out of here!” she nearly screamed.

  “Not until we’ve had a little talk,” I said.

  She turned and dashed for what was probably the bedroom. It was my guess that she was going for a gun kept in the nightstand. She never made it. I tackled her and was pinning her down to the plush carpet long before she reached the bedroom door.

  She put up a good struggle and almost got me with a knee in the groin. Twisting her over onto her face, I pulled out a pair of handcuffs and secured her wrists behind her tightly enough to discourage struggling.

  “You bastard!” she hissed when I let her up. “My father will kill you!”

  I pushed her into a chair and stood leaning over her. “Is that any way to talk to the person who rescued you?”

  “And then turned my father over to the police! He told me it was you who gave them what they needed to bust him.”

  When Susie had been snatched, I kind of figured the Raszini knew who had snitched on him; this only confirmed it. But how he knew it was me had to be filed away for future consideration, along with how he knew the raid was coming. Right now I had to get Susie back before he hurt or killed her.

  “Where is Susie?”

  She tried to spit in my face. So I slapped her.

  Her head jerked sideways and a red spot appeared where my hand had impacted that pretty face. “Where is Susie?” I repeated.

  “Go to hell.”

  She was brave, but I could see in her eyes that she was also very scared. Good! The more scared she was, the more likely she was to tell me what I needed to know.

  “Look, you know that your father kidnapped my girl, Linda, and was torturing her,” I said.

  “I saw the photos. She was not really being hurt. I was hurt more.”

  “And you’re going to get hurt a lot worse than you got from Alberto Savinio. Tell me where Susie is and we can avoid a painful experience… for you.”

  “I don’t know.”

  When you’ve been a private dick as long as I have, you get to know when someone is lying to you. This pretty Italian girl in the delightful bikini was lying through her teeth.

  “I don’t believe you,” I told her. “But if you’re half the bastard your father is… Make that half the bitch, it may take a while to get it out of you.”

  Now I could see real fear in her eyes. But also a determination not to give in. I sighed inwardly. I don’t enjoy hurting women, but this one had to be made to talk and I didn’t happen to have any sodium pentathol handy. I grabbed her legs and pulled her off the chair, flipping her around so that she landed face down on the carpet. Unhooking the bikini top, I pulled it off her – none too gently, I will admit. Then I used it to bind her ankles together. It wasn’t much in the way of bondage, but it would hold her until I found what I needed.

  Leaving her wiggling on the floor, I did a quick search of her place. In the kitchen, under the sink, I found a roll of duct tape. In a dresser in her bedroom, I found a couple pairs of pantyhose. Back in the front room, she was almost finished untying her ankles. She had simply arched her body backwards until she would reach the bikini binding on her ankles. Which was fine with me since I was about to untie them anyway.

  Grabbing her feet, I held them together and wrapped a pair of pantyhose around the ankles. The nylon material stretches into a thin cord that can be tied the same as rope. I cinched down the windings and knotted the nylon a couple times. The second pair of pantyhose were used to pulled her feet up behind her into a classic hogtie. I was careful to knot the nylon on the other side of her ankles where her fingers could not reach. And I was not too gentle, pulling her feet and hands together until they touched. The sharp edges of the handcuffs were cutting into her wrists and had to hurt. She said nothing, but even if she were screaming I wouldn’t pay any attention. I didn’t mind if she was in a little pain. It would “soften” her up for the later questioning.

  I rolled her over onto her side and forced open her mouth, into which I shoved a wadded up pair of panties I had found in her bathroom. Being the bastard I am, I took them out of her dirty clothes hamper rather than from her dresser. The duct tape wrapped around her head would hold them in quite nicely. I wound it around five times before cutting the tape.

  Those dark eyes were glaring daggers at me as I stood up. She was not very comfortable, hogtied and gagged like that, but I simply reminded myself that Susie might be experiencing worse right then.

  I found her car keys in her purse. The car was in the garage, a nice, new Mercedes SL500, fire engine red with the top down. The trunk was just large enough to fit one hogtied girl.

  While driving up to my apartment in LA, I was finding that I liked that car. It was smooth and powerful and good looking. I considered that, when this whole thing was over, I might get myself one. But not fire engine red. Too flashy. Maybe silver.

  Chapter XIX

  Angelica Talks

  You’re probably asking yourself why I didn’t just take a little time while I had Angelica handcuffed in her house to question her about where her father might be holding Susie. I don’t normally enjoy roughing girls up, but in this case I could have gladly applied a bit of physical persuasion to make her talk. It really isn’t hard to cause a woman pain.

  So why did I take her with me? One basic reason: in addition to getting any information I could out of her, I wanted something in the way of leverage against Raszini. Holding his daughter captive might just prevent Susie from being seriously harmed or even killed. Somehow Raszini knew it was me who snitched on him, and that would make him plenty mad. In the mob circles, it would require him to strike back. There was probably already a price on my head.

  The question was how to let Raszini know that I had his girl? The phone number I had was no longer good. And I couldn’t just put an advertisement in the newspaper. Or could I? Then it hit me. The answer was simple and would take only a phone call.

  I didn’t go to my apartment or the office. If hit men were out looking for me, those places would not be safe. Instead, I drove to the house of an old friend. I had saved Bernie’s ass one time when he was arrested for a murder he didn’t commit. I found the real murderer and got Bernie off. He owed me. Big time.

  * * * * *

  “Sled, you old bastard! How you doin’?”

  Bernie was a few years older, but then aren’t we all? It was good that he remembered me, and better that he remembered he owed me one big favor.

  “Bernie, I want your house for a few days,” I told him as we sat at his kitchen table clutching a couple of beers. A good shot of whiskey would have been better, but Bernie only drank beer.

  He just stared at me for a few s
econds before he answered. “If it hadn’t been for you, I’ll still be in prison. Whatever you want, you got.”

  “All I want is for you to disappear for a few days. There’s some bad guys out looking for me and I need a place to hide.”

  “You can stay here,” he offered.

  “I don’t want you involved. It could be very dangerous.”

  I really wanted Bernie out of the way so I could work on Angelica. But my little lie wasn’t too far off the truth. If they found me there, anyone with me could get killed too.

  “Sure, Sled, sure. I’ll take a little vacation.”

  I allowed him time to pack. As he pulled his car out of the garage, he saw the red SL500 at the curb. “Got yourself a nice set of wheels,” he said.

  “Yeah, that’s why I’m going to hide it in the garage,” I told him. He drove off to visit his sister or someone, leaving me standing there. His house was not exactly high-class but it would have to do. The neighborhood was an older track, two and three bedroom homes, all looking the same except for varying shades of paint. I drove the SL500 into the garage and closed the big door.

  Angelica glared at me when I popped the trunk lid. She had worked most of the tape of her head by rubbing it against something and was about to push the panties out of her mouth. She did, and told me, “I nearly suffocated in here!”

  “You didn’t, so stop your griping. Cooperate and this won’t be too painful of an experience for you. Don’t, and I’ll make your stay with Savinio seem like a holiday.”

  The anger did not leave her face but she clamped her mouth shut and did not complain when I lifted her out of the trunk. I freed her ankles so she could walk and took her into the house, leaving the handcuffs on her wrists. I plopped her down in the chair Bernie had used and tied her ankles to one leg with one of the pantyhose. She could probably stand up and even walk but it would be with difficulty and she wouldn’t get far. Telling her to stay put, I made a quick survey of the house: two bedrooms, one apparently set up as a guest bedroom because it had a neat, not lived in look, one bathroom, kitchen and moderate sized front room. I glanced at Angelica a few times as I made my tour and she stayed in the chair like a good girl.

  I came back and sat down opposite her. For a while neither of us spoke. Her dark hair was messed up from the tape and the ride in the trunk. I had to keep myself from reaching over to straighten it. She really was beautiful woman, having that sultry look that Sophia Loren had made so famous. Nice body, too. Since she was dressed only in the bottom of her bikini, it was not hard to appraise the figure.

  “Let me explain something to you,” I began. “I really do not want to hurt you. But your father has my little sister and I’ll do anything to get her back.” My emphasis on the ”anything” should have told her that I was telling the truth. “If you know where he’s hiding her, you’d best tell me right off. Once I get Susie back, I’ll let you go.”

  I could see the flash of hope in her eyes at that statement. Good, dangling the idea of freedom would help keep her controllable.

  “The other purpose in holding you here is to put pressure on your father. If he hurts Susie, I want him to know that you’ll be hurt just as bad, or worse. Got that?”

  She said nothing but the fear was back in her eyes. She knew how sadistic her father could be and also knew full well that he would take his anger out on the helpless Susie Speed.

  “I’ll let you eat something, visit the little kidnapped girl’s room, and then fix you up for an afternoon nap. I’ve got some things to do.”

  I allowed her hands to eat with, but only after putting the handcuffs on her ankles. The guest bedroom had a single bed that was perfect for binding a young lady down. There were tubular rails across the top and bottom. I tied her ankles solidly to the foot rail and then tied her handcuffed wrists to the top rail. She was stretched out nicely; comfortable but secure. I had no idea if her screaming could be heard by neighbors, so I stuffed the panties into her mouth again and taped them in place to make sure. This time I used more tape and was pretty sure there was no way she could rub it off.

  I drove to a shopping mall, found a place with a public phone (a rare thing in this day of cell phones), and put in a call to the Newport Beach Police Department. Anonymously, I informed them that a kidnapping had occurred and gave them Angelica’s address. I even let them know that she was the daughter of the mob boss the feds were seeking. That was just to make sure that the kidnapping made the evening news. They could trace the call to that public phone but not to my cell phone. I even used a handkerchief to make sure I left no fingerprints on the phone. Then I bought a few things at a supermarket and drove back to Bernie’s.

  Back at the house, Angelica was still as I had left her. The covers were a bit messed up, telling me that she had struggled some, but she was still just as secure as before.

  “This whole thing will be over faster,” I told her, “if you just tell me where Susie is.”

  She made no indication she wanted to talk.

  “Do you know where she is? I mean, really know? Tell me the truth. You know that I can force it out of you, but I don’t want to mess up that pretty body of yours.”

  I tried to sound and look sadistic. That’s a talent that helps in this business. Guess it worked because there was real fear in her eyes as she shook her head emphatically negative.

  “I’ll believe you – for now,” I said. “The next step is up to your father. And you had better hope that it will not be painful for Susie.”

  Chapter XX

  A Clue

  “Fucking asshole!” was the mildest of the curses I muttered when I saw the video being displayed on my cell phone.

  I’m not sure how, but Raszini had my cell phone number and, being a “smart phone” it was capable of receiving not only still photos but video as well. In this case, a graphic, disgusting video of Susie hanging upside down and being whipped by some bitch dressed in black leather.

  The whipping was real, I could tell from the way Susie jerked and cried out. Those tiny screams coming from my cell phone were tearing at my heart. On the small screen in my hand, her naked body was twisting and jerking, demonstrating the harsh pain she was feeling. The camera zoomed in for a close-up of her breasts and those streaks of swollen and red flesh turned my stomach. The video went on for almost ten minutes.

  I expected some kind of demand from Raszini but the video ended and nothing was said. He simply wanted me to see that my little sister was suffering. And to know that she would continue to suffer for as long as he wanted. I knew the kind of man Raszini was: a sadistic psychopath without remorse.

  Maybe there are technical ways of tracking a phone message back to its source, but I didn’t know how. Besides, if Raszini had half a brain, he would not use his own phone but something public that tracing would not help on.

  My impulse was to throw the phone across the room but I held back. Later, when I calmed down, I would look at it again, seeking some tiny detail that might help me find where it was shot. Susie had told me that my phone had four giggles (or something like that) and could store entire movies. Well, it stored one hell of a movie this time.

  Kicking an inoffensive chair out of my way, I paced around Bernie’s house, cursing and trying to think of something I could do. By now, Raszini should know that his darling daughter had been kidnapped; I saw the report on the evening news. Since he had my phone number, he should have contacted me to arrange a swap: Angelica for Susie. But instead he sends me this damned video of Susie being tortured. Was that his reply? If so, the bastard was telling me he wanted to play hardball!

  It didn’t make sense. He loved his daughter enough to grab Linda and torture her to make me to find Angelica and bring her back. Why wasn’t he willing to make a trade for her now? Once again, I had to wonder how he found out it was me who snitched on him to the Feds. However it was, he was plenty angry, enough so to endanger his daughter. I hoped he would think I was the kind of man who would be willing to tort
ure an innocent (more or less) girl. If he figured that I wouldn’t really hurt Angelica, I could kiss Susie goodbye. Sooner or later, someone would track me down. Meanwhile, Susie suffered.

  I wished there was some way I could show him I was as serious as he. But the communication was one-sided. He had my number, I did not have his.

  After taking out my anger on a poor, wooden kitchen chair, I stormed into the bedroom where I had Angelica stashed. She was as I had left her, ankles tightly bound to the metal end of the bed and her wrists locked in handcuffs behind her back. She had to twist to one side to keep from lying on the cuffs, but was otherwise not terribly inconvenienced by the bondage.

  “I want to show you something,” I growled. It took me a few seconds to figure out how to play the video, but when I got it started I shoved the phone up to her face and held it there got the entire video.

  “That’s the girl who risked her life to save you from Savinio,” I said through clenched teeth. Hearing those tiny screams again did my temper no good. “Your father sent that to me. He could have called me to talk about getting you back, but he didn’t. Instead, he sends me this. Want to bet tomorrow I’ll get another of these recordings? Maybe something much worse than Susie having her breasts whipped?”

  Angelica had turned pale. I suspected it was not because Susie was being hurt, but because she was afraid it was her turn. And that was tempting, believe me.

  “You know a number where I can call him?” I asked. “’Cause if we can’t work something out, this is going to escalate into something all of us are going to regret.”

  “I tried to call Dad but the number was disconnected,” she stammered. “No, I don’t have a way to contact him.” Her lower lip was trembling and I could see tears forming in her eyes. She was truly afraid.