He introduced her to some of his other “girls,” many of whom had stories similar to hers. They weren’t living high on the hog, but they had nice clothes and shared a small block of apartments that weren’t in the slums. All of them, of course, had plans to be something more someday— singers, dancers, actresses, all that. For now, they had a decent place to live, decent clothes, steady good food, and a percentage of their income in a savings account which Johnny managed for them. They assured her that it was easy, that Johnny wasn’t like those other pimps who beat and brutalized their girls, and that as long as she made her quota, she would never have to worry about the basics.
Slowly, she was broken into the business, and she picked it up really fast—the makeup, jewelry, the “uniform,” usually very skimpy and very revealing, and the techniques of the bed itself. Once she started in earnest, she became insatiable, something psychiatrists might explain from her background but something she barely understood at all. She worked the streets, mostly, getting a whole range of men, and was soon turning two tricks a night, three or four on the weekends. By seventeen she had the look and the moves down so pat that she never even thought of them anymore, and she seemed to be always turned on. To the other girls it was just a job, just a routine, but to her it was life itself. Even Wenzel was impressed, and started lining her up with high-powered clients.
The merging of Holly and Dawn was dramatic. How much of Holly’s near nymphomania was Holly’s own psyche and how much was Dawn’s desperate need to cure her depression and loneliness, it was impossible to say, but the more Dawn stopped thinking and let the Holly part of her take over, the easier it was for her. Holly was not very bright, but she was supercharged with emotion and a desperate need to be loved. If self-worth had to be measured in dollars, well, so be it. It was better than many girls ever had, and it was concrete.
It was getting dark on Saturday, May 12, and she was almost ready for work. It was a warm night, so she had on very short shorts over pantyhose, an overly small halter top, some nice perfume, and some little gold earrings and a matching bracelet and necklace. She was just putting on the sandals whose extra high heels gave exaggeration to her walk when Johnny came in, kissed her, and told her how beautiful she was. Then he added, “Easy work this time, but I’d grab jeans and a blouse and your toothbrush.”
She looked puzzled. “Why? ’Specially, why the toothbrush?” She had a pleasing high soprano, although with a trace of a lisp, but she’d gotten so used to using her lower sexy voice that she did it automatically now.
“Big bucks client, but he wants you for the weekend, back Monday morning.”
That was unusual. “Must be really big bucks. Should I pack a case?” She did not hesitate to go along with the assignment, even though she’d never had a long-term gig before.
“Yeah, maybe a little one. He’s a lonely lawyer with a summer cottage who wants to get away for the weekend.”
A little alarm went off in her mind, and for the first time she realized what date it was. “Be a minute, O.K.? I think I know the guy.”
She didn’t, at least not when she got into the big black car. He was middle-aged and flabby, with graying hair and a small gray-white beard. She slid in beside him with her usual “Hi!” and threw the case in the back seat, and only when she scooted over close to him did she see from the key ring that the car was obviously rented, as she suspected it might be. She had the belt in the case.
He nodded and pulled away, leaving Johnny to count his money. As they headed through traffic towards the D.C. beltway, he said, “You know who I am.” His voice was thin, reedy, and not very pleasant.
She had backed off from him by now. “I guess so. Louis?”
“No. Doc.”
It was a shock. Even though both Ron and Sandoval had gone female, she just never thought of it working both ways. “Doc?”
“Don’t get funny. I needed some money and a good cover, and this is the best. I’ve been here before, for a few days, so I knew what it was going to be like.”
She couldn’t get over the change. There was no trace of the gentleness and femininity of the Kahwalini she had known.’ He was a little wimp of a guy and he stayed that way.
“So this is it, huh?”
“Tomorrow is it, anyway. I must say you don’t seem to be suffering.”
She chuckled. “I had enough sufferin’ in my lives. This is dif rent. I ain’t got no worries, and I don’t got to think much. Seems like every time I had to think lately, it’s been b’tween drownin’ or hangin’.”
Doc said nothing to that.
She’d changed into a tight white tee shirt that left nothing to the imagination and jeans so tight they seemed painted on and were held up provocatively only by her hips, but that was her only change. The immediate excitement had given way quickly to boredom—her attention span was no longer very great and the complexity of her thoughts was very low—and she felt horny, even for Doc. All she could do was drown herself in the radio and go along for the ride.
Finally, she asked, “Doc? How much did you pay for the weekend?”
“A grand. That guy is a stickup artist.”
A grand, she thought. Now that was moving up. …
.
Thirty armed men staked out and surrounded the tiny beach cottage, all armed to the teeth, some with futuristic weapons imported at the last moment for the occasion. They were facing such weapons, they knew, and the game was capture if possible, kill if necessary.
All of them thought they were working for an international anti-terrorist organization founded and financed by a right-wing billionaire. They didn’t question the weapons or the information on who and what they were facing.
There was an uneasy moment when Stillman drove out in the van earlier in the day on Sunday, but he’d merely been tracing the route. He did, however, stop and make one telephone call at a booth. By no coincidence, Karen Cline picked up a phone in a Texaco station about the same time. The conversation was brief.
Stillman and Bettancourt had timed and retimed their route in different vehicles until they almost had clocks in their heads. They knew, though, that there was no margin for error. Their special weaponry and gadgets, along with the passwords they had just received from Cline, would be needed to get through a security system that was among the toughest in the world.
Louis, now a big, beefy black man with a thick, white moustache and balding head, listened to those shadowing Stillman. It was nearly dark, and he made his decision.
“As soon as you get a stretch with no cars or people, take the man out. I repeat, take the man out. Cancel him if you have to. Without him they can’t get past the front door, but Cline’ll go to work tomorrow as usual.”
More than two miles south of the plant, Clarence Stillman swerved to miss a car that suddenly pulled out from a side road. The car kept coming, ramming into the side of the van. Before Stillman could recover, two men popped up on both sides of the truck and one grabbed him. He roared and rolled, breaking loose, but the door wouldn’t open and the other man pointed a strange-looking device like a rifle at him and fired. There was a bluish glow, and he slumped down.
Gasoline was poured inside, and the van was set afire. The two men jumped into the other car, which had backed off, and it roared away before the gas tank exploded on the van. Their own car was in lousy shape, but they were able to dump it in the lot of an auto repair company before it gave up the ghost.